How did we survive childhood ?...

[Tracklayer]

Hello gang.

The "Pennies on the track" thread caused me to look back at things I did when I was a kid back in the 1970s and wonder how I survived some of the things my friends and I did...

To begin with, we use to catch and climb up on top of slow moving freight trains and jump from one car to another until we went as far as we could go then climb down and jump off. I recall once when we did this and the train started going too fast for us to get off and we ended up riding it to the next town which was over twenty miles away. We jumped off when the train slowed down and called my buddy's dad to come get us. He got grounded for a month and I got banned from hanging around with him for almost a year.

We also use to have a club house in one of several side tracked cars where we kept a box full of girly books and other items people under 21 shouldn't have access to. We didn't figure the railroad would ever pull the cars away because they had been there so long that vines had grown up the sides of some of the cars, but, sure enough, one day after school we were shocked to discover that the cars were gone along with all of our stuff... After that we started hiding it all in a safer place.   

And then there was the tressle over highway 290... We use to dare each other to run across a two foot wide concrete brace that was above the highway with cars passing by underneath at over fifty miles per hour. We would also hide under it when trains came along, not considering the danger of any of it what so ever.

Once while walking past a side tracked car, I accidentally disturbed a wasp nest that was as large as a coffee saucer and had at least fifty red wasp on it. At least half of them flew out and stung me on the right side of the face, neck and arm and I had to be rushed to the hospital because I had a bad reaction to the stings.

Another time while playing on some side tracked cars, one of my buddies started turning the only brake wheel that was holding the cars in place and they started rolling, and they got going faster and faster down the hill that they were on. Finally they started rolling up hill and came to a stop on their own. We were really lucky that they didn't run off the end of the tracks that were just a couple of hundred yards farther down. 

I could go on and on about other things that we did but the moderators might not appreciate it because they're not train related and because I'm not what some might consider the best example for kids to follow after... It's just that I see people now a days as powder puffs compared to the way we were in my day. I guess what saved us was that in the backs of our minds we knew that the things we were doing were dangerous but always stayed just a hair's width this side of it. By the way, I was probably the first person in history to have his guardian angel to resign...

Tracklayer 

[jeffrey-wimberly]

Having grown up in the 60's and 70's in 5 different countries and getting into more trouble than I care to remember, I guess I was just lucky.

[Midnight Railroader]

 I could go on and on about other things that we did but the moderators might not appreciate it because they're not train related

What's the difference? You've already posted off-topic, since this is "General Discussion (Model Railroader)" and your post isn't about model railroading.

[Fergmiester]

 I could go on and on about other things that we did but the moderators might not appreciate it because they're not train related

What's the difference? You've already posted off-topic, since this is "General Discussion (Model Railroader)" and your post isn't about model railroading.

Fine! I'll make it topical!! I use to blow up my Athearn Blue Box Freight Cars with Fire Crackers in my Bed Room... Boy could those suckers fly.

[BRAKIE]

Today we are surrounded by watch dog groups,fear mongers and other do wells that feels we are incapable of looking out for ourselves....These busybody groups has mother hen us into a society of worrywarts.

Hey even model railroad items comes with warnings these days.

 Folks life is full of risk...Enjoy the day to its fullest.

[shayfan84325]

I saw that "pennies on the track" thread and thought of the dozens of times my friends and I squashed stuff.  I think of it as good clean fun, with just enough risk to keep it interesting.  None of us were ever injured and we never experienced a coin squirting out of the track/wheel interface.  My pal, Todd, and I were mischevious and always managed to exercise restraint just before we got into real trouble.  I don't understand the reasons folks today are so preoccupied with the physical safety of kids; they seem to be missing the importance of developing their spirit - much of which comes with taking risks and working through difficulties.  Regardless, I'm glad I took the risks and grew up when and where I did.

This topic reminds me of something my first wife said:  "There are worse things than dying; not living is one of them."  Dixie had leukemia, she lived a very full 25-year life.

[tatans]

Living in a city with a huge railway complex trains were a part of everyones lifem we spent  alot of time avoiding "cinder dicks" as we tresspassed on our way to school, lots of fun playing on steam locomotives that sat idling by the roundhouse, one guy even moved an engine back and forth, or was it just "forth"?, BUT we did have a lot of respect for trains, and never approached a crossing without looking both ways, we knew that freight train with 80 cars and 70mph could not stop comong downhill,  we also mastered the art of dropping stones down the smokestacks of locos while we stood on the bridge, just how did we survive, pennies on the track sounds like some mook in an office had nothing better to do than make up goofy rules about nothing.

