Many times I have looked at this photo in my collection of pictures I took of the railroad at Central Juncos, and I have always wondered about the same thing each time. That little fellow standing there watching the action makes me think of myself at a young age, and how intrigued I was when my father took me to see the trains where we lived. I cant help be curious that if the railroad had lasted longer, would he have wanted to take pictures of the locomotives and trains (as I did at an early age)? Or did he think that he would like to someday work on the railroad?? What we see here is one of the Juncos Plymouths, #E435, stopped near a roadway in Barrio Cantagallo just west of Juncos, and the conductor is talking to the dispatcher about his next movement before returning to the mill with his train of loaded cane cars. The railroad is in its last years of operation, under new ownership by the Autoridad de Terrenos La Nueva Central Juncos. E435 will live on past the demise of the railroad, and will have been shipped to Central Aguirre and rebuilt and repainted. Like most locomotives in Puerto Rico, she will then be cut up for scrap when the last sugar cane railroads on the Island will shut down forever. I know that I will still stop each time I see this photo again, and the same thoughts will go through my mind. Ahhhhhh, such sweet memories! Just a footnote: #E435 began its working life as a member of the Fajardo Development Co. RR, and when C Brewer PR purchased all the northeastern Puerto Rico railroads and mills, she and a sister (#E436) would be sent over the railroad system from Fajardo to Juncos to work.
Posted on: Thu, 22 Jan 2015 23:27:26 +0000
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