Formative years at Glendale

I enjoyed Kevin Keefe’s column “For Steinheimer, it all started in Glendale.”

It all started in Glendale for me too. I was born there in March 1947 and I grew up in Eagle Rock, a northeastern Los Angeles suburb about 5 miles east of Glendale. On warm summer nights I could hear steam locomotive whistles from the area around the Glendale depot of the Southern Pacific.

My engineer father Harold began work early and was able to get home by about 5:30 p.m. He would gather up me and my younger brother David and we would drive over to the Glendale depot to watch the final suburban stop of the southbound Daylight. I well remember peering up the track toward the next closest stop, Burbank. The first sign of the train’s imminent arrival was the figure-eight spiral of the headlight. Soon one could hear the locomotive, a thrilling sound to a young boy. Then the great GS-4 engine would roll through the arrival track and come to a stop. It was thrilling beyond measure for me.

Years later, at Railfair 99 at the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento, the sole surviving GS-4, No. 4449, was in attendance. I crouched down opposite the firebox so that my eyes were at the level of a child’s, and, sure enough, I could see the flames of the oil fire licking away. Several years ago I commemorated my memory in two paintings. The first, in watercolor, I entitled “A Monarch in Glendale.” The man in the maroon sweater would be my father, and the taller of the two boys standing with him would be myself, with David the other.

The second painting, in oil, depicts Dad pointing out a feature next to the left-side cylinder. With their backs turned to the viewer, the taller boy in bluejeans is myself, the other David.

I daresay that sometimes when we were present at Glendale depot, Mr. Steinheimer may well have been there too. As I said, I enjoyed Mr. Keefe’s column tremendously. Thank you for running it!

Paul B. Ohannesian, Vancouver,

British Columbia