Counting Cars

Many of us have waited at railroad crossings while the freight cars went past. A favorite past time was to count the box cars and to look for unusual cars. Did you do it too? The tank cars interspersed among the others were one of the unusual sights. Wouldn’t you know, J.O. Kemm brought up this whimsical subject in his book "Let s Talk Petroleum" (1958), and just reading his words caused a recall of boyhood days. It was like a game or contest to be able to brag about seeing an unusually long train. We all did it. However, for those of us who played the game during World War II, gasoline was severely rationed so we didn’t get to many country crossings. When we did see a freight train in those years, tank cars were numerous and a lot of them were carrying high octane aviation fuel to either coast to support aircraft in the Pacific and those fighting in Europe.