Personal Rail Stories

[ROBERT VAUGHAN SR]

I remember going to work with my dad, who worked at the freight yard in Brooklyn NY on 65th street. I would watch the switchers run all day. his One day one of the engineers asked me and my brother if we wanted to ride the loco, I said sure! The story behind that was there was a larger loco on the float bridge that was about to fall in the Hudson Bay and we were going to hook up with and pull this  loco back on the main. As we approach the float the engine started to tilt down ward, the closer we got the greater the tilt. Finally the engineer said let it go, if we got any closer we would have been in the bay. I will never forget that story and I was only 6 years old.

Bob

[rogerhensley]

I joined the U.S. Navy in 1959 and was sent to RTC Great Lakes (Recruit Training Center) for my initial training. At that time, the passenger trains of the individual railroads were still running and you could board the New York Central for Indianapolis or St. Louis or Cleveland. You could even take it to New York if you wished all from the Big Four station on Main Street.  The Pennsylvania Railroad ran from Cincinnati to Chicago and that is exactly what I needed when it was time to come home on Leave. In fact, when I left RTC Great Lakes and moved across the road to NTC (Naval Training Center) for my electronics schooling, I rode the Pennsy at least once a month from Chicago to Anderson and back.

The Pennsylvania station was on the hill at 9th and Fletcher. Down by the ‘tunnel’ (underpass) was at least one bar and across the street was what had been good hotels in better days. My mother and father would meet me at the station at 4 or 5 in the morning when I came in on Friday night and take me back to the station on Sunday afternoon to catch the train back to Chicago. I remember catching the 11 PM train out of Chicago Union Station. As part of it continued on to Florida after reaching Cincinnati, it was long and I would walk through the steam swirling in the lights of the platform looking for my coach in the hustle and bustle of travelers and porters and Red Caps. Trains were heated with steam from the engine back then. The train carried both sleepers and coaches and when I found my coach, a Conductor would check my ticket to be sure that I was where I was supposed to be. I then found a seat and settled in for the trip. I always had trouble sleeping until after we were moving and leaving Chicago. Other travelers never seemed to have that problem. They could drop off almost immediately, but I liked seeing the city at night as the lights flashed by, as we would pass the grade crossings and home and factories.

As we began to move through the darkness, a Conductor would come through and punch our ticket and after a while, dim the lights for those who were sleeping. And then there was the almost gentle rocking of the car on the tracks as we moved through the night and I would occasionally rouse from sleep as we went through one town or another. When we came nearer to Anderson, the Conductor would come through the car announcing the stops. “Elwood. Next stop, Elwoood,” and “Frankton. Next stop Frannkkkton,” and then I was home pulling past Cross Street and across Broadway and slowing for the passenger station. Through the night, the lights of the PRR station seemed to welcome me as I peered out the window looking for my family. The Anderson sign on the end of the station would come into view and my family was there looking for me with a big wave and smile as they spotted me through the large glass windows of my coach. A conductor was always at the door helping us to dismount to insure that all of the ladies and gentlemen left the car safely.

 

As our family greeted each other and headed for the car, there would be a brief flurry of baggage and mail handling. Outgoing had all been on carts waiting at the proper location to be load and unloaded. By the time we drove from the lot, the Conductor would be calling his ‘All Aboard.’ Soon the throb of the diesel motors would increase and the train would pull swiftly out of the station Southbound carrying still sleeping travelers heading for points south and vacations in Florida. The few remaining people on the platform would move away and the station would once again be still. In the dark of night, it was difficult to see the faded condition of the Pennsy station and equipment. Then, all seemed well with the world and the railroads as dawn was breaking as we drove home.

 

[peahrens]

In 1957 (age 7) we visited Sidney NE where grandma lived.  My deceased granddad had been a UP switcher engineer there.  And grandma's dad had been a supervisor on UP tracklaying on a 2nd line.  I remember taking the train from NYC to Chicago to Sidney.  But all I recall about the trains in Sydney was us kids going to the train area and getting in a caboose.  I think they may have put more locos on there to take on the mountains to the west, but I don't know. If I saw any steamers I don't recall, unfortunately.  

