Now your wondering why I started a thread about lard in the hobby section, aren’t you? Well Frank started a thread about trains, and I wanted to share my experience with trains, however, I wouldn’t have had an experience without lard. Now that makes sense, right?
During WW2, kids played a vital role in the defense of our country. Recycle was the name of the game in those days. Everything was recycled. Paper, rubber, metal, glass, plastic, and cars. In fact, the reason cars from 1900 to 1940 are so rare is because we melted them down into bombs and gave them to Germany and Japan. Everyday gangs of kids would roam the streets across America, not to do drugs or violence, but to find anything to take to the recycle centers.
Bare with me now, cause I can be kinda long winded.
On the farm, the adults had gone off to war and left all the kids with Grandma. All thirteen of us. We raised corn and other veggies, and about 200 head of swine and three or four head of cattle. Yep - - pigs. That’s where lard comes from.
About every 90 days, we would slaughter about 25 to 30 pigs and make hams, pork chops, bacon, ribs, sausage, and lard, lots and lots of lard. Some of the hams we salted, some we sugar cured, and some we smoked in the smoke house. Can you say, uummm good?
Now lard was extremely important to Uncle Sam, just like food to feed his army. Every three months or so, a big army truck would come to the farm and pick up veggies and hams and bacon, and the barrels of lard we had prepared. They always left us new barrels.
The army didn’t just use lard to cook with. It was a major ingredient in the manufacture of nitro- glycerin, which was a major ingredient in the manufacture of most of the explosives used in the war.
We would collect all the fat from the pigs, and then use the water-rendering method to produce lard. That consists of placing the fat in huge kettles with water, bringing it to a boil, and skinning the lard off the top. That takes lots of heat.
Now we were already logging a bunch of hickory to fire up the smoke house. Damn, that was a lot of work for a bunch of kids. So we decided to turn to coal. The problem was we didn’t have any coal.
The valley we lived in was horse shoe shaped. There were train tracks running thru the middle of the valley. The trains would enter the valley and by the time of their exit, they had traveled almost five miles and climbed almost 1500 feet in elevation. Four times a day, trains filled with coal traveled through the valley, headed to the steel mills, for the war effort.
We decided to steal some coal. Now that is a lot easier than logging.
The major thing about trains is you can set your watch by them. We always knew when and where they would be. One day a week was coal day. About twenty kids would be waiting for the train, and we would all wave and shout at the engineer as he went by. He would always shake his finger at us as if to say, “Now don’t you kids jump on my train.†Of course, we did.
As soon as that engine was out of sight, we would storm that train like it was “D†day. For the next five miles we would pitch coal off like “Nobody’s business.†We kept that whole valley supplied with coal during the entire war. All people had to do, was just walk down to the tracks and pick up a gunny sack full. Coal made life so much better. Cooking and warning the house and making lard became really easy after that. Ever wonder why the Saturday night bath came into being? It was so you would clean to go to church on Sunday. It was the only time you would get to see girls. Most of the time in the summer we would bath in the stream behind the house. It saved carrying all that water. Coal made bath water so much better. Heck, we felt like city folk.
Now, I am going to try to explain what it was like to watch a pair of big Mallet 2-6-6-2 engines go by, pulling about 200 cars of coal, going up a steep grade. People loved trains, and even in the forties and early fifties, trains were a very important part of the American way of life. Trains moved everything before the days of big trucks.
Standing by the track, waiting for the train, we first hear the whistle. Two longs and one short would ripple through the valley. Now I don’t speak “train whistle,†but the engineers knew the language, and somebody in the crowd would always say, “Here comes the train.†It’s kinda of like standing at the bus stop watching the bus come around the corner and someone always says, “Is that the bus?†Humans just can’t help themselves.
You don’t just watch a train go by. No, you use every sense in your body. No, that’s not right. You use every part of your whole being.
First you hear this chug-chug noise that gets higher in pitch as the engine draws close. You see these big bright billowing puffs of black smoke and soot and sometimes a few glowing cinders coming from the smoke stack. Then your feet start picking up vibrations from the ground that become intense as the train draws even. The engineer starts ringing his bell when he sees you near his track. Then come the pressure waves of hot air as those powerful drive cylinders expel their used power into the air around you. You hear the massive drive wheels, taller than a man, as they strain and slip against the rails with a grinding noise as they struggle to pull two hundred cars of coal up the steep grade. Then the strong smell of burnt oil, and the taste of soot arrives. Your eyes start to sting a little. You hear the wheesh, wheesh, wheesh as giant steam chests dump their loads of hot steam into the drive cylinders. (Ok, I made up wheesh. I’m not good at writing and spelling sounds, OK? Not to be confused with the whoosh sound.)
There is also a faint metallic taste, and you wonder why. Then you notice the large coupling rods driving those giant wheels and all the other moving parts and you hear metal grinding as all that power accomplishes its work. Gentle pressure waves of warm oily air blast your face, leaving a slight film on your body. The vibrations are now thumps as your whole body shakes and smoke burns your eyes. You can hear the raging sounds of the fire as the fireman opens the firebox and feeds more coal to the roaring beast inside, and you notice the sound of water boiling.
As the drive wheels slip, you hear grinding and notice the little lines of sand falling in front of the wheels as the engineer dumps material from the sand dome to help aid in traction. The noise becomes over powering and deafening, and ejects all thought from your mind, a couple of hot cinders fall around and you feel a little fear, that you may be to close to this powerful metal monster conceived and built by the minds and hands of man. Through it all you hear the constant ding, ding, ding of that bell. Your whole body relaxes, and you feel as though a supreme being has just walked by. Your mind recoils with different feelings as you realize the power of 1000 hp, and the work it can accomplish.
Suddenly it’s gone and you’re surrounded by a smokey haze, left with a taste of soot, and smell of steamy oil and smoke, and a gentle click-a-dee-clack as the cars behind roll over the track connections, which brings you back to a sense of almost peaceful bliss.
Then you realize how insignificant one little human can be compared to this monstrous metal being.
Aw, that’s nuts. Time to throw some coal. As you reach for the rung of the ladder, in the background you hear two longs and one short.
I hope that gives you an idea of what it’s like to have a 440 thousand-pound locomotive roar past. It’s the best description I am capable of giving.
Thanks for the experience, lard.
The train is a wonderful hobby. If you don’t have room in your house, look into a garden railroad in “O†or “Gâ€scale, for your patio. Setting on the patio as you little train chugs through the flower beds, over bridges and thru tunnels, is quite soothing.
It is an excellent family hobby. A very small investment can provide hundreds of hours of quality time with the kids. Mom and the kids can help build houses, and paint animals and build trees. Father and son can build mountains and tunnels and lay track. Making the scene as real as possibly is the name of the game. There is always something else to do.
Most cities now have model railroad clubs with large track layouts, and they just live to show off. Check the local phonebook and take the kids by.
Electric trains now have remote control and realistic onboard audio and smoke. If you lie down by the track, it’s almost like the real thing going by.
Naaaaaaaaaah, just kidding.
Use your search foo to find hundreds of railroad garden clubs and ideas.
Might I also suggest “Dogpile.com†as your search engine? It doesn’t return all those sites children look for.