by Mike Bednar
When I was a youth, I watched quite a few movies about World War II. One thing I gathered from these was that the Army fought on its stomach — meaning that troops who were well-fed performed much better than their foes. I guess John Wayne was well-fed because he never lost a battle!
As I got older and started spending a lot of time at nearby Biery Yard, I learned that the railroaders who were well-fed were certainly happier, and probably better at performing their duties. This was the era of 16-hour days when crews were required to be available seven days a week, 24 hours a day. The crews who worked the hardest were the local freight crews who served the various consignees of the railroad for those 16 hours daily. It was demanding work performed by a dedicated group of railroaders.
ABOVE: On July 5, 1974, conductor Bob “Bugsy” Vought and brakeman John Nothstein have been working in a thunderstorm and stop for coffee while placing their “order.” You can read more about working at Florence in Volume 1 of “A Railroad Life.” —Photo by Mike Bednar
It was my experience that they “took care” of the customers first and then would eat lunch at certain restaurants of taverns that served wonderful meals. I’ve already told you guys about “Hunkie Pete’s” and the Mansion House meals in the Catty area, but I will now dig a little deeper in my memory bank and tell you about some of the other “beaneries” and “gin mills” that served the crews.
Some crews still relied on “caboose cuisine” for these lunch-time feasts. The Cementon Drill at this time had “Shakey” Tindall as the Conductor and Al Grube was the Engineer. Once the crew started serving Whitehall Cement at Cementon, Pa., Fireman Anthony Gallagher would run the engine while Al Grube became the cook in the 95099 caboose. On Fridays, Al would bring his fishing pole and work on getting fresh fish out of the Lehigh River to fry-up for lunch. My brother Keith and I were invited to a few of these lunches and we still remember them fondly today. These meals always included caboose coffee made in a large enamel coffee pot with the coffee grounds thrown in the bottom of the pot along with egg shells. This was delicious!
ABOVE: There were some good places to take a lunch along the 11-mile E&N (Easton & Northern) Branch. The Friendly Tavern was located near Near Bushkill Park and was owned by trainmaster Carmelo Piperato. It was such a good place that the Lehigh Valley old-timers held their get-togethers there. On May 2, 1979, Keith Bednar (right) meets retired trainman Motts Benkovic. Good times were had by all! —Photo by Mike Bednar
Unfortunately, we did not photograph any of these feasts because we could not afford to take pictures at this time. The Lehighton crews who made trips to Oak Island, New Jersey, were generally away from home for up to 2-1/2 days and stayed in the Oak Island Bunk House. They cooked in their caboose while they laid over at Oak Island. If they didn’t cook in the caboose, they had an option of partaking in the “endless pot of soup” always cooking in the bunk house. It was rumored that the actual soup pot was never washed, but the soup was just constantly cooked with added ingredients. Some say the ingredients included chew tobacco (but it is only a “rumor”). So let’s put the “feed-bag” on and tour the various beaneries along the Iron Pike…
ABOVE: The service track and Engine Terminal were next to the Bunkhouse at Oak Island Yard in Newark, N.J., in addition to a slaughterhouse. You could imagine that this made for a pleasant rest in the Bunkhouse. One had a choice of walking to the Portuguese restaurant down the street for a meal (but it would cost money!) or consuming soup from the eternal soup pot. On March 24, 1973, power for the Apollo-1 is three C420 units and the power for Advance FFW-1 will be the three Norfolk & Western U-boats in run-thru service. If you didn’t get diarrhea from the soup, you certainly got it when running the GE’s off the N&W. —Photo by Fred Wilczewski, from the collection of Mike Bednar.