I grew up in Manhattan until age 13.  In the 50's my friends & I walked the NYC along the Harlem River in the Bronx, up to Spyten Dyvil at the Hudson.  Walking around a freight yard one day a worker challenged us, found our interests high and told us to come back Sunday AM.  We did and the workers rode us around in a switcher (SW7 or so) and let us drive it.  Another day we went to the shops at Harmon on Hudson and were caught walking around.  The shop foreman interviewed us, assessed our true interests, and took us out and rode us up and down in a GP unit.  The workers were drinking beer as I recall, thought I could not swear to it.  Another time we were at Spyten Dyvil and waved to a stopped train headed by F units.  We asked for a ride and the workers agreed, taking us downtown on the east side.  We had to take a subway home. 

In NJ, early 60's, I recall chasing a Reading Iron Horse Ramble excursion in a train club guy's TR-3.  I had a 8mm camera that I set on the tracks and the train rode over it.  Wish I still had the films. 

Lately, I took an Amtrack trip with  my grandson last year, from Ft Worth to Chicago to DC.  We visited the B&O museum in Baltimore, Steamtown in Scranton and Strasbug RR & Pennsylvania RR museum.  We saw many Baldwin steamers on the trip, which my Mom's dad might have had a hand in building at the Phila Baldwin works up until 1927.

Good memories.

[farrellaa]

I was about 12 years old, living in New York State about 15 miles north of NYC. I use to go on day long excursions down by the RR tracks along the Putnam Division of the NYC, play in the creek (Saw Mill River) and just have fun. One day I was under a small steel girder bridge that crossed the river (about 10 feet wide at this point) and a steam engine came along. I thought the world had just crashed in on me. Was that ever so loud and the dust and cinders came down on me. I never was so frightened and won't forget it either.

   -Bob

[Anonymous]

When I was a little more than a toddler, my dad used to take my older brother and me to the train station, while mom and my older sister stayed home for the weekend house cleaning chores. Those trips usually started with a ride on a streetcar - one of those old fashioned 4-wheeled things with wooden benches along the sides. Whenever the car came to a stop, we would be sliding back and forth on those benches, which meant a lot of fun to me, but not to my dad, expecting damage to the back of my pants. The visit to the station was really an adventure for us kids, as the main motive power in those days in the late 1950´s was steam. Trains came into and left the station every couple of minutes, so there was lots to see. I remember one day, when my dad lifted me up into the cab. The engineer let me seat in the driver´s  seat for a few moments and then let me stand up in front of the fire door. When he opened it I leaped backwards, landing in a bed of coal. You bet I did not look very nice when my dad finally took me back to the platform. This afternoon, my vocabulary was extended by quite a few new words when my mom saw me.

[rdgk1se3019]

I worked in the backshop of the Strasburg RR for 9 months.

 

Spent 3 months on a track crew for East Penn RR.

 

Both places treated me like I was stupid......in fact several people at both places told me to my face that I was.

 

Strasburg worked on a couple of locomotives for the Disney Co.   but I heard they screwed them up.

Neither place would I recommend working for.........to many clicks and arrogant people that think they are better than everyone else.

["JaBear"]

Gidday Bob, a belated to the forum.

My early memories are going with the rest of my class and waiting in turn to get up on the foot plate of, what in later years I worked out was) a NZR A Class Pacific, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZR_A_class_(1906),no where near as big as a N&W A class of course , but very big and exciting for a very small chap, especially when they ran over a couple of torpedo’s that the guard had set on the track when leaving. Unfortunately it was the last train in that village as it was a work train that was pulling up the track from the branch line.