[vsmith]

Back in my day, at the Traveltown RR museum as a kid I have vivid memories of climbing literally all over those old steam locomotives on static display there, I remember climbing the ladders to get into the cabs, walking across caboose rooftops, and walking along the running boards on the sides of the big steamers, and crawling around under the trains. Today, now they are very limited access, only the footplate and then only via a wooden stairway on the side. 

As for other kids behaving badly activities, very few train related activities as where we lived had limited rail activity, so we had to confine our bad behavior to turning an abandoned cement mixing plant into our private fort, climbing thru the wood framing of new houses in the neighboring new house tracks as our private jungle gym, repeatedly jumping from the second floor roofs onto a large sand piles below.

I will relate one kids behaving badly story that is train related, one time me and a buddy hiking up the railroad track mainline near where my buddy lived, a train came by so we did what every kid bad then did, we threw rocks at the sides of boxcars, well imaging our surprise when all of a sudden we see a guy riding in a gondola with a walkie-talkie next thing we know the train is stopping! Holy Guacamole you never saw two 9 year old run so fast in there lives! But when we got to the street there was a RR dick waiting to corral us, he read us the riot act about how many shiny new cars on auto-carriers were being damaged by rocks being thrown at them by kids along the tracks! Well sheee-oot! We didnt throw any at the autoracks, anyway somehow I guess they figured out we wernt the guys behind the past damages done so we got out of there, after being chewed out by a guy that musta been an ex-Marine DI, I dont think we ever threw rocks again after that...

PS ever wonder how we ended up with completely sealed auto carriers?

[gunkhead]

Not anymore.

[Rangerover]

Thanks for the memories! Putting pennies on the tracks, jumping a ride on frieght cars. I remember at the yard there was an old caboose off the side, the switchman/watchman would stay in there with the pot belly coal stove. He was a kind old gent, grandfatherly, never holler at us for going through the yard, and he would tell us where he'd been with his life on the rails. My mom would warn me about the hobo's under the tressles and bridges. Never heard of sex preditors though back then in the early 1950's. We would pick coal up along the tracks and use it when times were hard to keep warm in our house.

Funny how we all survived without adult supervison. Adults weren't allowed, just kids being kids and we were allowed to. Sure we got into trouble once in a while, nothing serious though but I had a lot of fun growing up back then.

My Lionel train set, funny it never wore out putting it together and taking it apart all those years. Ran it on the living room floor.

[shayfan84325]

Speaking of bad behavior, I used to work at Thiokol's Component Refurbishment Center.  Our plant repaired and refurbished the reusable components from the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Boosters (big rockets on the sides of the external fuel tank on each Shuttle launch vehicle).  We also refurbished the railcars used to transport the solid fuel rocket segments.  The covers for these cars were shaped like covered wagons and they were made of foamed plastic and fiberglass.  Occasionally, our repair folks had to fix bullet holes in the covers!

Throwing rocks at boxcars seems pretty light duty as compared to shooting at millions of dollars worth of Space Shuttle hardware, loaded with live solid rocket fuel.  Somehow, I don't believe it was just kids doing the shooting.

[0-6-0]

Hello how did I survive childhood . Barley my worst encounter with train tracks or anything was when I was 13 we were riding are dirt bikes and I though it would be cool to ride down the middle of the tracks and if you ever did this you know the faster you go the smoother it gets. NOT TRUE ! I got bounced off the bike broke my right arm,3 ribs, and cracked my skull and a ton of road rash. Never did that again and yes I had a helmet on. Be safe Frank

[wjstix]

It's odd growing up next to a rail line, I really never had any desire to hop on and ride, even though they were very slow moving freights. Always watched them go by though. There was a dirt path by the tracks near an open field with pheasants (now the football field for Holy Angels High School) and we used to throw "dirt bombs" (kinda like snowballs only made of dirt) against the sides of boxcars to watch the dirt bombs explode. Didn't do any damage but I guess I was an early proponent of 'prototype weathering'.

I do remember you could play a lot of baseball in a day if you had enough coca-cola and pixie stix to keep you going.

 

[Midnight Railroader]

Today we are surrounded by watch dog groups,fear mongers and other do wells that feels we are incapable of looking out for ourselves....These busybody groups has mother hen us into a society of worrywarts.

