Not all Edaville business is out on the bog. Here Mr. and Mrs. Atwood confer in the seclusion of their private office in the palatial screenhouse.
That’s about the story. The Edaville’s quite a railroad in its own right, let alone because it’s the last of the two-foot gauges. It isn’t completed yet, either. Doubt if it ever will be: there’ll always be a new spur to build or a bog-siding somewhere to install. Maybe some new equipment, too—such as a nice, new Plymouth diesel for the cranberry freights.
(Moody Photo)
No. 4 heads a freight train into clear to allow the passenger job to gallop by.
(Moody Photo)
No. 7 crosses some undeveloped bog. Maybe next year cranberry vines will bloom over there in the brush.
Eh? Sure: why not? What’s wrong with diesels? You fellers always get emotional when someone says diesel. Want to see the Edaville go in the red? This railroad (although you’d never guess it) isn’t a plaything; it’s a plantation utility, designed to facilitate Mr. Atwood’s cranberry business. The passenger train and the parlor car, and Sunset Vista, are gestures he and Mrs. Atwood make from their own pockets to give people some fun down here—and to have a little themselves. But he can’t run his freight trains at a loss just to see coal smoke smudging all over those nice red cranberries. Red’s a pretty color, but not on the ledger!
Probably if the other two-footers had bought some Plymouth diesels they’d all be running today. Lots of difference between coal at ten bucks a ton and oil at ten cents a gallon. Personally I’m for it—a ten ton, eight-wheel diesel Plymouth. Besides, that’ll save the steam engines for Sunday and holiday passenger trains!