However The South Island Main Trunk ran through the village I lived closest to and I would go down with my parents to the local grocery store, where being a farming district, the locals would get together on a Friday evening for a yarn, while us kids would wait outside, if it was not raining, for the Ja Class, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NZR_JA_class, hauled Southern Limited Express to go blasting through. I can’t do justice in writing to explain a steam engine at speed with over 300 tons on the drawbar, but it is still clearly pictured in my mind, especially as, at the time we youngsters thought that, the driver was blowing the whistle just for us, and when we got a casual wave ,well we had been acknowledged by kings.

 

 Cheers, the Bear.

[gmpullman]

One of my first (of many) memories of "real" railroading happened when I was about eight years old. My dad would take me to a pedestrian stairway from an overpass descending to the yard office at the west end of Collinwood Yard on the New York Central just east of Cleveland.

While standing on the landing one day, the engineer of a yard crew hollered up "Hey, kid! You wanna' ride?" Needless to say I was climbing up those handrails in a matter of seconds.

Next thing I know, he has me in his seat and says, "here's the reverser, you push this forward, then S-L-O-W-L-Y move this lever, the throttle, back." I remember that we were pushing a cut of cars because I asked him how can you see where we're going? He said not to worry that there were other guys on the far end of the cut.

Then he tells me, "OK, you better stop now, we're running out of track!" But, you didn't TELL me how to stop I holler!!!

I remember the instant feeling of terror... we're going to CRASH! Never once realizing that the engineer was having a fun time scaring this little boy out of his pants! He finally leaned over, pushed back the throttle and applied the independent... Whew! He let me stay in the cab for another hour or so and my eyes were as big as saucers taking it all in!

I committed that engine number to memory... NYC 9512. Turns out it is an NW-2 that the NYC bought from the N.Y., O. & W. formerly their #127 http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/nyow/nyow127ade.jpg It even survived into Conrail as the 9177. http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cr/cr9177agb.jpg

Now that I think about it, I'll have to get a model of this engine for my roster

Since then I've had hundreds of great railroad opportunities, but this one will always rank up there with one of the fondest! Thanks for asking! Ed

[Isambard]

Thanks for starting this thread Bob. Great stories from all!

My dad worked for the CPR's Sleeping, Dining and Parlour Car Department (SD&PC), and as he was promoted we moved across Canada, from Vancouver to Moose Jaw in 1945, then Winnipeg in 1951 and then Montreal in 1952.

About 1943 I enjoyed my first ride on a steam locomotive – very exciting indeed. Together with my dad we rode in the cab of a CPR "Royal Hudson" as it travelled from the majestic passenger station on West Cordova Street to the engine roundhouse on Drake Street, beside False Creek, running through the tunnel under downtown Vancouver. The station and much of the tunnel are now part of the SkyTrain system.  

My next cab ride was about 1948, again in a Royal Hudson, between Moose Jaw and Swift Current. I was allowed to pull on the whistle cord, being told that it cost 25 cents per blast. :).

In 1949 my dad was posted to Banff for the summer to manage department activities there, in view of the heavy seasonal passenger train traffic. We moved there as a family and I spent a good deal of time at the train station.

Many of us turned out on the Banff station platform in June/July to see the last steam locomotive delivered to the CPR, Number 5935, a 2-10-4 Selkirk, on its maiden run through from Calgary to Revelstoke. We knew that the age of steam locomotives was drawing to a close.  Number 5935, is now preserved at the Canadian Railway Museum (ExpoRail) in St. Constant, across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal. I have several photos of me sitting in the fireman’s seat of 5935, taken several years ago, which bring back memories of that summer lng ago.

