It's been forty years now since this boy watched the changing of locomotives at Harmon and posed unspoken questions about the nature of electrics. As I sit here recalling those moments, I can hear the words of Holmes's rhyme on the evening breeze:

Often you've looked on a rushing train,
But just what moved it was not so plain.
It couldn't be those wires above,
For they could neither pull nor shove;
Where was the motor that made it go
You couldn't guess, but now you know.[28]

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28. Holmes, Oliver Wendell. Complete Poetical Works. Ed. Horace E. Scudder. Boston: Houghton, 1895; 301.
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Number 121 at Mott Haven Yard, June 1963. Bob's Photo.

This is the sixth part of an article written in 1992 for Electric Lines magazine, just before it ceased publishing.