There is no such thing as a bad day of railfanning. So many trains, so little time.
Have fun with your trains
QUOTE: Originally posted by cpbloom .........you may never EVER see a caboose at the end of a train. [:(] Oh, and you missed Conrail, Chessie System and Santa Fe.
Pump
Originally posted by chad thomas Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply chad thomas Member sinceJanuary 2005 From: Ely, Nv. 6,312 posts Posted by chad thomas on Friday, April 1, 2005 12:46 PM WOW Mark !!! Well said . I will have to save this one for the next time sombody asks "why trains, whats the big deal ?" Reply chad thomas Member sinceJanuary 2005 From: Ely, Nv. 6,312 posts Posted by chad thomas on Friday, April 1, 2005 11:15 AM I'm with Mark on this one. I think railfanning is more interesting than ever. Sure I miss things from the past. I mostly miss the accessability of the people on scene. But there is far more accessability to railroaders on forums like this one. The information age is a big benifit for railfans. And it will only get better. Photography is a lot easier today than in the past, especialy video. And like Mark points out there is so many more books available on the subject. And lets not forget the video market. There is video on just about everything these days. For just a few dollars you can see parts of the world that would otherwise be beyond reach. And as far as equiptment goes we have as much variety as there ever has been at any one point in time. Just look at intermodial alone, how many different platform & well configurations there are. Not to mention roadrailers. And how about those trough trains, and aluminum coal cars. We have autoracks,coil steel cars, and tank cars of many different designs. And look at the variety of passenger equiptment today. And what about specialty equiptment like track geometry cars, weed sprayers & rail grinders. And the locomotives. To some it might seem every train has just another wide cab on it. Look at how many different wide cab models there are, its hard to keep up these days. And what about lease units. In my early days there were no lease units (not like today). Now there are many loco leasing companys. Then theres the oddball rebuilds of a multitude of varieties. And theres lots of support equiptment and systems that are interesting that didn't exist back then. Talking defect detectors, AEI systems, rear end telemetry devices, flange oilers and switch heaters (just to name a few) are all subjects I find interesting. Not to mention the state of the art dispatching equiptment used today. I think theres a lot more to explore in todays railroading. Reply gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Friday, April 1, 2005 10:37 AM I am really happy that railroads are doing much better now than in the past--a point I readily concede. And, I am not contending railroads are uninteresting now. I spend way too much time on here if I thought they were uninteresting. I can't stand the fact that I am disagreeing with Mark on the first time I have had the privilege of reading one of his posts in quite some time, but: (1) Yes. We have more access to like minded people. But, I think we have less (recent) things for like minded people to discuss. (2) Yes. We have a greater physical ability to travel. But, that is substantially diminished by our limited access to tracks due to legal, terrorism concerns, and railroads' efforts to retreat from the public's eye. (3) Yes. We have more media (probably the best development of the hobby). But, there seems to be less (recent) variety for the media to report. (4) Yes. There is definitely more traffic, which makes train watching more fulfilling. The traffic today is interesting, and I love watching it. But, the traffic we get now is so much less personal. The 4-6 trains on the line we once had had a great personal quality to it. I find less personality in an intermodal stack train. (5) I can’t really speak to the access. Growing up in Illinois, access was always available to me. If anything my access is more restrictive now because of legal restrictions. I really am not bad mouthing the hobby. I still love it (I find the business end of railroading as interesting now as it was in the past). I just can’t imagine what in today’s world replaces seeing a train climb Madison Hill, street running, or seeing RS-3s mixed in with covered wagons. Eeyore Reply oltmannd Member sinceJanuary 2001 From: Atlanta 11,971 posts Posted by oltmannd on Friday, April 1, 2005 9:47 AM I'd say things are different, but hardly less interesting. I was born in 1956 and saw lots of neat stuff, but railroads were dying. The tracks were sinking into the swamp. Business was drying up. Passenger trains were disappearing. Amtrak