Scene on the Road

As August is the biggest time for vacations to the Jersey Shore, and I've only taken one other road trip in New Jersey all summer, I'm avoiding the Atlantic City Expressway and taking two weeks this time to hit as many of the back roads as I can.

I'd seen crabbers on previous road trips in Delaware and Maryland, but the activity didn't compare to the action on the Route 50 bridge over Cedar Swamp Creek. Pete Joslin and Grace Dolan of Williamstown are each pulling up a trap with two or three crabs as I drive by, and when I pull over and walk up, they're hauling in another. "They're riding the top of the tide," Dolan tells me. "Outgoing," Joslin adds when I wonder if it's coming in or going out.

Crabbers marks - measuring the minimum 4-1/2 inches from tip to tip of the longest spikes on the shell - are carved into the top of the railing all along the bridge.

Most of those Joslin and Dolan pull up are wide enough and legal. "I only had enough rope on him to drop three pots," Joslin says as I admire all the crabs in his bucket.

While I'm there, the tide changes, just as I start to photograph the cool reflections in the water below us. The surface is no longer smooth by the time I figure out how I want to compose the photo, and all I have to show are photos that include me, before the ripples have completely taken over.

I try not to do too much research before I head out on a road trip, as I don't want to prejudice myself too much. So I don't know anything about the "Historic Train Station," until I see the sign on Route 50 in Tuckahoe.

I turn off to find the closed station and empty parking lot with some old locomotives and passenger cars on the rails nearby. I am shooting close-ups (what I tend to do when there are no other people around).

Just as I'm ready to leave, debating whether or not to walk farther down the tracks where more trains are parked, I notice the old locomotive doesn't have a single speck of rust, and there's a guy in a greasy t-shirt carrying a huge wrench. Hey, this is a real working railroad, I realize.

He's Mike Schreiber, a locomotive electrician and air brake technician from Ohio, making one of his monthly stops at another of his railroad or grain elevator clients around the country. His '99 Ford pick up has 459,000 miles on it. While not the Short Line in Monopoly, it is a short line railroad, one of more than 400 around the country, 13 in NJ alone, according their trade group, the ASLRRA. Schreiber tells me I need "to talk to the boss," who just happens to be walking out of the old switch tower.

Tony Macrie, on the left, is President and General Manager of the Cape May Seashore Lines. He's always been a railroad man. "I've done other things in my life, but it's all reverted to this," he tells me as the men take a break. He offers two excursion services, both running on the old "Steel Speedway to the Shore" once belonging to the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines (those ARE in Monopoly). There is a 30 mile round trip between Tuckahoe and Richland, and a 22 mile round trip between Cape May Court House and Cape May City.

Right out of high school, Macrie worked at Philadelphia radio station, "Famous 56," - WFIL-AM, in the early 70's and at the end of his shift would rush down to 30th Street Station to watch the big Silver Meteor - with its huge GG1 electric locomotive. "In those days you could just wander around the station," he recalls, talking to the railroad workers. "There was real railroad camaraderie. You don't see that anymore." Unable to land a government job with Conrail, Macrie took the advice of one of those old timers and went up Bucks County, learning the railroad "from the ground up," working on the tracks for the New Hope & Ivyland Railroad. He created the Cape May Seashore Lines in 1996, "but it was conceptualized in 1986, when I started talking to the state."

At least once a month, he says, "Somebody comes up and says 'my kid loves trains.' Now you heard that in 1940, even in the 50's and 60's, but not in 2007. It's Thomas the Tank Engine. A whole new generation is appreciating trains."

The words are barely out of his mouth when teenagers Tom Rinck and Max Gandolfo, ride up on their bikes. Rinck, who lives right across the street, greets Schreiber with a "you here again?" and I get to see that railroad camaraderie up close. They catch up, Rinck telling the mechanic he's working on the rides on the Ocean City Boardwalk. "Oh, you're a Carney now," Schreiber chides, "when do you start losing your teeth?"

Rinck says he has always been into trains, at least since he was two. "I used to wake my mom and dad up, choo choo."

The teasing continues until Schreiber, carrying the worn slip ring he just changed on the 1955 Pennsylvania Railroad GP9 7000 locomotive, asks the sixteen year-old to help carry an empty box - then slaps his face with a greasy palm as Rinck extends a hand.

"Aarggh, I saw that coming," Rinck yells as he jumps back. "That's locomotive grease," Schreiber deadpans. "The real thing. Clears up the skin, Smells good too."

Don't forget I'm looking for some of YOUR road trip photos. Send me your jpegs as email attachments to Roadtrip@phillynews.com. I'll post them here over the Labor Day weekend and run some in the newspaper with my final column.