Another day I rode behind the fireman in the cab of what was probably a 5400 series 2-8-2 Mikado on the run from Banff to Field BC. We ran past Lake Louise, crossed the Continental Divide, just west of Hector on Wapta Lake and dropped down the "Big Hill" in the Kicking Horse Pass, running through the two famous spiral tunnels to Field, on the flats of the Kicking Horse River. We arrived in Field with acrid smoke pouring out from the train brakes, a usual occurrence for trains descending the steep grade. I was treated to a piece of blueberry pie in the crew canteen near the station before I was handed over to the engine crew of an east bound train. This time the locomotive was a Selkirk, perhaps even Number 5935. We moved out of the Field yard, almost immediately the engine beginning to work very hard – very noisy, lots of steam and smoke blasting out. In the cab the noise became very intense and the temperature climbed to well over 100 degrees F as we ran through the long tunnel under the nose of Mount Stephen and up through the spiral tunnels. In the tunnels we shut the cab windows, doors and roof hatches and covered our faces with clean cotton rags to protect against the hot oily exhaust smoke fumes that infiltrated the cab, quickly throwing open these as soon as we emerged from the tunnels. As we crested the Big Hill and reached the level grade near Hector a large moose appeared on the track ahead of us, fortunately able to out easily pace our still slowly moving train for a short distance before lurching off to the side.

I've drawn on my memories of those cab rides in writing "Tales from the Grizzly", a series written for my own amusement. The climb up through the Spiral Tunnels and the Big Hill is part of "A Winter's Tale - December 1942".

Happy Rails to all!

 

 

 

 

 

[BRAKIE]

When I was seven(1955) I would grab my Kodak Brownie camera hop on my bike and off I would go to either the Columbus Union Station,the front street bridge or one of the MOW service roads in the massive Cleveland Ave yard which was made up of several smaller yards.

On one such trip I watch a PRR J1 lift a 160 car coal drag out of Penn/Nor yard only to stall on a curve with a slight grade..I never will forget the wheel slip sound as the engineer tried in vain to restart the train.The J was removed and replaced with a consist of Sharknose A-B-B-A..

Today all but,the Front Street bridge is gone.

 

I found out later the train consist was 160 loads from my Uncle Bill..He was working the CA&C yard that day...

 

[BroadwayLion]

One Picture, etc., etc. ...

About six years later, I joined the Navy.

Talk about the train to the plane... (That is Vietnam it the background.)

 

Oh well, let the LIONS ROAR

[russ_q4b]

My earliest rail memories was taking the Seaboard Airline from Atlanta to New York every year to visit my grandparents.  What I remember most was dreading the walk between our sleeper compartment and the dining car, those rattling diaphrams always scared me.   I also remembered being pulled by the GG-1 and that long tunnel before Penn Station.   Dispite the noisy diaphrams that annual train ride was by far the most exiting times in my early childhood.

When I was 7 we moved to Richmond Va. and my dad decided New York was close enough to drive.  That was a major disapointment to me.   Fast forward 10 years and I was biking with my boy scout troop on the C&O which paralleled the B&O east end.   We saw plenty of trains and got very little sleep because the night trains would rattle the ground we slept on.   I got bitting many of times by mosquitos and I also got bitten by the B&O bug.  35 years later I still have not recovered from the B&O bug.

[crhostler61]

I grew up just outside of Reading PA about a block from Conrail's 'Hill Track'. Known from earlier days as Temple hill. As a kid in the 60's I watched many Reading trains on the hill going to or coming from Allentown. In February 1971 my dad made arrangements to ride on a Reading Company local with his cousin John...got to ride Rdg RS3 #448 from Topton. I went to Philadelphia many times with my dad riding RDC' and the FP7 push pull...also did a few fan trips pulled by the FP's. Became a die hard railfan throughout the late 70's and well into the 80's which got me to many areas of the US (this is how I ended up in Nevada). I also had the privilege to volunteer on the restoration of those very FP7's for a few years in the mid 80's. I just have too many stories.

I was hired by Conrail in 1988 as a locomotive electrician and also spent considerable time hostling. (My screen name here) Stayed there till 1994 when I got married and moved to Nevada. Went to UP for about 16 months. Not an experience I want to remember)

Mark H