Randy,
I gotta say I'm real happy for you!
ENJOY !!!!!
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
I'm riding on the Reading and Northern. For their Fall foliage excusrions this year they offered a cab ride option and also they are runing their Pullman heavyweight car and you could get a room on it. Since I have no real currently active railroad employee connections, I figured buying my way in was my best chance of ever getting in the cab of a locomotive that's actually moving. Since the initial announcements were made a few weeks prior, and I know these trips always sell out, I was fearing disappoinment but when I called they said there were openings on any of the trips I wanted.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
What a wonderful opportunity! I have had cab rides in diesel, steam, and electric boxcab. The steam engine was a small 2-6-2 at a tourist railroad, and what you read how some stean engines ride like a bucking bronco - believe it. I was warned not to stand in a certain place because there is a plate, or apron, between tender and cab and if you got your toe caught under that -- I think it would be goodbye toe. I needed to hang on the entire time (there was no place to sit).
The electric was interesting because even thought the speed was low, and acceleration was higher than either the steam or diesel-electric.
Dave Nelson
Hi!
Gotta ask, what RR ???
I got my first cab ride on a diesel switcher handling the chores at Mobil's Beaumont (TX) refinery - now ExxonMobil. My boss knew I was a train nut and made the arrangements without my knowledge - what a surprise. I did learn a few things, mainly that the fellows do love running trains, but goodness they have to be on their toes every minute they are working.
Sort of off subject - the wife and I are making another trip to Chama in October to ride the Cumbres & Toltec RR again. If you have never done it, I highly recommend it.
I haven't been on a cab ride since I was 14. I bummed around with a couple car inspectors in the NYC Moraine yard in Ohio. One morning they offered me a ride in the local, an SW7. It was great. This year for my birthday, my darling wife reserved the cab seats on the Royal Gorge RR in Canyon City, Co later this month!
When I was16 and had recently got my drivers license, I would regularly drive to the B&O Riverside Shops in Baltimore. The guys there got to know me well, so one day I was offered a chance to ride with the Howard Street Tunnel helper crew - they were using an F7 and a GP9 consist. I can still remember riding in that F-unit thru the tunnel, nearly suffocating in the exhaust smoke but still enjoying it, as the 567B prime mover barked in notch-8! Yeah those were the days...
Have fun on your ride!
-Ken in Maryland (B&O modeler, former CSX modeler)
I thoroughly enjoyed my cab ride in the # 3254 Mike at Steamtown a few years ago. I hope you enjoy yours just as much!!.
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
Nice. My buddy works with the Santa Excursion on Finger Lakes RR, and he sometimes gets a cab ride. I once DROVE a unit, remote controlled though. The only difference between the actual thing and my layout is, I don't have the unit. Other than that, no difference to model railroading and remotely operating a locomotive in real life, just the size. Either way, still way cool. It added to it that the unit was a former Big Blue (Conrail) B23-7, but thats just me...
Crap happens. When it does, stop, take a deep breath, and call the wreck train.
While hoboing around the country in the summer of 62, I got a cab ride in a Wabash F unit. I was walking the yard, when a train crew said to climb up in the second unit and don't touch anything. He said I would be safer there. He said if anyone said anything, he didn't know I was there. I rode in the cab for over a hundred miles, waving at people going over the crossings. I didn't care if it was the second unit.
Later, when I worked for the railroad, I got lots of cab rides. But just in yard switchers around the yard.
We do cab rides at ITM too, many peole look surprised when they find out they can.
The thing is though, cab rides can quickly become crowded. Be prepared fof a kitchen stool for a seat, or havign to stand.
And best of all, HAVE FUN
-Morgan
Very cool Randy, sounds like a blast.
I've never had the chance to ride in a cab, I want to really bad though.
Michael
CEO- Mile-HI-RailroadPrototype: D&RGW Moffat Line 1989
COOL!
We let visitors have cab rides most every time we run our antique diesels at the Rochester and Genesee Valley RR Museum. It is still the high point of the day when I get a cab ride...... The look on most kids faces when they are told they can ride in the cab is worth all the work we do out there! That goes for "kids" of all ages BTW!
73
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
Wow. Come back and tell us all what it's like to be eight years old again.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Fantastic. Bring back plenty of pictures for us.
Larry
http://www.youtube.com/user/ClinchValleySD40
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52481330@N05/
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php/cat/500/page/1/ppuser/8745/sl/c
Congratulations! So, where is this excursion? Is it diesel or steam powered? Looking forward to seeing pictures.
Craig North Carolina
Enjoy your cab ride, Randy. It will be a memory that will last a lifetime. Back in 1979 I rode in the cab of a CN passenger train for about 150 miles or so when I was returning home from a trip to a nearby city (no roads in that part of the frozen North at the time). It was one of the high spots of my life.
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
Cool!
While I rode many cab while braking it still excites me when I get a cab ride on a short line-that's after I sign several release papers..
Enjoy your ride and use your camera.
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
Make sure you take your camera(s) along and share with us.
Joe
Congratulations, keep us posted, would be wonderful to hear about your experience.
Frank
"If you need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm."
FInally - fulfilling that dream. Going on an excursion trip in October and they offered cab rides, and amazingly they weren't all sold out, so one spot is now mine.