was no great shakes, at least for the first 6-7 years. The equipment was in terrible shape. Trying to find a cool car in the summer on the NEC was a challenge. Nobody was talking about high speed rail, emerging corridors or anything rail related. There were no commuter trains in LA and Seattle. No trolleys in San Diego, St. Louis or Portland. Then, in 1980, railroads had a chance to become relevent again, and lucky for us, they did. We get to see 150 mph Acela trains. We have 4 (relatively) healthy large frt RRs. We have a zillion interesting shortlines (even if a bunch of them are owned by the same corporations) We have commuter service and light rail sprouting up all over. Amtrak has decent equipment - an it is still in decent shape, even for it's age and Amtrak's troubles. We are having converstaions about how to make Amtrak better more often than how to kill it. The frt RRs themselves are even more interesting to look at. The variety of frt cars is much greater now. The loco paint schemes are better than the early 70s (PC and NW black anyone?) And most importantly, the RRs are doing a real job, needed by the economy and being paid for it. -Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/) Reply spbed Member sinceDecember 2001 From: Austin TX 4,941 posts Posted by spbed on Friday, April 1, 2005 8:55 AM I will attest how it easy it is now to access rail fan spots. [:)][:D] Early May Nebraska Late May UT/ID/WY Late Aug Nev & California. My rail fanning experiences only begn like 3 years ago. Living in a non RR spot in my youth + no car nor no $$$$ made rail fanning in my youth/ teenage years. Then came marriage & children. Only recently has become my opportunity to get my RR thrills. [8D][:D][:)] Originally posted by Mark_W._Hemphill Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Friday, April 1, 2005 7:48 AM I am glad to see this thread got so many responses. And, it has been great reading everyone's thoughts on this subject. Furthermore, I agree with Mook, there is an element of nostalgia. But I think it is more than that. I think the hobby is less interesting now. I like SD-70s, in any of their derivations, I like watching an intermodal train at speed, that is as good of a part of rail fanning as it ever was. You just don't have the depth to the hobby that you once did. It is not that the SD-70 is worse than the SD-40-2. But, I can think of 30 (I am not exaggerating) other engines that you could expect to see in regular service with the SD-40-2. There are probably about 10 that you would expect to see in regular service now days. We only have 7 major class ones to read about and watch now. I am not contending that what we have now isn't good. I am contending that there is less of the good around now days and more importantly, the things that are disappearing seem to be the more interesting things to rail fan. Gabe Reply gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Friday, April 1, 2005 7:38 AM Originally posted by AlcoRS11Nut (6) I think ALCO is a discount store. GABE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD YOU..............I'M CRUSHED!!!!! [:D][;)] [/quote/] I was being sarcastic, not sardonic Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Friday, April 1, 2005 7:07 AM Gabe- I'm not that old an old timer but I do remember the walk to school...with snow... both ways... bare foot (us Connecticut folk are hardy). I guess what I miss nowadays is stuff that younger fans wouldn't miss because they won't get exposed to it. That is the human side of railroading. I was a pest to the stationmaster/tower operator in Guilford, Connecticut in the late sixties. He coerced the local way freight crew to let me up in the cab of the aging (even brand new stuff on the NH was aged, it seemed) ALCO road switcher. My dad and the conductor (who worked out of a caboose) even conspired to let me take a trip with the way freight... but it ran on school nights and fell through. Now the tower is gone. The century old station has been replaced by a very nice bus stop type thing. There is no way freight any more. There is no brakeman, no switchman, no fireman. No stationmaster, either. Engineers were guys that had been doing this stuff for millenia, it seems, and conductors- passenger or freight- sat on the right hand of the Lord. That's why I like these forums, and why I subscribe to TRAINS. There's an Ed, or a CSXEngineer, or a Mark Hemphill, who put the human side of railroading back into what would otherwise be a large industrial operation. There's a reason why they do what they do... besides money... and it's folks like that that are a vanishing breed of people. Trains are bigger, faster... cleaner... but they are now big machines run by a couple of guys (or