I think people who spill hot coffee on themselves and then sue the people who made the coffee need to take some of the blame.

By the way, for all of you saying, "WE survived," sure, YOU did. But how about those kids maimed and killed who don't come to post this kind of thing? Kinda selfish to forget about them, isn't it.

[West Coast S]

Stupid stuff, you bet, once I took my brakemans lattern and directed the local steel run toward a open switch!! Thank goodness the crew responded properly and stopped in time dispite the reduced visibilty that aided my quick getaway!! We had wild grapefruits growing in a grove next to the tracks, was interesting to see the results when one splattered on the side of a moving freight train, had to be carefull with this as a manned train order station with RR police presence was within a hundred yards of the grove.. 

Dave

[twhite]

When I was in high school in the 1950's a buddy of mine and I used to walk the old Nevada County Narrow Gauge right of way, which was still pretty well preserved (it was torn up in 1942).  Among the little adventures we used to do was to walk the Bear River trestle, which at one time was the highest steel viaduct in California--180' above the riverbed.  Now this was around 1955 or so, and the ties had been rotting on that open deck since 1942.  And we would walk the length of the bridge across the chasm and not think anything about it.  Rotten ties and all.  The height was dizzying, but the view up and down the canyon was SPECTACULAR! 

But at 15 or 16, you're indestructable, anyway.  At least we were, LOL!

And oh yah, we did the penny on the track thingie, too.  Usually about a mile off of the old bridge where the roadbed crossed under the SP's Long Ravine bridges.  Hide in the bushes along the right of way and watch those big F's roll over that penny on the downgrade.  Try and find it after 4 F's and about a mile of freight cars had rolled over it. 

Dang, it was fun. 

Tom

[mobilman44]

Hi!

I'm 64 and have many times wondered this myself - often triggered when I see adult men peddle by on their bicycles with cut off football helmets on their head!

I grew up in Chicago near the C&NW (Diversey & California ave) and was pretty much allowed free reign when I hit 11 or 12 in the mid '50s.  I was all over the C&NW racetrack that went from downtown to the northwest suburbs.  And one of our favorite "dares" was to snuggle down next to a bridge girder as a steam powered commuter train would roar by.

Also in the late '50s there was a major building of storm sewers and the Interstate - which by us was called the Northwest Expressway, later changed to "The Kennedy".  So, we spent a lot of time around those sites, and crawling around the huge open storm sewers was another major dare.  If you fell in, you would be forced miles underwater to the Chicago River.

And lastly, I got involved with pyrotechnics in 1958, and made several "bombs" and rockets and flares which I set off around the construction sights.  Ha, I could get any chemicals I wanted, for my Aunt (bless her heart) would sign anything for me!!!  Today, I would probably found myself on the way to Guantanamo or thereabouts!

As I recall some of my "activities" back then, I cringe and wonder how I made it through to adulthood.  But the funny thing is, all of my friends made it too!

Hey, thanks for the nice trip!

Mobilman44 

 

[BRAKIE]

Today we are surrounded by watch dog groups,fear mongers and other do wells that feels we are incapable of looking out for ourselves....These busybody groups has mother hen us into a society of worrywarts.

I think people who spill hot coffee on themselves and then sue the people who made the coffee need to take some of the blame.

By the way, for all of you saying, "WE survived," sure, YOU did. But how about those kids maimed and killed who don't come to post this kind of thing? Kinda selfish to forget about them, isn't it.

 

Well even with the watch dog groups and fear mongers kids are getting hurt or killed-its a fact of life kids been getting killed since the beginning of mankind.

I knew a kid that drown and another that got killed while riding his bicycle to school.Sad yes but,it happens and as kids  we couldn't change that nor live in constant fear because some poor kid died...Life must and will go on.There's no exceptions.

[SilverSpike]

Yeah, this post has me going into the way back machine to the late 1970's when some of my high school friends and I would spend summer days together. We would take the Algiers Local bus from our neighborhood down to the ferry from Algiers point and ride across the Mississippi River to Canal Street in downtown New Orleans. As we crossed the river sometimes we would run up and down that passenger/car ferry and sometimes even get to see the engine room if the engineer was away from his station.

Then once off the ferry we would walk along the yard tracks just next to the river wharf warehouses to get to the French Quarter. And for a period of more than a few months there some old out of service Amtrak passenger cars lined up and one of them was a lounge car that we would crawl into through the side service hatch. The car was mostly trashed out, but we would play around in that lounge car for hours at a time, and none the wiser for what could have happened or what might have gone wrong. Not a care in the world back then, just wild abandon and carefree fun.

