The sub., 1944-05-11

we had the good fortune to meet No. 4 and her three-man crew. This Aston GEE Is the transfer engine. The freight cars from PottStOwn, from Chicago, from Syracuse, carrying engines, batteries, spare parts, steel plates, electric motors. naval equipment, castings, peri scopes, coal, are all Shunted onto the southern track of the double spur emerging from the woods be- hind the Victory Terrace Housing Project down on the Eastern Point Road. No. 4 Is the butler for these invited guests, meeting them at the door. and loftily hearding them to the proper portals; Victory Yard material being uShered to the overhead trestle where they are turned over to the engine acting as maid f-all-Work within the confines of that yard, while North and South Yard cars are hustled up the coastal route to the back door gate at the South Yard where Engine No. 2 takes over and escorts them to the proper destin- ation. When the cars are emptied. the same procedure Is carried out fn reserse, the empties bemg left on the northern spur where the NYNH8oH RR picks them up.
 Casey Jones" of No. 4 is Engin- eer John Buckingham, 10-year man in the EBCo. John started here in 1884 as an outside machinists' help CT, but succumbing to the lure of that whistle, blowin' cross the
 tresGfe (whoeeee) transferred to the train crew where he is at this moment. Highlight In Engineer Buckingham's career is the day in 1922 when he highbalIed No. 4 down to the pickup switch and hauled back a record freight of IF fully loaded cars, totalling 966 tons. Did No. handle 1t? In Buchingham's words, we hooked on. fed her thes coal, and walked off with 'em!'
 Brakeman Perry Brewer has the most colorful background of No. 4's crew. An old-time rail- roader from way back, Perry started on the Southern Pacific when he was eighteen and says he is sixty-three now. As brown as a berry and shining with health, he looks a conservative fourty- four. From the Southern Pacific, Brewer went on construction Of the Grand Trunk Pacific in Vancouver. British Columbia; and from there to the Crank Trunk proper, out of Winnipeg and Montreal. Thence down in the States to the Central Vermont at St. AlbanS in 1903 where he stayed three years. Next stop was the Boston & Maine for two years and back again to the c. V, Tn 1911, Brewer joined the New Haven and Hartford, and, in rapid succession. the B&O, the Grand Central, the Reading, and the Delaware & Hudson. Then back to the New Haven, and, finally, as a busrnan's holiday. to the E. B. and Co. operating out of the South Yard and running south to Eastern Point, daily rain Or shine.
 Bringing up the rear of this three-man crew Is Conductor Louis Cerreto. A conductor on a freight train probably sounds to the lay man like pilot on a ferris wheel, but we have 1t from the highest authority, MT. Cerreto himself that the job is just as important as any other. Lou has been at the EBCo. for two and a half years. starting, as did his teammate, En- gineer Buckingham, as a machin- ist. His job, as we get 1t, Is to see that cars are taken on and off and switched in proper sequence, no mean task when hauling from twenty to fifty cars In eight hours.
 Got that cap? Blue bandanna knotted? Green light showing. A-a-u A-a-a4board!