Where would I go, anyway? I had pie and milk and a nice railroader to talk trains with. The porter waved at me and signaled to not get up. A minute later, she and the porter came back to our room and looked across at me eating pie. I saw Mom jump off the couch and bolt into the hallway. The waiter said, “There’s the Miami section.” All I saw was Mom looking straight across at me! She did a double take, and I swear my dog barked at me. Then the dining car was spotted alongside other cars. He said, “Don’t fret, son, we’s heading to Miami as soon as we pick up some provisions.” I asked the railroader who was sitting with me, polishing the silverware, if we went to Miami or Tampa. Before I could get up to go back to our Pullman, the diner was uncoupled and we started going backward. On one trip I roamed to the dining car, where I was offered a piece of pie and a glass of milk. No matter which train we were on, it would split at Jacksonville, one section heading to Tampa/St. I well remember wearing heavier clothing in the winter and then get to Georgia and suddenly feel the heat. The bedroom could get a bit crowded with her, me, and our Scottie dog Chip, who always got the window seat! At long station stops, the trainmen would let us get off to walk Chip. Beginning when I was about 7 years old, my mother would let me roam the train. I always enjoyed the trips and got to recognize some of the Pullman porters and dining-car employees. We made at least two trips a year, and, after I was in school, sometimes three, and we always took a compartment or bedroom. Until the Florida East Coast’s 1963 labor strike, on ACL trips we’d be on the FEC south of Jacksonville, of course. From 1954 until I was 11 years old in 1965, we traveled, by Pullman, from 30th Street Station in Philadelphia to North Miami, using either the Seaboard Air Line or Atlantic Coast Line south of Richmond, Va.

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