gals) who are often too busy to wave... or too suspicious of what it is you are doing. That's part of my youth I miss, and I wonder how I can get my grandchildren interested in railroads when there aren't people around to add a human touch. Erik Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Friday, April 1, 2005 2:51 AM For what it's worth... I remember the last of the F-7s pulling passenger trains as a kid. I also remember SD-9s when they ruled the rails, and when GP-40s first came out. Where did the time go ?. trainluver1 Reply Edit Sterling1 Member sinceFebruary 2002 From: Traveling in Middle Earth 795 posts Posted by Sterling1 on Thursday, March 31, 2005 11:20 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz The same can be said of the railroaders of today compared to even 25 years ago. Although in many ways railroading was much more difficult then, it was also much more interesting. I remember how thrilled we (the crew) we were when our locomotive actually had a radio! No more trying to find in the darkness lineside phones to call the dispatcher. I remember how nice it was to get a SD40-2 with dynamic brakes in my train. I remember the interesting combinations of power we were expected to get over the road with (6 unit consist, 3 of them working with 2 of those not making transition). I remember trying to grab the floppies (train orders) at 50mph in the middle of the night (and what we had to go through if we missed). I remember thinking nothing of it to let some train fans up into the cab, and take them for a ride around the yard. I remember 5-man train crews. And cabooses (cabeese). I remember how much more challenging it was operating a train when you had two men in the caboose that you had to be concerned about when considering the various ways to handle a train, so as to not injure the men in the caboose. Were they the "good old days"? I'm not sure; in some ways yes, in some ways no. And just think, 25 years from now, you younger folks will be telling similar stories to the next generation of fans and railroaders. I'm only 51, but I remember my parents had only one tv, and it was black & white. The fridge had to be defrosted every month. The milkman came daily. There was no central air. What's a computer? What's a remote control? Gas was 29 cents per gallon, and you could actually see the road under the car if you looked in the engine compartment. In 1985 I bought my first computer. It had a 4.77mhz clock speed, with a whopping 20MB hard drive, a 5 1/2" floppy drive, and EGA graphics. And it was nearly top-of-the-line at the time! Only 20 years ago!! Time flies when you're having fun. True, true, True My parents lived pretty much the same way. My father was an architect who used a slide rule before that became obslete Did most of his math by hand because calculators weren't cheap. Computers were run with punch cards, a chore my father says when doing it overnight and the system screwed up for some reason and you yourself had to figure out the problem. I may only be a transitioning teen with high tech plans, but I still enjoy the old stuff from 1950s-present and some steamers and electrics famous or not. Matt "There is nothing in life that compares with running a locomotive at 80-plus mph with the windows open, the traction motors screaming, the air horns fighting the rush of incoming air to make any sound at all, automobiles on adjacent highways trying and failing to catch up with you, and the unmistakable presence of raw power. You ride with fear in the pit of your stomach knowing you do not really have control of this beast." - D.C. Battle [Trains 10/2002 issue, p74.] Reply mustanggt Member sinceOctober 2002 From: Massachusetts 664 posts Posted by mustanggt on Thursday, March 31, 2005 10:20 PM Basically all i have seen are 4 axle engines. All F40's, GP40's and GE P42's. Makes me wish I lived out west. I have never seen an SD in person. I have never seen several things. Like an auto rack, or even a well car. Or a CSX train. Is anybody else deprived of trains like me? C280 rollin' Reply AlcoRS11Nut Member sinceJuly 2002 From: Stevens Point 436 posts Posted by AlcoRS11Nut on Thursday, March 31, 2005 8:55 PM (6) I think ALCO is a discount store. GABE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD YOU..............I'M CRUSHED!!!!! [:D][;)] I love the smell of ALCo smoke in the Morning. "Long live the 251!!!" I miss the GBW and my favorite uncle is Uncle Pete. Uncle Pete eats Space Noodles for breakfast. Reply CopCarSS Member sinceAugust 2002 From: Turner Junction 3,076 posts Posted by CopCarSS on Thursday, March 31, 2005 5:43 PM Gabe, I share your pain, man. Probably the hardest thing for me to accept is the fact that I never got to see regular, workaday