I can also remember playing around the wharf areas too and right next to the Mighty Mississippi with all the rip rap, flotsam and jetsam around, it was not always the safest place to play around, but we survived that too. Same goes for the playing in and around on the river side of the levee, plenty of scrap iron, cable wires, drift wood, and miscellaneous scrap to get hurt on. But sitting there watching the river boats and trains go by sure was fun back then.

Now if you go around some of these places today they are all fenced in and protected areas and you won't see any children playing around there anymore. I am sure they are off limits now.

Heck the old Sesame Street shows from the 1970's have been deemed unsafe for today's children. The DVD versions billed as "Sesame Street: Old School" released late last year has a warning that states they are intended for adult audiences only and not for the needs of today's pre-school children. According to the CBS report (see link above) the current VP of Sesame Workshop, Sherrie Rollins Westin says that the show was edgier in the early years. For example one segment had children riding bicycles without helmets and through a construction site. Today, this kind of behavior is not acceptable for modern programming. Oh and the Cookie Monster is not a good role model today because he promotes bad dieting....and today's parents are worried about childhood obesity....ugh!

Hey...I have a notion for ya....if you're children were playing outside and getting some exercise in the process maybe they would maintain a healthy weight! But that might be considered unsafe!

[wjstix]

Life is funny. A friend of mine fell off a bluff over the Mississippi, went down about 100 feet or so and just got some cuts and bruises (he was light and hit a lot of branches on the way down). Later he fell into a big fluffy snow bank running for a school bus and had to have his arm in a sling for a month.

Will Steger, the arctic explorer (who grew up about a mile from me) talked a while back about how he and his pals would go down to Woodlake and build rickety rafts to float across the lake on. Yet somehow nobody drowned.

In fact, even without wearing helmets to ride our bikes and eating peanuts and everything, no one I knew from school died until we got old enough that some of the kids started doing drugs.

[Geared Steam]

Yep I ran with scissors, I crossed my eyes and they didn't "stick", rode bikes for thousands of miles in the summer, swam in the creek with no lifeguard around. Our playground in elementary school was asphalt, our slide was 20 feet high, monkeys bars everywhere.

I didn't start losing friends to death until they started to drive cars. 

[Last Chance]

You all got the great outdoors in yer heads.

What about the stuffy basement crammed to the rafters with haz mats and that orange tube glue and a bunch of other stuff that existed LONG before a large US State started to slap a bunch of warnings on em. Hell, I recall a can of Acetone sitting some feet away from flame sources from time to time along with half the Bayonne Chemicals. Used to stagger out of the workshop to get the dinner bell screwed up from the fumes down there.

I feel fortunate that I have all my parts and they work within reason; allowing for age LOL.

Now where did I put that xacto knife and my glasses?

Now for the real trains. My earliest lessons were from my Daddy saying "Dont touch that... that's HOT!" near one of the steam engines. Hot means hot.

It aint the childhood with ignorant bliss and no knowledge of bad things around you, it's the teen years with powerful big blocks and large amounts of lead footing. THAT is what would probably kill anyone who survived childhood.

[gunkhead]

Agreed. I'm younger than a lot of you, but my Dad talks about stuff he and his brothers did(messing around on the train tracks, jumping off outhouse roofs, and all that...). If kids walked more(and could walk more), and had the bigger playground equipment to play on, they'd be more active physically. They could get their thrills trying to swing over the bar on those big, very tall swing sets instead of on video games. And the old push merry-go-rounds...when they started pulling them out back in the late 90s, I was only a kid but I spouted torrents of obscenity. After a scare in spring 2001, I sort of hid indoors. Nowadays I bear a bloated belly, thighs, and *** that I would dearly love to work off. When my bike's working again(which should be soon) I'll start.

[Packers#1]

Hey, try making it through school NOWADAYS! ()

Seriously, i should know, and believe me, it ain't fun. I've done some stupid stuff, nothing really w/ trains though. One time, we had a mound of dirt, and I braked w/ my front brakes and flipped my bike, I was laughing my head off when that was over. And I've done some stupid stuff asking girls out, don't want to go there. Ya'll had more fun back then though, can't do nothing today!

[Packers#1]

Today we are surrounded by watch dog groups,fear mongers and other do wells that feels we are incapable of looking out for ourselves....These busybody groups has mother hen us into a society of worrywarts.

