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Corinne Clark and the RVRR | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Carl Nees, George
Davis (Corinne's father), Paul Albright, Tom Mangini, and Frank
Froat with Engine #15. Corinne's dad, and Frank Froat, would give
her rides in the cabs of the steamers and the diesels. #15 was, and
still is, Corinne's favorite
engine. For many years, Corinne Clark had a
relationship with the Rahway Valley Railroad. Her father, George
Davis, had started
working for the line way back in 1925. By the time Corinne came along, her
dad had already racked up quite a few years with the old
RVRR. In her youth,
Corinne remembers her father working late nights, and even on weekends.
When asking her mother where her dad was, she was usually given the answer
"fixing the train." George became the railroad's Master Mechanic in
1948.
In those days, steam was still around and kicking on the
RVRR. Her father was always
at the RVRR on Saturday doing what Master Mechanics do….”fixing the
train”. Quite often
Corinne would tag along with her mother to bring coffee and a buttered
roll to him on Saturday. Often sitting in the yard was one of the RVRR's
steamers, just hissing and roaring away, a cloud of black smoke billowing
from the stack. On more than
one occasion the crew would give Corinne a ride in steam engine
#13 or 15 on their way to Summit, with Engineer
Frank Froat
at the throttle. "I still remember how it felt when
the firebox was opened to shovel more coal into it. A blast of heat rushed out onto my
face. Seeing the flames in
the firebox was scary for a little girl on a moving
train." "When electric diesels came to the RVRR I
rode in the cab with my father.
It was just
daddy and me driving the train up the
mountain." "I love the sound of a steam engines
whistle, the plume of smoke billowing from the smokestack. I often waited for the train at the
Taking a brief
respite, Engine #15 simmers in Kenilworth. Perhaps before she
departs, will #15 have another passenger? "If my mother knew that my father would be
working very late she would tell me to get my wagon so that I could take a
thermos of hot coffee and soup over to the Springfield Station. Our house
wasn’t too far from the station but far enough to be uncomfortable walking
and pulling a red wagon in cold weather, even snow, but I didn’t
care. I wanted to see the
train and my father. He never knew if I would be standing
there."
Frank Froat is
seen here, in the cab of #16, at the Kenilworth
Yards Corinne snapped
this photo of #16 approaching the Springfield
Station. "When he saw me he stopped the train and
came down to me and my wagon. I couldn’t get a ride at night so
off he would go with hot coffee and soup. As the train pulled away, I was
happy that I did something to help my father while he was working. From a kid’s point of view, I thought it was a big deal that my
daddy was driving an engine up the mountain with a long train behind
it." Riding
in the steam engine wasn't the only reason to hang around the
Kenilworth Yards
in those days. "I bet you didn't know that over
behind the big water tower, on the left there was a little pond. My mother
used to take my sister and me ice skating there after my father came home
from work. There wasn’t a
light back there so we had to skate by the moonlight. That raised a bit of caution
because we had to be extra careful that we didn’t skate into a piece of
junk that was thrown into the
pond."
The When the train would come up the tracks,
into
Corinne's parents,
George and Emilie Davis, Froat and Corinne's dad, George Davis,
were nice guys and would sometimes give kids a ride in the cab of one of
the diesels. And there were other times when her dad had to chase kids
away when they were trying to jump the train as it was moving.
Apparently,
bringing her dad a thermos of hot coffee and soup was something always
taken into consideration, especially on the days that her dad was at the
scene of a derailment. "Did you ever hear about the one when the
bridge, where Jaegar Lumber is, was nearly knocked off the
pillars?" "A truck tried to squeeze under the bridge.
I don't remember how long it was that the area of "The Union bridge wasn't the worst
derailment. There was another
one in
Corinne's husband, Bob
Clark. As fate would have it, it was through the
railroad that Corinne met her husband, Bob Clark. Bob was George Clark's
only son. George had simultaneously been President, General Manager,
Secretary, and Auditor of the Rahway Valley Railroad since 1932, taking
over in the wake of his father's death, and it was every bit apparent that
Bob Clark was being trained for the "top spot." Corinne said, “Bob and George's
desks in the Kenilworth Station were back to back. They could look and hear each other within the distance of a
yardstick. Bob didn’t have to strain his ears to hear the growling of his
father." Bob and Corinne were married, and Corinne
became a member of the
George Clark often sent “goodies” home with
Bob for him and Corinne." The
“goodies” continued in greater supply when he learned that we were
expecting a child. He must
have thought that I needed to eat more now that I was expecting a
baby.