steam. It existed for ever so brief a time in my lifetime (I was born in 1980, I think Northwestern Steel and Wire dropped the fires from their 0-8-0's for the last time in 1981 or so). When I was in my pre-teen and teen years it was a thrill to see an unmodified Geep 7 or 9. Making a trip out to Clinton, IA and seeing the CNW Geeps out there was as good as it got. I also remember thinking that the world was over-run with SD40-2's and GP38-2's. Now I find myself relishing anything trackside with a standard cab, and thinking the world is run by 70MAC's and -9's, and AC's. But I've also learned to appreciate the later generation stuff. Think about it. GE's service lives aren't the greatest, and who knows what's going to happen to EMD under their new management. I'd hate to see myself in 20 years saying, "Man I wish I had shot more of those 70MAC's. Who knew EMD would be out of business by 2025?" The late Don Ball Jr. had some interesting comments about the same type of thinking in his books. As he said in one of them (America's Railroads, the Second Generation maybe?), and I paraphrase since I don't remember the exact quote, as long as it's a steel wheel on a steel rail it's good. There may no longer be SD9's on Madison hill, but for me, there's still AC's, and 9043MAC's struggling with the tonnage up the Moffat line. There may not be many ALCO's, but there's some Pumpkin GP30's that make it out on the Coors line every now and again. There may not be F units, but there's still the Ski Train F40PH's painted in a lovely shade of D&RGW yellow. There may not be regular steam, but there's the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic that comes awfully close. The 1950's may not be around anymore, but there's still railroading, and that's good enough for me![^] Chris Denver, CO -ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams Reply 123 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Originally posted by Mark_W._Hemphill Living nearby to MP 186 of the UPRR Austin TX Sub Reply gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Friday, April 1, 2005 7:48 AM I am glad to see this thread got so many responses. And, it has been great reading everyone's thoughts on this subject. Furthermore, I agree with Mook, there is an element of nostalgia. But I think it is more than that. I think the hobby is less interesting now. I like SD-70s, in any of their derivations, I like watching an intermodal train at speed, that is as good of a part of rail fanning as it ever was. You just don't have the depth to the hobby that you once did. It is not that the SD-70 is worse than the SD-40-2. But, I can think of 30 (I am not exaggerating) other engines that you could expect to see in regular service with the SD-40-2. There are probably about 10 that you would expect to see in regular service now days. We only have 7 major class ones to read about and watch now. I am not contending that what we have now isn't good. I am contending that there is less of the good around now days and more importantly, the things that are disappearing seem to be the more interesting things to rail fan. Gabe Reply gabe Member sinceMarch 2004 From: Indianapolis, Indiana 2,434 posts Posted by gabe on Friday, April 1, 2005 7:38 AM Originally posted by AlcoRS11Nut (6) I think ALCO is a discount store. GABE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD YOU..............I'M CRUSHED!!!!! [:D][;)] [/quote/] I was being sarcastic, not sardonic Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Friday, April 1, 2005 7:07 AM Gabe- I'm not that old an old timer but I do remember the walk to school...with snow... both ways... bare foot (us Connecticut folk are hardy). I guess what I miss nowadays is stuff that younger fans wouldn't miss because they won't get exposed to it. That is the human side of railroading. I was a pest to the stationmaster/tower operator in Guilford, Connecticut in the late sixties. He coerced the local way freight crew to let me up in the cab of the aging (even brand new stuff on the NH was aged, it seemed) ALCO road switcher. My dad and the conductor (who worked out of a caboose) even conspired to let me take a trip with the way freight... but it ran on school nights and fell through. Now the tower is gone. The century old station has been replaced by a very nice bus stop type thing. There is no way freight any more. There is no brakeman, no switchman, no fireman. No stationmaster, either. Engineers were guys that had been doing this stuff for millenia, it seems, and conductors- passenger or freight- sat on the right hand of the Lord. That's why I like these forums, and why I subscribe to TRAINS. There's an Ed, or a CSXEngineer, or a Mark Hemphill, who put the human side of railroading