Beantown

One of the first organized (and I use that term loosely) railfan trips I ever went on was to Boston, in 1981. And, I got my boss to both tell me to go and pay for it! I had recently started a new job at a large, Ivy League university. We were given a donation of a large amount of equipment. The only catch was that we had to go get it ourselves - the company making the donation was  in Boston. My friend (a real hardcore railfan) who was the supervisor of another department, had charge of bringing the stuff back in two trucks. Since my department provided support services to his, he conveniently borrowed me to drive one of the trucks, and analyze the stuff to determine it's condition.  Our schedule for picking the equipment up gave us some free time between our arrival in Boston and our ability to load the trucks the next day. We took full advantage of that free time.

This was my first exposure to the high density railroading of the northeast. I had never before been to a place like South Station. The hustle and bustle, the sheer number of people and trains were all new to me. We spent some time on and at the end of the platforms, capturing outgoing commuter trains backed by the high rise skyline of downtown. I got to see a lot of stuff I had only read about before. Our time trackside ended all too soon, as we had to load up and head home. Driving the truck through the congested and narrow streets of Boston wasn't much fun, but that's a different story, for another time and place.