My grandad was a telegrapher, and I spent a great of deal of time around depots and tiny mountain RR stations as a child. Grandpa had many tales about encounters and friendships with hoboes, but what I remember best is lying abed in the mountain nights and listening to the trains straining up the grades and blowing for the many trestles and tunnels which marked the Appalachian railroads. Sitting on the front porch in the evening, Grandpa and his brother, Uncle Charlie (also a telegrapher), could identify many of the engineers by their signature whistles as they blew for the half-mile tunnel through Rockyface Mountain near our home. Those whistles echo in my memory now as they echoed in the hollows then. Feeling nostalgic this morning.