I guess that I've been a rail road buff every since I was a very young man. My father, who was the MSC Brookhaven Hostler, would sing "Waiting on a Train" by Jimmy Rodgers when he rocked me to sleep. When I was a little older, he took me to the yard a few times and I would watch from his 50 model Dodge pickup while he serviced the SW9s. Alas, it wasn't but a few years until the MSC turned into the ICG and Pop was the serviceman at the Pearlhaven Amoco station. The service station turned into a meeting place where the "old hands" would get together and talk about the MSC. I would spend some days during the summer working washing cars and listening. During the school season, I would ride my bike over to the station and listen to Pop and "Liz" Hutto talk about their railroad days. When he was sure that I was big enough not to let anything happen to them, Pop brought out his old lockbox and handed me several images of the MSC steam locomotives. He told me all about the 140s,"his personal favorite", and how they differed from the 120s and 130s. The 150s gave them a hard time with slipping, he said. He said that you could tell what engineer was at the throttle of a particular train by the whistle as it coming through town. When the diesels came it was all different, but they still needed sand and water. The Mississippi Central faded away early in my life, but Pop could always bring it to life again.