Remarks at the Southern Museum (April 2023 Bus Tour), April 1, 2023

This is a rough transcript.

Thank you for joining us today of this tour of the Western & Atlantic Railroad.

I’m going to presume since everybody’s here, we’re all in agreement: This is the best railroad. Right? Everyone; alright, perfect.

We’re here today for one reason; The bus is picking us up here. That’s why we’re here.

It’s also home to the southern Museum, as Richard pointed out. And as he also alluded to, we are really here today, because of the railroad; if not for the railroad, we wouldn’t be here.

Now, I’m going to say Richard stole my thunder a moment ago talking about the weather.

It landed; good, good, good. Because the weather today reminds me a little bit of an infamous Saturday; oh, I don’t know, 161 or so years ago; let’s hope that today doesn’t go exactly like that day 161 years ago.

…So, I believe we have some folks from out of town here today. I know there’s some great folks from Ohio.

Pennsylvania; I know we’ve got somebody from Texas coming. From Texas? Texas? A lot of people from Texas, good.

Anybody from Georgia? Thank you for making the journey. We really appreciate it. Whether you’re local from far away, we really appreciate it; it means a lot to the museum, and it means a lot to me personally.

For those of you who don’t know or weren’t paying attention when Richard was chatting, I am Todd DeFeo. I live a few stops down the line in Smyrna, the Western & Atlantic line. When I say line today, just resume it’s this Western & Atlantic if I don’t spell that out.

I think when they were putting this together, they called me a railroad scholar. Exactly

What does that even mean? I don’t even know what that means. But it sounds good. I’m going to start using it on my resume. Don’t ask me what it means. What I think it might mean is that I’ve been interested in railroads for a long time. I grew up in New Jersey along the Northeast Corridor.