Monon Memories

Bill's Daughter

One of my earliest memories was the coming of the diesels. I don't remember much about the steam engines – just some vague recollections of the trains taking on water at the depot.

I was just 9 yrs old when the Monon went diesel. They brought some of the new engines to town and we got out of school to walk thru this very loud but very clean engine. About the same time, the railroad celebrated their 100 th birthday and we heard a lot of "Up and Down the Monon".

When I was in Jr. High and High School, I had to walk to and from school. This was from our home on the extreme south end of town to the school at the extreme north end of town. I was told it was a full mile but I enjoyed the walk. There were several different streets I could take but my favorite was to take Main St to the railroad and walk the tracks to Race St where we lived. I always loved the sound of the diesel air horn from a distance and if I heard something coming, I could find more ways to slow down my walk on the tracks. I could often count on 73 coming in from the west or one of the locals coming in. Usually it was the Indy local or the Lafayette local. I could say it was the time when I made a name for myself. Truthfully, the name was "Bill's daughter" or later as "Cookie's sister". I didn't mind and I still don't mind.

I took lots of pictures at that time but none of them were very good. I just had a cheap brownie. I liked to take pictures of the railroaders at that time more than the trains. I didn't drive but I had an old bicycle that my neighbor rebuilt after he found it in the city dump. I got a lot of miles out of that. In later years when I was grown and would meet an old railroader, I was usually introduced as Bill Eberhard's daughter and more specifically, the older one that had the bicycle.

Lots of my Monon memories have slipped away but I have resurrected a few.

By Sharon Eberhard

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