Essential machines, a story

"Emotive power," 5 x 7 140 lb Fabriano Artistico extra white cold press paper

I wouldn't be here, if it weren't for trains.
Today's #WorldWatercolorMonth prompt was "Machine," and at first I was baffled for a subject.
But not for long, as I walked down the hall and saw my Dad's scratchboard of a Rock Island steam locomotive at the Fort Worth roundtable in the snow.

Dad's scratchboard of a locomotive at Fort Worth

As a kid, I was there when he made the first sketch in the summer. But I didn't know the emotions going through his head when we went there. He later turned it into the scratchboard
I do now. It's no wonder I've been attracted to trains, especially steam locomotives, for so long. And I've painted several, usually greeting cards for good friends Roy and Jill Kelsey. Roy is also a train buff.
Why are trains so important to me? Because they led to my birth.
See, when Dad was 18, newly graduated from high school, in the midst of the Depression, he and a friend from red clay Oklahoma town of Comanche, hopped Rock Island freights to go to Juarez to celebrate.
Coming back, as they "changed trains" in Tucumcari, Dad slipped while trying to board a moving boxcar. It sliced off his right leg beneath the knee and one small finger.
Had that not happened, he probably would have gone to war with three of his brothers. He might not have come home--they did. But even if he did, I would not have been born 12 years later.
So to me, steam locomotives are essential machines. Thus today's quick little watercolor, out of my imagination, "E-motive Power."

All aboard for nostalgia, steam

What beauty, power and nostalgia...from the BBC

Oh how I wish I could ride on one of these wonders, holding the record for the world's fastest steam locomotives. Thanks to my son Vance Clark for finding this BBC program.
Steam train record

All aboard...the Wabash Cannonball,,,for America

This is one really great video of old steam locomotives, and a great song, perfect for America's birthday. Turn up the volume for a great ride.

All aboard for Alaska

Two teasers before we climb aboard the White Pass and Yukon train to the White Pass summit on the Canadian border, following the trail of the gold rush of 1898. Both are taken in Skagway, one restored, a rotary snow plow, in much need 3,000 feet above the town. The other is an old steam engine, rusting away, and you have to hunt for it, but  it's on private railroad property, you can find it, as I did precisely one week ago, wandering around Skagway with almost no people out early in the morning. This one grabs me,  with the snow plow, the colors, the silence, the memories, the stories, the history. You can imagine and write your own captions, can't you?

All 'aboard for Bartlesville

Santa Fe steam locomotive 940

In Bartlesville, a 4-8-2 powerhouse of days gone by.

Where you can look out the engineer's window and down the tracks into memory

Driving power

It's the Santa Fe, Not the BNSF!

Bartlesville Depot, done right, and the home of the chamber of commerce. A great place for a little boy to come play and remember when trains were trains, and a testament to an Oklahoma city's pride and commitment to quality living.