Trains and childhood

[Eriediamond]

Trainjunky, are you saying I'm old ????[%-)][%-)][(-D][(-D][(-D] Not yet, but slowly getting there fast[%-)] May not be the "old days" for you now but ------------- before you know it, it will be.

[Anonymous]

I'm not old enough to have that kind of memory (my idea of a passenger train was Amtrak and mainline power a DASH-9). But here's one:

As a very young trainjunky29, my parents would take me down to the Pasadena Station to see the eastbound Southwest Chief, most commonly on Wednesday nights. I have several memories--the wooden benches of the waiting room, the vending machine in the back, but of course the best was when the train came. Like nearly everywhere else, you first saw the headlights in the distance, until the train finally came into view. It would stop, and the very first time I was down there, an engineer named Rodney invited my parents and me into the cab. I have staggered images of the locomotive: the door and passageway throught the nose, the stairs into the cab, and the map light on the ceiling (don't ask me why I remember that). Then, he gave me a Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers patch, and pen with pocket protector. What a great way to assure a future railfan's loyalty to the BLE! The next time, the engineer was Hector, who I guess held down that run because he was the one I usually saw thereafter.

Now, that line is the Gold Line light rail. I saw a picture of the last run of the Southwest Chief through Pasadena a few months ago, but at that time it came totally out of the blue. The Southwest Chief is now routed through Fullerton, and although I have ridden it more times on that line than I can keep track of, I can't help thinking that it would have been nice to ride the Southwest Chief over the Arroyo Seco trestle. Oh well....

I guess "I remember...it's gone now" stories are not just limited to the "old days."

See you around the forums,
Daniel

[joseph2]

Good story Ken.Back in 1960 the Erie ran a Santa Claus special train here in east Indiana,it was a fun way for kids to go on a train ride and talk to Santa Claus. Joe G.

[Anonymous]

Great story!! I don't have any of my own, because I am 17, but I look forward to hearing more.

[Eriediamond]

After observation of some of the questions asked from youger crowd here, I thought it would be interesting to give some recollections from us older modelers of our younger days and the fullscale trains we model. To get things started, I was raised on a dairy farm in western NY state. The Erie served or small town back then in the 40's. It was a real treat for us kids to get to town every couple of weeks or so. The town was small, no stop lights, very little traffic and you could chuck a baseball from one end to the other. At about the age of ten or so we were given our freedom to visit school friends and be on our own so to speak on these visits. Now if we happened to be in town about noon time we were in heaven, as the local freight train crew usually parked their train there on a siding to eat at the town resturaunt. We kids, usually two or three would sit on the small bank about a hundred feet from it and just stare at the steamengine in awe. We would point out to each other featurers that could be found on our Lionels and argue what did what to make it run. Once in awile we would get brave and dare one another to run up and touch it. At the age we were, that big ole steamer was just setting there, smoking, hissing and making all those unfamiliar noises for one purpose only ---- to gobble us up and eat us if we got too close. Anyhow one of us would take the dare and try to sneak up on it so to speak and just about get there when the air compresor would kick in and we'd hightail it back to the safety of the bank like the devil was after us. We did get to touch it one day though. The crew returned from their lunch and saw us. They took us around the engine and hoisted us up into the cab and even let us blow the whistle a couple of times. Not all the time, but every once in awhile those train crews would surprise us boys with an icecream cone and give an extra little toot from the whistle for us when they left. I'm sometimes sad that the kids growing up nowdays can't experience that type of bonding with trains like we did, but when they get my age they'll have different tales to tell I suppose. Thanks for letting me share this with you.