Reading Railfan Weekend, 1987 | Accordion Solo, I've Been Working on the Railroad

Accordion Solo by George Gibilisco at the Blue Mountain & Reading Railfan Weekend, 1987!
Sole Credit for this amazing video goes to Bill Kauffman, copyright 1987. This is his work for the BM&R - I merely chopped it down for the Accordion Solo, because I enjoy listening to it!
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[@ReadingandLehigh]

At 00:45 and 01:55, sits my grandmother: Helen N. von Klemmer, nee Grookett - at this time, Head Nurse of the Community General Hospital in Reading, Pa. This woman was the Head of our Family, and taught my most of what I know. She helped me to appreciate history, and to love trains (helped, of course, by my grandfather, mother, and father, railfans all!). I remember when she would take me into Reading, to the hospital to get her paycheck, and we would sit at the cut that went right past the ER (behind the old Ambulance building) and watch then-Conrail trains come and go. She would lament that in her time, she saw Reading steam move more tonnage, far faster!
I have a few memory flashes of this fabulous weekend: we were all there, and we had such fun. We went to the Shops and saw the night photography of the 2102 coming out from the place of its birth, backlit by the Shops' lights - you could easily believe it was 1948. The 425 sat there as well, with a sleek Tuscan red PRR E-8 nearby.
Sadly, my father would be dead in 2 years, and my grandfather in 3. I lost Nan a few years ago.
Why do I like trains? Because they are more than steam and steel, moving from place to place. They are living connections that transcend time, and allow to remember the friends and family we watch them with. In their smoky innards live those memories, which call forth with the sounding of the whistle. These fire breathing beats carry our memories with the freight and passengers they haul.
Bless the Reading, and the Reading and Northern for allowing 2102 to live again.
- A Reading Railfan