THE RAILROADER: LOVING AND LOSING ON THE AVOYELLES BRANCH
My preface:
For those who might not be familiar with the "Railroader" series here on History Hunts, let me bring you up to speed. Mike left a few lines in the guest book a while back reflecting that his dad had worked for the Texas and Pacific Railroad in more than a few capacities, including being a fireman on steam engines and an engineer on the diesels. I recognized Mike as a treasure chest of memories from a "golden age" of railroading, one of my keen interest. We corresponded. Then, Mike, feeling pressure from several sides, finally got down to putting some of those memoirs on "paper". His sharing of those stories with us is a gift. As I have said before, this level of historical reporting is rare. The personal angle applied to these stories is rarer. Thank you, sir.
This one is a grinner:
LOVING AND LOSING ON THE AVOYELLES BRANCH
Boy, was she a beauty...a petite dark haired, dark eyed French lass of Avoyelles Parish, who just happened to be in the back yard every time the T&P local passed behind her house near Mansura.
It didn’t take long for the crew to start noticing her, especially since she made it a point to wave to them as they trundled down the line between Bunkie, Marksville, Port Allen and points in between. As on most branch lines, the condition of the Avoyelles branch necessitated a slower pace. Usually those tracks only received a lick and a promise of mainline level maintenance.
The young lady got bolder and bolder, finally venturing up to the fence separating her yard from the right of way. The closer she got to the track, the prettier she was. Young Gerald Gaspard, the junior brakeman, and only single guy on the crew, fell deeply in love with the lady. He started buying her small gifts, and talked the engineer into slowing down so he could toss them to her.
Things started heating up in the trackside romance, and while against all railroad rules, young Gerald talked the engineer, Mr. Waller, into stopping so he could do a little face to face courting. He got her name, and a phone number, and fell even more deeply in love when she pecked him on the cheek as he turned to get back on the caboose.
This went on for several weeks, with Gerald throwing off presents, and Yvonne blowing kisses all the while. One day, Gerald got Mr.Waller to stop the train and went to the fence to see ‘his’ girl. While he was kissing her, the back door to the little frame house flew open, and out came a huge man, calling and cussing in French, packing a double barreled shotgun. Yvonne promptly made a run towards the neighbor’s house. Gerald could speak French, so he was the first to realize that the man was cussing him for kissing his wife, and intended to render Gerald incapable of kissing his wife, or any other man’s wife, for that matter.
The locomotive was about 10 car lengths up the track. Dad and Mr. Waller were not watching the happenings to the rear. Cabooses had whistles on the back to provide warning when a train had to back up. While Gerald was running for the track, Mr.Holsomback, the conductor, was blowing the whistle for all he’s worth. This happened in the days before two-way radios on trains. On a steam engine, even at rest, there’s a lot of noise, so the head end crew was not aware of the situation developing to their rear.
As Gerald made it to the rear platform of the caboose, the angry husband brought the shotgun up and let a round loose towards the caboose. It broke the glass in the cupola, and the engine crew heard the shot. When Dad looked out the fireman’s side of the steam locomotive, he saw two men running for all they were worth towards the engine. Mr. Waller shouted out: “Fred, I think that SOB just shot my train!”. About that time, another round hit the side of the caboose. Mr. Waller dumped the brakes, opened the big throttle valve, and tried to get traction in a hurry. All the while, the two caboose dwellers were coming up the fireman’s ladder, as the angry husband was running down the side of the track, reloading as he ran.
The engine finally got traction and the little train slowly pulled away from the angry husband. Needless to say, there was a hurried up conference further down the track to fabricate a cover story to explain away the shotgun damage to the caboose. On the next run into Mansura, Gerald and Mr. Holsomback made the run past Yvonne’s house lying on the floor of the caboose. Alas, there was no Yvonne there to wave hello, or blow kisses. And, Gerald damned sure wasn’t going to throw her anything, anyway. He was teased unmercifully for years about coming so close to getting shot over a few kisses on the Avoyelles branch. When Bob Waller retired a few years later, Mr. Holsumback made him a wooden plaque that named him as “The best getaway train engineer on the T & P Railroad”