back into what would otherwise be a large industrial operation. There's a reason why they do what they do... besides money... and it's folks like that that are a vanishing breed of people. Trains are bigger, faster... cleaner... but they are now big machines run by a couple of guys (or gals) who are often too busy to wave... or too suspicious of what it is you are doing. That's part of my youth I miss, and I wonder how I can get my grandchildren interested in railroads when there aren't people around to add a human touch. Erik Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Friday, April 1, 2005 2:51 AM For what it's worth... I remember the last of the F-7s pulling passenger trains as a kid. I also remember SD-9s when they ruled the rails, and when GP-40s first came out. Where did the time go ?. trainluver1 Reply Edit Sterling1 Member sinceFebruary 2002 From: Traveling in Middle Earth 795 posts Posted by Sterling1 on Thursday, March 31, 2005 11:20 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz The same can be said of the railroaders of today compared to even 25 years ago. Although in many ways railroading was much more difficult then, it was also much more interesting. I remember how thrilled we (the crew) we were when our locomotive actually had a radio! No more trying to find in the darkness lineside phones to call the dispatcher. I remember how nice it was to get a SD40-2 with dynamic brakes in my train. I remember the interesting combinations of power we were expected to get over the road with (6 unit consist, 3 of them working with 2 of those not making transition). I remember trying to grab the floppies (train orders) at 50mph in the middle of the night (and what we had to go through if we missed). I remember thinking nothing of it to let some train fans up into the cab, and take them for a ride around the yard. I remember 5-man train crews. And cabooses (cabeese). I remember how much more challenging it was operating a train when you had two men in the caboose that you had to be concerned about when considering the various ways to handle a train, so as to not injure the men in the caboose. Were they the "good old days"? I'm not sure; in some ways yes, in some ways no. And just think, 25 years from now, you younger folks will be telling similar stories to the next generation of fans and railroaders. I'm only 51, but I remember my parents had only one tv, and it was black & white. The fridge had to be defrosted every month. The milkman came daily. There was no central air. What's a computer? What's a remote control? Gas was 29 cents per gallon, and you could actually see the road under the car if you looked in the engine compartment. In 1985 I bought my first computer. It had a 4.77mhz clock speed, with a whopping 20MB hard drive, a 5 1/2" floppy drive, and EGA graphics. And it was nearly top-of-the-line at the time! Only 20 years ago!! Time flies when you're having fun. True, true, True My parents lived pretty much the same way. My father was an architect who used a slide rule before that became obslete Did most of his math by hand because calculators weren't cheap. Computers were run with punch cards, a chore my father says when doing it overnight and the system screwed up for some reason and you yourself had to figure out the problem. I may only be a transitioning teen with high tech plans, but I still enjoy the old stuff from 1950s-present and some steamers and electrics famous or not. Matt "There is nothing in life that compares with running a locomotive at 80-plus mph with the windows open, the traction motors screaming, the air horns fighting the rush of incoming air to make any sound at all, automobiles on adjacent highways trying and failing to catch up with you, and the unmistakable presence of raw power. You ride with fear in the pit of your stomach knowing you do not really have control of this beast." - D.C. Battle [Trains 10/2002 issue, p74.] Reply mustanggt Member sinceOctober 2002 From: Massachusetts 664 posts Posted by mustanggt on Thursday, March 31, 2005 10:20 PM Basically all i have seen are 4 axle engines. All F40's, GP40's and GE P42's. Makes me wish I lived out west. I have never seen an SD in person. I have never seen several things. Like an auto rack, or even a well car. Or a CSX train. Is anybody else deprived of trains like me? C280 rollin' Reply AlcoRS11Nut Member sinceJuly 2002 From: Stevens Point 436 posts Posted by AlcoRS11Nut on Thursday, March 31, 2005 8:55 PM (6) I think ALCO is a discount store. GABE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD YOU..............I'M CRUSHED!!!!! [:D][;)] I love the smell of ALCo smoke in the Morning. "Long live the 251!!!" I miss the GBW and my favorite uncle is Uncle Pete. Uncle Pete