Rosenberg RailFest Reprise

After the tour I hung around for a few minutes to grab photographs (because trying to shoot these tiny rooms with three other adults and four kids in the way just wasn’t going to work), then ducked back out and went walkabout in the museum yard. There have been a couple of changes since I was here several years ago, they’ve shut down a couple of the indoor model layouts, and they’ve cleaned up the yard where the “hobo jungle” was. In 2013 there were a dozen or so `bos lounging around and a couple of bulls stopping in for coffee,

but this year there was, sadly, nobody at all. It’s a shame; those guys were great at educating and keeping kids interested in history. But not there is not there, and I gave up on that end of the yard and went back to the main area. I stopped for shots of the 1972 caboose …

and the original control tower for the Fort Bend yard…

The interior of the tower is now another exhibit, with the original switchbox and the yard boss’s old desk, typewriters, phones, timetable and assorted necessaries…

It’s all computerized now, and there’s a radio speaker in the tower for the calls. It’s much better, safer, more efficient… but a computer voice (“eastbound line has cleared defect detector”) has not one gram of romance in it. None. I shot a few pictures and headed for the door.

As I was leaving the tower, another docent came by to lock up and we chatted for a bit about the history of the tower and some of his adventures in railroading, but he wanted to get home and I still had shots to get…