I
still remember what Bob walked in the door with one night after I came
home from the hospital. It
was the largest tray of Italian cookies I have ever seen and they were all
good. My father-in-law loved
to eat. He enjoyed sharing
food with Bob, me and his newest grandchild, Patty."
In 1969,
George Clark died. His son, Bob, was devastated by his father's
death. Bob was asked to take the job as President
and General Manager. He
wasn't sure if he wanted the pressure or if he could live up to his
father's standards. "We
talked about him taking the job and I knew from those discussions that he
was hesitant to try to walk into his father’s footsteps. I felt if he didn't do what he had
been groomed for all those years he would always feel that he had
disappointed his father and so I gave him a little nudge in that
direction. Finally one
day he made the decision. He put a
suit on and went to Later on, Corinne started to work for the
railroad because Bob was concerned that the hours she worked at her
current job didn't allow for her to be home when their daughter came home
from school. " And that was how I became another
generation to be working on the Rahway Valley
Railroad."
Before the fire, Corinne
worked in the Kenilworth Station. Her desk was on the second
floor, near the window, second from the right, seen in
this photo from 1973.
Corinne took these two photographs of "My job at the
railroad was low key. I did a little bookkeeping to keep track of the cars
and typed letters that Bob wrote. It was just a way to give me an income."
Bob also had her memorize the Reporting Marks on the sides of freight cars
and jot down the car numbers as they rolled past the Kenilworth Station,
for all the paperwork that needed to be filled out. She remembers saying
to Bob, "The train is going too fast. I can’t watch the train and write
the numbers fast enough. He
laughed." After my father retired from the RVRR he
wasn’t content being away from the railroad. Railroad employees by law aren’t
allowed to work for a railroad under their own name so he formed a company
so that he could work there under the company’s name. It was like he never retired. He would get a phone call that
they needed help and he was out the door and on his way to My father and I were both working for the
railroad. No longer was he
giving me a ride in the engine or a dime when I stood at the On the day
of the fire he was filling in for the engineer. As the train came into the
Kenilworth Station
he saw the
fire engines. As I told him
about the fire he hung his head down so I couldn’t see his eyes. I knew they
were filled with tears. Corinne was there, working, the day that the
fire broke out in the Kenilworth
Station. After the fire, they couldn’t work in the
building so Bob had Corinne secure them an office trailer where, she, Bob,
and Charlie Hunter (the Freight Agent) could work. The trailer was parked
behind the station. "In the trailer I was doing the same work that I did
for Bob in the office but it wasn’t the same atmosphere. How do you compare a trailer to a
wooden building that had years of railroad history behind it. Charlie worked at the end of the
trailer facing the station, doing his agent work, but he couldn’t read the
numbers on the cars as the train rolled through the By this time
Bob Clark's health had been declining, and not long after the fire he took
a leave of absence from the railroad. "Bob left the
railroad [not long] after the fire.
I was worried about Bob and also worried about who was going to do
the job of the President. The
train crew wouldn't be happy if they didn't get their paychecks.
At the helm of #17, Frank
Froat eases a train through Kenilworth and past the station, where
Corinne is busily jotting down the numbers off the sides of the
cars. Bob must be laughing by now as she says the train is moving to
fast. "In 1975 there wasn’t a computer at
the RVRR to prepare the payroll.
I had to figure out how to prepare the paychecks the old fashioned
way, the way Bob did it, by using a calculator, tax schedules, paper and
pen. The day of the fire I
tried to get up the stairs to get the payroll book but a fireman caught me
and wouldn’t let me go up.
The next day I trudged up the old rickety wooden stairs to the
office and got the payroll book and the calculator. It was important to keep the
workers happy so that the train could go on as it usually did everyday.
I saw Bob doing reports for
the Railroad Retirement Board and other entities. No doubt about it, the reports had
to be done. It was another
thing I had to figure out how to do so that we didn’t get in trouble with
the government." "Charlie and I salvaged as much as possible
from the station to put in the trailer so we could work. The train still
had to go out. I was in touch with Bob on how to do things but eventually
[his health] got so bad that he couldn’t help me
anymore." Bob Clark sadly passed away on June 14, 1975 a day Corinne
and Patty will never forget. Corinne notified Beekman & Bogue
about his death and they arranged for Bernie Cahill
to become the
new head of the RVRR. Not long after Cahill's arrival on the scene,
Corinne ended her employment.
She fondly
recalls the times she spent with the engines and her father at the Rahway
Valley Railroad. "Evidently, trains are still important to me. They remind me
of a time in my life when as a little girl my father came home after
midnight because he was 'fixing the
train.'"
Corinne's father, George Davis, and her
father-in-law, George Clark. Collection of Corinne
Clark.
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