eats Space Noodles for breakfast. Reply CopCarSS Member sinceAugust 2002 From: Turner Junction 3,076 posts Posted by CopCarSS on Thursday, March 31, 2005 5:43 PM Gabe, I share your pain, man. Probably the hardest thing for me to accept is the fact that I never got to see regular, workaday steam. It existed for ever so brief a time in my lifetime (I was born in 1980, I think Northwestern Steel and Wire dropped the fires from their 0-8-0's for the last time in 1981 or so). When I was in my pre-teen and teen years it was a thrill to see an unmodified Geep 7 or 9. Making a trip out to Clinton, IA and seeing the CNW Geeps out there was as good as it got. I also remember thinking that the world was over-run with SD40-2's and GP38-2's. Now I find myself relishing anything trackside with a standard cab, and thinking the world is run by 70MAC's and -9's, and AC's. But I've also learned to appreciate the later generation stuff. Think about it. GE's service lives aren't the greatest, and who knows what's going to happen to EMD under their new management. I'd hate to see myself in 20 years saying, "Man I wish I had shot more of those 70MAC's. Who knew EMD would be out of business by 2025?" The late Don Ball Jr. had some interesting comments about the same type of thinking in his books. As he said in one of them (America's Railroads, the Second Generation maybe?), and I paraphrase since I don't remember the exact quote, as long as it's a steel wheel on a steel rail it's good. There may no longer be SD9's on Madison hill, but for me, there's still AC's, and 9043MAC's struggling with the tonnage up the Moffat line. There may not be many ALCO's, but there's some Pumpkin GP30's that make it out on the Coors line every now and again. There may not be F units, but there's still the Ski Train F40PH's painted in a lovely shade of D&RGW yellow. There may not be regular steam, but there's the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic that comes awfully close. The 1950's may not be around anymore, but there's still railroading, and that's good enough for me![^] Chris Denver, CO -ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams Reply 123 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
Originally posted by AlcoRS11Nut (6) I think ALCO is a discount store. GABE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD YOU..............I'M CRUSHED!!!!! [:D][;)] [/quote/] I was being sarcastic, not sardonic Reply Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Friday, April 1, 2005 7:07 AM Gabe- I'm not that old an old timer but I do remember the walk to school...with snow... both ways... bare foot (us Connecticut folk are hardy). I guess what I miss nowadays is stuff that younger fans wouldn't miss because they won't get exposed to it. That is the human side of railroading. I was a pest to the stationmaster/tower operator in Guilford, Connecticut in the late sixties. He coerced the local way freight crew to let me up in the cab of the aging (even brand new stuff on the NH was aged, it seemed) ALCO road switcher. My dad and the conductor (who worked out of a caboose) even conspired to let me take a trip with the way freight... but it ran on school nights and fell through. Now the tower is gone. The century old station has been replaced by a very nice bus stop type thing. There is no way freight any more. There is no brakeman, no switchman, no fireman. No stationmaster, either. Engineers were guys that had been doing this stuff for millenia, it seems, and conductors- passenger or freight- sat on the right hand of the Lord. That's why I like these forums, and why I subscribe to TRAINS. There's an Ed, or a CSXEngineer, or a Mark Hemphill, who put the human side of railroading back into what would otherwise be a large industrial operation. There's a reason why they do what they do... besides money... and it's folks like that that are a vanishing breed of people. Trains are bigger, faster... cleaner... but they are now big machines run by a couple of guys (or gals) who are often too busy to wave... or too suspicious of what it is you are doing. That's part of my youth I miss, and I wonder how I can get my grandchildren interested in railroads when there aren't people around to add a human touch. Erik Reply Edit Anonymous Member sinceApril 2003 305,205 posts Posted by Anonymous on Friday, April 1, 2005 2:51 AM For what it's worth... I remember the last of the F-7s pulling passenger trains as a kid. I also remember SD-9s when they ruled the rails, and when GP-40s first came out. Where did the time go ?. trainluver1 Reply Edit Sterling1 Member sinceFebruary 2002 From: Traveling in Middle Earth 795 posts Posted by Sterling1 on Thursday, March 31, 2005 11:20 PM QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz