Good afternoon fellow switcher fans! Thanks so much JHZ563 for being behind the throttle in the cab to get us rolling today
I love reading everyone's posts!
I'm sorry my previous post this morning didn't show photos. Something happened during the upload from my laptop to the OGR Forum but I'm not sure what because all the photos were uploaded to my post before I clicked the "Post" button. Thanks to Gene for letting me know so quickly. Here is another version of what I posted this morning ... hopefully with the photos this time. Have a terrific weekend everyone!!
Today my post is theme based: "Just Passing By .. Switchers in the background."
As we all know switch engines are the backbone of railroading. As JHZ 563 says" Switchers are the little engines that do big things." I couldn't agree more!
Since I've been train watching throughout my life, most times, except for a few, my focal point has been on the goings on in the foreground, only to have a secondary awareness of a switch engine doing its' thing in the distance/background. In my viewing of trains since a kid, whatever was in the foreground seemed to provide and hold my interest ... that foreground may have been a busy mainline with multiple road engines pulling long freights of all stripes and speeding passenger trains of the long distance and commuter varieties. It could have been at busy stations such as Baltimore's Pennsylvania Station with GG1s, E8s, PA1s, F units, and/or MU cars ... Baltimore's B&O Camden Station with name trains coming and going both on the stub end tracks and the lower run through tracks, and Washington DC's Union Station ( Pre- Amtrak ) that served 7 different railroads with colorful road engines and passenger cars at one time.
The late great Frank Ellison thought of his Delta Lines in theatrical terms ... being the trains were the actors and the buildings/scenery was the set. Frank Ellison's perspective and the now ongoing actors strike in Hollywood inspired my post in SWSAT today. In comparing my own train watching, over the years and especially in the 1950s - 60s, with film making/theatrical play, the switcher is rarely the star, instead it is a supporting actor at best and most of the time switchers are more of a background actor. I can only imagine how dull a major film/theatrical play, or any film/play, for that matter, would be without background actors ... hence the importance of the switch locomotive in railroading. Realizing what I present here is not a direct parallel analogy, I think it does get my point across. I make this analogy not as a professional railroad manager who thinks in terms of dollars and cents but as one who loves observing trains and their operations.
Today I have compiled photos showing the switch locomotive in the background .. just like background actors giving the theatrical piece important context; and here in these photos so does the switch engine.
As my buddy John Boy and I explore the railroad, we come across Tucker automobiles being unloaded from a end door automobile boxcar. WOW!!! 
Patsburg Ave has heavy traffic today. 
Hiking up the mountain John Boy and I are excited to see this MOW camp! John Boy exclaims " Check out that cool looking caboose! Half boxcar and half caboose! WOW! A cabbox car!"
WOW WOW!!! Here comes a J class on the main line! She must be doing 90 mph!!
And here comes another J class WOW!!! 
Big goings on with Big Hook down at the team track! The Big Hook has been brought in once again to help do some heavy lifting from truck to gondola. Looks like junk dealer Leo Mumford's truck has an old car on its bed. The hook has loaded that old junk car onto the gondola on its' way to the scrapper. 
It's Friday afternoon and the end of the week for this MOW crew. Barney Letholtz wipes his brow and thinks to himself " Shweeeuuuu! It's been one heck of a long week. When I get home that cold beer is going to taste might fine!" Meanwhile foreman Junior Culhane stands in front of the pickup and thinks to himself " Yikes!! I think I left my lunch box back at mile post 142. No way I'm driving back to get it. Erma is going to be crazy mad once she finds out! This is the third lunchbox I've left behind this year I better call her and tell her I want to take her out to dinner tonight. At least once she finds out I left the lunch box behind, dinner will soften the blow. Hmmm maybe I'll pick up some flowers too since this is lunchbox number three." 
WOW! I know we came down here to watch trains in hopes we might see a Y6b or better but look at those punkins in that pick up truck! I'll bet those are farmers in those two pickups and they're taking taking all that produce to the farmer's market.
Foreman Zippy Carson and the crew are loading the pickup with sacks and crates of ingredients for beer making to haul back to the brewery. Zippy scratches his head and thinks to himself " The office said to bring a pick up truck down here. No need for a bigger truck. Boy did they get that wrong. That boxcar is a less than car load type, but half that car is our stuff!"
Conductor Wilbur Phelps stands on the deck of his freshly painted caboose. In a moment he will go inside and check over way bills. 
I'm grateful that this thread started by Rich Murnane and carried on each week by John .. JHZ563 .. allows switchers to be the stars of the show, thus giving the little engines that do big things their well deserved due respect! I herby nominate Switcher Saturday for both an Academy Award and a Tony Award!!!
