Railroad Passes

[Anonymous]

In a recent thread today Bob from the Fundynorther mentioned railroad passes.

I remember them from years back and had several. They were thumbtacked to the wall in my layout room ( read basement ).

What ever caused them to disappear?

Joe

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by nixa1
I remember them from years back and had several. They were thumbtacked to the wall in my layout room ( read basement ).

What ever caused them to disappear?
Joe

Disappear from your basement or railroads? [:D]

Real railroad passes were issued to employees and officials from other roads to travel on their passenger cars. Since there aren't many (if any) railroads operating their own passenger cars, there is no need for them these days. They continue these days mostly in the model railroad world.

I have some passes that my uncle had for traveling on CN where he worked, both he and my aunt could travel when CN had passenger trains, and I think also on VIA Rail trains for a while.

Bob Boudreau

[tatans]

I would assume the loss of railway passes may have had something to do with the complete loss of passenger train travel in North America(as opposed to the massive passenger expansions in the rest of the world) sure there are a couple of poor excuses for train travel, as long as you are willing to travel 1/2 way across a province to greet the "train". By the way, do we get our land back that was promised to the railways for providing passenger service to the nation??

[Anonymous]

Actually I only had one real railroad pass the others were passes given by a model railroader. Some of those passes were fairly elaborate some were more hummorist in there makeup. The owner of the layout had various made up titles. The were normaly given to layout visitors or as a calling card at MR club.

Maybe this was something that was done in a local area. Anyway it looks like it went out with the kerosene lantern.

Joe

[howmus]

Like a lot of railroad things passes have gone their way into oblivion. BUT! That doesn't mean they are not alive and well in Model Railroading!!! I hope to work up a pass just as soon as I find some needed material for my RR Logo. When I do, I will post how to get one.. [:D]

http://www.getnet.com/~dickg/nmra/sigs/PassExchange.html

[retsignalmtr]

when my father worked for the NYC we had two passes. one for him and one for my mother, my brother and myself. i could use it on my own without a parent with me and i could travel anywhere if i wanted to. i still have one of them and the pass that my father had from conrail when he retired.

[rogerhensley]

The Model Railroad e-Pass is alive and well. You can see samples of the ones that I have received at: http://cid.railfan.net/pass_album.html

Most of the e-Passes are about 550x350 pixels in size and come in jpg and gif formats.

[CBQ_Guy]

How does one create one of these passes?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CBQ_Guy

How does one create one of these passes?

With a computer graphics program. I did mine in a simple program that I got free with a package of computer paper - Print Shop. This program is for making greeting cards, business cards, signs, etc., and is available in much more fancier versions with many more options. But it does quite a bit, and I preferred it to my fancier Paint Shop Pro 8.1 that I use for most stuff. It's not something that you can do right away, you need to learn what any program can do.

Bob Boudreau

[CBQ_Guy]

QUOTE: Originally posted by FundyNorthern

QUOTE: Originally posted by CBQ_Guy

How does one create one of these passes?

With a computer graphics program. I did mine in a simple program that I got free with a package of computer paper - Print Shop. This program is for making greeting cards, business cards, signs, etc., and is available in much more fancier versions with many more options. But it does quite a bit, and I preferred it to my fancier Paint Shop Pro 8.1 that I use for most stuff. It's not something that you can do right away, you need to learn what any program can do.

Bob Boudreau

Thanks, Bob. I need to see some samples apparently to get an idea what I'm trying to create. Wonder what my prototype, CB&Q passes, looked like. I would think that would be a good place to start.