Circus Xtreme Norfolk, VA - The train, the job

The train started moving right on schedule, shortly after 8:30am. I went outside because I heard thunder and yes, it was pouring. I was still feeling miserable over Jameson and was gratified that the weather was matching my mood.

The rain was off and on throughout the run, making it difficult to be outside at times. Still, when it wasn't pouring I was outside trying to cheer up and capture some final train run memories. This will be my last "real" run...there's another one from Norfolk to Hampton that I'll be on, but it's pretty short, so for all intents and purposes this is it. I took mostly video, so that I'll have some clips to look back on and remember how it felt to ride the train.

I stayed in touch with Jameson throughout the day. He spent most of his day driving the ten hours down to Orlando. For dinner I joined Brett (bandmaster) at Pie Car for steak and eggs. This was the meal I had on my first train run ever, though I think I substituted a salad for the hash browns. I'm not sure why but steak and eggs are always on the menu during runs. I was happy to have it one last time.


Brett and I talked about various things. How we'd miss the job, how I was missing Jameson, what we'd do after the circus. Brett's looking into real estate, which is awesome; I think he'd be great at it. He's definitely got that self-starter personality. I'm rooting for things to go his way!

While we were talking and eating the train was moving. We'd keep looking out the window at the scenery. Soon it started to rain again, a big thunderstorm. We were both shocked to see a large group of people standing out in the dark, in the pouring rain and lightning, waving and taking pictures. I'm talking 20-30 people, and they weren't even trainspotters, just normal folks with their kids huddling under umbrellas. There was no visible residential area nearby, and all of their cars were parked in the dirt near the rails, there wasn't even a parking lot or anything. Plus we were nearly two hours early. How did they get there? How did they know we'd be there? How long had they been waiting in the rain? Even my boss, who's been here for 20+ years, was very surprised.

Apparently while we were at a crew change, a large group of people gathered around the train, shouting cheerful greetings and asking for autographs. Ringmaster Kristen Michelle Wilson took this awesome picture of some of the people who came to see us. Thank you for your kindness, folks. Usually when we get mobbed it's by people who hate our guts :P


During the night I could tell that we were passing through some mountains, because my ears were popping and the train was groaning on some mean curves. We had wonderful engineers for the whole trip, I thought it was a very smooth run.

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