The holiday we know as Thanksgiving is a day set aside to be thankful for what we have. Most people think about the Pilgrims who fled persecution in Europe for their faith in God who traversed the Atlantic Ocean to a place in what is now in the U.S. state of Massachusetts, and they were thankful to God for those who survived the passage. (Not everyone survived the voyage.) Once they arrived in the New World, they had to survive. They tried to use their old ways to survive, but when the Native Americans noticed their methods, they stepped in to teach the Pilgrims how to survive. The result was an abundant feast which we call the First Thanksgiving. (The actual First Thanksgiving happened in what is now the U.S. state of Virginia, but the one in Massachusetts is the one that the holiday is modeled after as it involved a feast.) United States President Abraham Lincoln set the holiday on the fourth Thursday in November. The United States of America is one of the few nations in the world that set a day aside for Thanksgiving.
Some of you are saying, “This is nice. I enjoy Thanksgiving. I enjoy the food. I enjoy watching American football. I enjoy the day off. I enjoy hearing the story of the Pilgrims. There is one big problem. This holiday, well, no holidays have an origin with the railroad.”
That is true. As we go to our feasts, some of us ride the train. We can take the time to thank the railroad workers. Let us thank the engineer for driving the train. We can thank the porters for keeping the train nice and tidy and making sure we have clean sheets and towels. We can thank the baggage handlers who handle the baggage. We can thank the ticket masters who produce our train tickets. We can thank the conductor for keeping everything running on the train. We can thank the mechanics and maintenance workers for repairing and maintaining the trains to keep them running. We can thank the track workers for keeping the railroad tracks in good working order to prevent derailments. We can thank the police and emergency workers for keeping us safe. We can thank the yard workers who put our trains together as well as moving train cars in the yards. We can thank the cleaning people for keeping the trains clean. We can thank the chefs who cook the food and the waiters who serve us.
Some of you are saying, “That is nice, but there have been times when the trains have been late.”
True, but we thank those who work hard to get the trains back on time.
We also thank those who are curators and museum workers who work at the railroad museum. We also thank those who preserve the photos and old papers from the railroad.
Now I wish all of you a HAPPY THANKSGIVING, and if you do not live in the United States of America, enjoy the day anyway. If you must work on this day, thank you for your service.
John Cowgill: Stories of the Railroad 