One of the coolest things about chasing 611 in it's hometown this weekend, was running into the folks who either worked on them, fired them, or just were out taking pictures of them back when they were in regular service. At this location in Webster Va, a tall skinny man in his late 80's was out recording sound, he had a small video camera, but he was mainly focused on capturing the audio experience of the J. He was telling me that he did the same thing to the other "J's", "A's", and "Y's" back in the 50's when he was my age, and wanted to see how close a two time restored J sounded like as compared to those running back in the day. Needless to say, he was thrilled when that haunting whistle echoed through the valley an the stack talk rattled the teeth in your mouth as it went powering by. It was just as neat to see that man's reaction, as it was the train going by.
