Tomorrow, the Wilmington & Western Railroad returns to Hockessin after nearly 4 years! I’ve been sort of on a train kick recently, and was surprised to go to the WWRR website and find out they’ve managed to completely repair all the trestles, bridges, and track that were simply wiped out by Tropical Storm Henry back in September of aught-three. Tomorrow, they celebrate the return of “service” out to Hockessin.
I remember the storm, and the destruction to the railway, pretty vividly; at the time, HW and I were living just off Greenbank Road, which is unsurprisingly only like 500 yards from the Greenbank Mills, from whence the trains leave on their meandering route out to the northwestern environs of New Castle County. Not more than a few days after the storm, I was driving around in the back roads nearby along Red Clay Creek and saw the damage; huge sections of track simply twisted and washed aside by the flood. All the wooden bridges were simply wiped out. Since the WWRR had basically just finished the repairs from the LAST damaging storm (Hurricane Floyd in 1999), I figured it was out of business for good, and was sad.
Which is how I almost got crushed under a steam locomotive.
Not more than a month or two after the storm, I was driving down Newport Gap Pike, and when I came up to the rail crossing, the lights were flashing and cars were stopped. I’m all like, “Um, morons, the flood DESTROYED the tracks. The place is out of business. The lights are just flickering ’cause of some mistake, or kids messing with them or something.” So I pulled around to the right intending to drive right through the intersection (which didn’t have those big arms to drop down and prevent such things).
As I did so, I casually looked off to my left and noticed that a large black object was moving in my direction. Now, usually when this happens, it’s my friend Courtney coming to do me harm of some kind (he occasionally gets revenge on me ’cause I may once have “accidentally” rubbed my genitals on him), and I know to get away as fast as I can. I wasn’t on the tracks yet, so I stood on the brakes, threw the truck into reverse, and backed up. I ended up sitting next to the person at the front of the line, who glared at me with great gusto.
What can I say? I’m an idiot.
Anyway, I wish the Wilmington & Western well (mmmm…sweet, sweet alliterations), and hope that nobody notices that they seem to get hugely damaging storms exactly every four years in mid-September, so at best they have 3 months of full service before it’s nailbiting time.
