(The Express-Times posted the following story by Alyssa Colonna on its website on August 1.)
BATH — Steve Unger once broke his hand working as a brakeman on the Lehigh & New England railroad.
It was 3 a.m. on a Sunday, he recalls, and his train car was carrying a steel load.
He could not put on the brake quickly enough, and his car hit another train car sitting on the track, smashing his arm between them.
About 25 former Lehigh & New England railroaders plan to swap stories like these — some comical and some unbelievable — as they reminisce at their 15th annual reunion Saturday.
Unger and his wife, Kathy, have been the event’s organizers for almost a decade, he said.
“I was treated so good on the railroad that I just feel I owe it to the railroad,” said Unger, of Bushkill Township.
He worked for the Lehigh and New England Railroad Co. for three months in 1952, served in the Army for three years, then went back to being a brakeman from 1956 to 1961.
That is when Jersey Central Railroad took over the company, and Unger received a certified letter saying he had two weeks to report to work in Jersey City. He decided he did not want to start over again as “the low man on the totem pole” in an industry in which “seniority meant everything,” said Unger, now 70 years old.
He went on to work as a landscaper and then as a mail carrier, but many of his friends worked on the railroad for 30 or 40 years.
“Nobody ever quit the railroad,” Unger said. “It’s such a good job.”
When the annual reunion began, about 50 railroaders attended, but the crowd has shrunk a little each year, he said. They are mostly train servicemen — yardmasters, conductors, brakemen, inspectors, clerks and engineers — from Nazareth, Bangor, Pen Argyl, Bath and Tamaqua.
Railroad buffs are also invited to attend and share their knowledge. They will gather at the Bath American Legion Post 470 on Race Street from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday to look at photographs and other memorabilia, eat lunch and watch a slide show presentation by Paul Carpenito, president of the Phillipsburg Railroad Historians Club.
Carpenito, of Little Gap, Pa., said he will show past and present photographs of the Lehigh & New England rail lines, equipment and stations.
The company was formed in the early 1900s as a product of many predecessors, he said. Lehigh & New England was primarily a freight carrier with very limited passenger service.
Its local tracks stretched from Bethlehem north to Martins Creek. Parts of the rail line in the cement regions of Nazareth and Stockertown still are active at least five days per week, operated now by Norfolk Southern, Carpenito said.
Unger brings many relics to the reunion each year, including a rusty Lehigh & New England sign that hung in Nazareth, a lantern used in the steam era and railway police detective badges.
He also has a Lehigh & New England brake club, which looks like a baseball bat. Visitors at a previous reunion covered the one Unger used with their signatures.
Some railroaders will share pictures of their miniature layouts.
“It keeps them young, and they look so real,” Unger said of the model trains. “All you need is a little imagination, and you’re on a railroad.”
Unger has no trouble explaining his fascination with trains: “When you sat on these, you sat on top of the world. There’s nothing more exciting than sitting up in a big cab. It’s just a dream.”
Unger invites anyone interested in attending the reunion to come Saturday morning. The meal is $12.