By Bob Strohm
mailto:bstrohm@wbcowqel.com
A little ice and snow didn’t stop train enthusiasts from getting together Monday night in Galion to speak about their passion for trains.
Choo Choo Chat, hosted by the Friends of the Galion Big Four Depot in the Lutheran Church, allowed the avid railroad enthusiasts to talk about their enjoyment of all things locomotive, as well as garner some local excitement for the Big 4 Depot project.
Marty Cecil, a Cleveland transplant whose father Richard Hover was a trainmaster at the Big 4 Depot, remembered her first trip to Galion.
“I was sitting in a dining car, on Church Street, on the train, and I looked out and saw that big Galion sign, and I looked down Church Street, and I said, ‘Gee it would be nice to live in a town like this,’” Cecil said. “And two years later my dad was transferred here.”
Prior to everyone introducing themselves, Carol Kaple recited the poem The Old Depot by poet Jerry Barrett. In what could only be described as perfect timing, the whistles of one of Galion’s railways echoed in the background.
“Galion was a railroad town, that is how it really started to boom,” said Jim Reid who started his career at the Big 4 Depot in 1963 as a baggage clerk. “Still this is a very busy railroad through town with CSX. The Depot for the size of town Galion was a division point. When Marty is talking about her dad’s office as a as a trainmaster, it was originally where the superintendent’s office, because this was where the superintendent was, and the train dispatch, and everything that went with it. That is why the train depot got this three story building. When for the size of the town we would have had a small station kind of like the one Shelby had.
“I would like to see the Station be turned into a museum, I would also like to see it turn into a Restaurant, so if they could do both that would be the best of both worlds for me.”
Eric Porch, a 35-year veteran of the rail industry explained the rivalry between the Pennsylvania, and New York Central.
“It was two different totally different trains of thought on how a railroad should be run, both successful,” Porch said. “They were kind of nicknamed the red team and the green team when the merger came, and in my opinion it was one of the reasons that it collapsed, they couldn’t communicate.”
Memories filled the air of the basement with stories of the Freedom Train visiting Galion in 1975, as well as the futuristic Aerotrain that rode the rails of the Pennsylvania Railroad in the 1950’s. Memories also included the other train station that once stood in Galion, the Erie Station.
If the weather was too bad for some to make it to this event do not fear, as Choo Choo Chat will happen again at 7 p.m. next Monday in the First Lutheran Church of Galion.