I think people who spill hot coffee on themselves and then sue the people who made the coffee need to take some of the blame.

By the way, for all of you saying, "WE survived," sure, YOU did. But how about those kids maimed and killed who don't come to post this kind of thing? Kinda selfish to forget about them, isn't it.

 

Well even with the watch dog groups and fear mongers kids are getting hurt or killed-its a fact of life kids been getting killed since the beginning of mankind.

I knew a kid that drown and another that got killed while riding his bicycle to school.Sad yes but,it happens and as kids  we couldn't change that nor live in constant fear because some poor kid died...Life must and will go on.There's no exceptions.

My buddy Shayne (see sig.) was killed earlier this year when two robbers (they stole a TV) ran away in a boat , smashed into the boat my buddy was in, and he died from head injuries, I think.

[loathar]

I survived with many, many scars. Only time I ever hopped a train was the last time. My brother and I jumped off and our Dad was standing right there! MAN! Our butts were soar for a week!(you could hit your kids back then.)
Last time I walked the tracks home as a kid I got shot! 22cal. in the hand by some older kids taking target practice on us.

Geared steam-You should check out the 1966 Bill Cosby album "Wonderfulness". He does a skit about all the deadly playground equipment the parents bought for the kids to play on, including-"The Monkey Bars!"
http://music.yahoo.com/release/165805

 

[Guilford Guy]

Death is a part of life... Its that simple...

Everyone does stupid stuff... Maybe not as life threatening, but not inteligent... My friend and I are content in watching Walthers' plastic people smushed by a Geep, or old Lifelike GP38 shells destroyed by a Control Car. I don't think we've ever placed anything larger than a coin on a railhead, and we usually were granted permission by a friend *engineer* when placing locomotive shells on the rail. 

Today kids are more at risk in their homes than outside. Think of all the cases of pedophiles attacking children they met on the internet. Computers IMHO are more dangerous than out doing something fun. Phones are also things teenagers shouldn't fool with... A single prank phone call can shut down an entire railroad (don't ask me how I know this, it was a stupid stunt, not funny at all, and endangered the safety and employment of the crew).

Parents are scared by all the hype being sent around, and every parent loves their children, but death isn't preventable... People are more likely to die from drinking, getting in car accidents, or drugs, not runaway freight cars, or getting hit in the face with rocks ricocheting off  freight cars...

[jeffrey-wimberly]

This is about the stupidest thing I ever did trainwise. Back in the early 70's I (and some others) would hop one of the freights and get off at the next town. There we would mess around for a bit, hoping not to get in trouble (my parents would have skinned me if they knew) while we waited for another freight going back to Leesville. One day in 1973, my luck ran out. We were on our way back to Leesville (me and several friends) when we decided to get off near the Anacoco creek bridge, which was about 2 miles from our homes. We knew it was dangerous being that the train was moving quite fast, but we weren't thinking about that. We all knew how to tuck and roll well enough to avoid all but very minor injuries. My friends went first, all landed and rolled safely like 10, 12 and 13 year-old balls. Now it was my turn. I jumped, just I had many times before. I had the ill fortune to land with one foot in a hole and broke a leg halfway between the knee and ankle and I didn't roll, so I got banged up a bit. My friends came to my aid and helped me out of the ditch just as the last of the train passed. There, on the side of the road, was a cop. He had just finished writing up a citation and was walking back to his car. He couldn't help but notice us and being that he hadn't seen us nearby before the train came through he quickly put 2 and 2 together and came to the conclusion that we had jumped from the train. He then packed my friends into his car and called for an ambulance for me. Naturally our parents were contacted and told what had gone on. Except for school, meals and the inevitable bathroom visit I didn't see the outside of my room for three months and had no allowance for another six months. I never hopped any more trains after that summer.

[steemtrayn]

I think people who spill hot coffee on themselves and then sue the people who made the coffee need to take some of the blame.

 

Know the facts:

http://www.lectlaw.com/files/cur78.htm

[Geared Steam]

Geared steam-You should check out the 1966 Bill Cosby album "Wonderfulness". He does a skit about all the deadly playground equipment the parents bought for the kids to play on, including-"The Monkey Bars!"
http://music.yahoo.com/release/165805[/quote]

LOL "They brought in the Monkey Bars, we lost 124 kids the first week"

Thanks for the memories Loathar, my brother was a huge Cosby fan, I remenber listening to Bill. Chicken Heart and Go Cart on that same album is classic.