Page 6 - YB1996

Below: The tracks that were once used by the Western Maryland are still in use today, mostly by freight trains, Trafficisnotinfrequenthowever.eitherinWestmi ns!eroratthis crossing in Union Bridge Bottom: The western Maryland caboose. overlooking Scott Bair Stadium on the WMC campus Western Maryland College is a place with a history. Its daily rituals are fraught with tradition. Although this road is new to you, it has been travelled down many times before. And this road is a railroad. The mighty Western Maryland Railroad. Once, it stretchedfromBaitimore-PortCovington,tobeexact_ all the way to West Virginia. The railroad was the backbone of America, and the symbol of an age. We may like to think that the airplane, bouncing around carelessly on the wind, is a better metaphor for OUr collegiatejoumey. We like to envision lateral movement, freedom. We reject the strong and steady iron horse, rails shining, stretched across a continent. But this ~~~::!,iSst~~~i::~st,a:~wa;:e~~~h:Smi~it;::~~':S e~ those we should emulate. Railroad men were cut out for their work. In the , one could find the same qualities that defined railroad itself. They too were strong, steady and deeply committed. They felt proud to be who they were, and proud to do what they did. Railroading was, and is, a family affair. Now, in an age when the railroad has been superseded by the motor car and the airplane, those whose families have, for generations, worked on the rails, remember their ancestry. They hold on to the values and the memories, cradling them in acozy come- of the mind. In the process of making this book we me some of these men, like Keith Stanley, a member of th Western Maryland Railroad Historical Society, wh although he has never worked for any railroad, can te you stories about every member of his family who di These are myths, legends. In the archives of the Historic Society, located in Union Bridge, there are photos of mysterious people, long since forgotten. They are people without names, but there is a kinship, for they all worked on the Western Maryland. The Western MarylandRailroad has since been bought by the Cbessle system, a conglomerate which has consolidated a number of smaller railroads. Vestiges of the Western Maryland remain, however. One such artifact is in our own back yard: the Western Maryland caboose that keeps watch over Scott Bair Stadium, and that other great WMC tradition: football. Here at Western Maryland College, we have acertain kinship with the railroaders, and with each other. We are tied to our history: to the railroad, to the college, and to past generations of Western Maryland graduates. We are the ones charged with that time-honored duty: to keep our myths alive, to hold them close, to store them in acozy comer of our memory. It is only when we have a firm grip on our past that we can tum to face the future. 2 All Aboard!