This is an off-topic start, but I hope the moderator will permit it, and that it will inspire other to post railroad items meeting the title.
I was inspired this aftertoon to start this thread by watching children at play in a playground. The swings, the see-saw, the slides, all could have been in a similar playground that I used when I was 3 - 14. And the children behaved the same way.
Some things SHOULD'NT change David, and man could we go to town with a thread like this!
Hot dogs from Nathan's, crumb cake from the B&W Bakery in Hackensack NJ, pizza and zeppoles from Pizza Town, burgers from Hiram's Roadstand or the White Manna, I could go on and on. The neighborhood my father grew up in. Still the same as they were decades ago and please God may they never change.
This thread gives me a chance to tell a story about something I saw on the Rochelle webcam back in the spring.
There was a mother with a little boy abot two, I think. Just at the age where they can walk and run without that side-to-side wobble. They were at the firepit when an EB BNSF train came into view. The Mom walked over the the fence but the little boy went around the UP side of the firepit and started running toward the short fence at the far end. I knew what was going to happen next.
When the boy was abour six feet short of the fence and the train was coming up to the diamonds, he froze with his arms extended outwards with both hands just above shoulder height, and one foot up in the air. That little boy may not have known much, but he knew buildings weren't supposed be able to move like that, and certainly not that fast. Trains may look cool in picture books, or when he saw them from inside his car at a railway crossing, but being outside like that was a horse of a different wheelbase.
He was able to hold that position until the units were out of frame, at which point his foot came back down to the ground and he turned and ran to his mother. He managed to not burst into tears.
This reminded me of a conversation I had with my Mother. When my brother and I were very small we liked to watch the trains and watch my Dad outside to hoop and inspect them as they went by, but the fact that we were also scared of them, because of their size, really helped keep us back from them. We didn't really loose that fear until we were old enough to talk and then to understand what they were saying about keeping a safe distance away from them. It was a tricky business raising kids in a railway station.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Great posting, Balt. Engine changes were regular at New Haven, Croton-Harmon, Whtie Plains North Station, South Amboy, and Harrisburg, and I watched engine changes at these locatons on many occasions. Now dual-power locomotives, electrication extension, or just relocaton of the change, and all but elimated these, just a few occdsaions remaining. But I may have watched an engine change for the first time at age 10 in 1942 in Washington, DC, for the southbound Southerner, from electric to diesel, and this is still a regular, frequent practice there. The last one I watched was the northbound Silver Star in January 1996, diesel to electric.
The best engine changes I ever watched were in Bristol, Virginia, between N&W steam and Southern diesels.
I was able to watch the change from electric to diesel in New Haven, and I have watched the change in Rensselaer from the engine that brought a train up from Penn Station to the engine that took the train on to Toronto, and also the change in Washington.
Whatever the change, whereever it was, the procedure is essentially the same.
Johnny
BaltACD
Quick, somebody run out and get that sweet child an O Gauge starter set! MTH, Lionel, Williams by Bachman, it doesn't matter! Do it now!
There's a railfan in the making there!
PS: From now on when I come home from a crummy day on the job I'm going to watch this video. You'd have to be made of stone not to get a smile from this!
Firelock76Quick, somebody run out and get that sweet child an O Gauge starter set!
Great idea! Before she gets swept up in the Digital Age.
Today I was at one of those stores that sells just about everything. A lady was ahead of me at the register. I was pleasantly surprised to see that, in addition to her other purchases, she was buying BOOKS for her kids. Who'da thunk it in 2015? Maybe some people are actually resisting the digital revolution.
Tom
Thank You!
Great posting, should be in the printed magazine! Maybe that youngster is now part of a museum group with steam.
daveklepper I was inspired this aftertoon to start this thread by watching children at play in a playground. The swings, the see-saw, the slides, all could have been in a similar playground that I used when I was 3 - 14. And the children behaved the same way.
dakotafred daveklepper I was inspired this aftertoon to start this thread by watching children at play in a playground. The swings, the see-saw, the slides, all could have been in a similar playground that I used when I was 3 - 14. And the children behaved the same way. I get a kick out of playgrounds because of that behavior mentioned by Dave. The kids are always shrieking -- why?
NDG that was a GREAT story! Thanks so much for passing it on!
I would have KILLED to have been in that young man's place in your cab.
OK, maybe not, but what a lucky kid he was! And smart enough to realize it too.
And ACY, don't let anyone fool ya, the printed word is not dead yet! Books have no batteries to fail, no electronics to burn or wear out, take care of them and they'll be just as good 50, 75, or 100 years from now. Maybe even longer.
I'd bet there aren't too many electronic devices around today that we can say the same about.
Merci Beaucoup!
NDG: Railroad stories are dead; Long live railroad stories!
Thank you for sharing these great memories here with us old head railroaders! I retired in 2010 after almost 40 years of railroading that took me from Texas to Germany: Cotton Belt, Santa Fe, German Federal Railway, and the 1994 German government created quasi-privitized totally mismanaged (still is in 2015) German Rail. From switchman/brakeman to passenger service represenative at the Nuremberg station with my Texas accented German....y'all DON'T wanna hear that!
Love your stories NDG. Please keep'em coming!
I hired out with Cotton Belt in Dallas in 1967 after my discharge from the US Army Transportation Corps. From Saturdays AM steam-ups at Ft. Eusuts, VA during the autumn of '64 and all that steam on the German Fed from 1965 until my discharge and return to Texas in '67! I fell in love with the German 2-10-0s and this led to a new love affair with the "Russian Decs" that remained in the US and didn't go to Mother Russia!
My other big loves: Milwaukee Road Little Joe electrics with cut off buffer plates on the pilots. Sexy! Southern Pacific Krauss-Maffei German built diesel-hydralics. Clean machines!
Books I buy are for pleasure and not to nit-pik the mistakes. The emergence of color books are a blessing to modelers and us old timers too who couldn't afford color film in the 50s! Where else can you buy a trainload of memories like this today?
I don't buy magazines. If Kalmbach can't turn out 100 page Classic Trains four times a year this is their loss and my gain. I save my money! Adjust the cover price if you must to print 100 pages but give us the hundred! There is no excuse! Classic Trains should be published 6 times a year anyway!
My two cents ain't worth a shiny new penny anymore and termites attacked my wooden nickle. Brother can you spare a dime?
My late father-in-law, Lady Firestorms dad, was a BIG railfan. He had a small collection of railbooks but how he would have LOVED the Morning Sun series of books and the rail videos we (almost) take for granted. Sadly he passed away (1983) before the current crop of railfan products started hitting the market. It would have permanently solved the problem of Christmas and birthday shopping for him!
He probably would have driven my mother-in-law nuts watching railvideos!
I'm with TRBB. Instead of nit-picking said products for mistakes we should be offering thanks there's so much variety available to us today. I know I do.
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