"Who Gets To Fargo First?" by Bill Kuebler

[The Commodore]

The Fast Trains edition came in yesterday and I really enjoyed the article by Bill Kuebler.  What a lucky young guy he was to be able to ride all those freight trains with his mentor.  I wonder how many other kids were able to ride either in the cabs and/or caboose?

   Years ago Mr. Purdy allowed a student of mine (who was celebrating his 12th birthday) to ride for about 125 miles in the cab of engine 765 on a steam outing out of Chattanooga.  I told Mr. Purdy that I sure would like to ride in the cab as well and he told me you are not turning 12 today.  The 765 was one fine engine capable of hauling a 100 coal hoppers at 70 mph.  She had about 15 heavy weight passenger cars on this trip.  

    Fast Trains was a great edition and enjoyed seeing something on the other early streamliner, i.e., M-10001.

 

[route_rock]

  Loved the story!! It was a nail biter and all I can say is wow. Never see that on todays roads. The fast running ,caboose ops,and kids being allowed to go on trains like that. I have heard other stories like this ( not as exciting) with kids riding on the trains.

  I enjoyed the entire book.The story of IC's hotshots was awesome. I liked reading also about the 3 way race to the twin cities. Hard to imagine running above 80 mph on the stretch from Dubuque to PDC!! I had days were I wished we could be doing that just to get to Lacrosse and get off the train ( one of our longer runs out of Galesburg and if it was late at night it was boring as heck) Too bad we cant go back to the days of faster times, or at least where atrain can make it over the road and not die outside a terminal.

[The Commodore]

 To: route_rock,

  Did you work for the Rock Island?  I'm not really familiar with the old railroad in the upper midwest.  Mainly, I traveled on Southern, ACl,Seaboard and NYC and Pennsylvania.  What jobs did you have with the railroad?

All the best,

Michael

 

 

[route_rock]

  Didnt get to work for them sadly. I work for BNSF and have been everything from a switchman,brakeman,Hostler,conductor, and finally engineer. I am hoping over to a closer to home railroad at this time.

  I grew up In Orion Il and that was on the old Rock Island & Peoria. Being that close to the Quad Cities and having a lot of family that rode the Mighty Fine Line, plus an uncle that was a switchman there, kinda made me a BIG Rock fan.