The same can be said of the railroaders of today compared to even 25 years ago. Although in many ways railroading was much more difficult then, it was also much more interesting. I remember how thrilled we (the crew) we were when our locomotive actually had a radio! No more trying to find in the darkness lineside phones to call the dispatcher. I remember how nice it was to get a SD40-2 with dynamic brakes in my train. I remember the interesting combinations of power we were expected to get over the road with (6 unit consist, 3 of them working with 2 of those not making transition). I remember trying to grab the floppies (train orders) at 50mph in the middle of the night (and what we had to go through if we missed). I remember thinking nothing of it to let some train fans up into the cab, and take them for a ride around the yard. I remember 5-man train crews. And cabooses (cabeese). I remember how much more challenging it was operating a train when you had two men in the caboose that you had to be concerned about when considering the various ways to handle a train, so as to not injure the men in the caboose. Were they the "good old days"? I'm not sure; in some ways yes, in some ways no. And just think, 25 years from now, you younger folks will be telling similar stories to the next generation of fans and railroaders. I'm only 51, but I remember my parents had only one tv, and it was black & white. The fridge had to be defrosted every month. The milkman came daily. There was no central air. What's a computer? What's a remote control? Gas was 29 cents per gallon, and you could actually see the road under the car if you looked in the engine compartment. In 1985 I bought my first computer. It had a 4.77mhz clock speed, with a whopping 20MB hard drive, a 5 1/2" floppy drive, and EGA graphics. And it was nearly top-of-the-line at the time! Only 20 years ago!! Time flies when you're having fun. True, true, True My parents lived pretty much the same way. My father was an architect who used a slide rule before that became obslete Did most of his math by hand because calculators weren't cheap. Computers were run with punch cards, a chore my father says when doing it overnight and the system screwed up for some reason and you yourself had to figure out the problem. I may only be a transitioning teen with high tech plans, but I still enjoy the old stuff from 1950s-present and some steamers and electrics famous or not. Matt "There is nothing in life that compares with running a locomotive at 80-plus mph with the windows open, the traction motors screaming, the air horns fighting the rush of incoming air to make any sound at all, automobiles on adjacent highways trying and failing to catch up with you, and the unmistakable presence of raw power. You ride with fear in the pit of your stomach knowing you do not really have control of this beast." - D.C. Battle [Trains 10/2002 issue, p74.] Reply mustanggt Member sinceOctober 2002 From: Massachusetts 664 posts Posted by mustanggt on Thursday, March 31, 2005 10:20 PM Basically all i have seen are 4 axle engines. All F40's, GP40's and GE P42's. Makes me wish I lived out west. I have never seen an SD in person. I have never seen several things. Like an auto rack, or even a well car. Or a CSX train. Is anybody else deprived of trains like me? C280 rollin' Reply AlcoRS11Nut Member sinceJuly 2002 From: Stevens Point 436 posts Posted by AlcoRS11Nut on Thursday, March 31, 2005 8:55 PM (6) I think ALCO is a discount store. GABE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW COULD YOU..............I'M CRUSHED!!!!! [:D][;)] I love the smell of ALCo smoke in the Morning. "Long live the 251!!!" I miss the GBW and my favorite uncle is Uncle Pete. Uncle Pete eats Space Noodles for breakfast. Reply CopCarSS Member sinceAugust 2002 From: Turner Junction 3,076 posts Posted by CopCarSS on Thursday, March 31, 2005 5:43 PM Gabe, I share your pain, man. Probably the hardest thing for me to accept is the fact that I never got to see regular, workaday steam. It existed for ever so brief a time in my lifetime (I was born in 1980, I think Northwestern Steel and Wire dropped the fires from their 0-8-0's for the last time in 1981 or so). When I was in my pre-teen and teen years it was a thrill to see an unmodified Geep 7 or 9. Making a trip out to Clinton, IA and seeing the CNW Geeps out there was as good as it got. I also remember thinking that the world was over-run with SD40-2's and GP38-2's. Now I find myself relishing anything trackside with a standard cab, and thinking the world is run by 70MAC's and -9's, and AC's. But I've also learned to appreciate the later generation stuff. Think about it. GE's service lives aren't the greatest, and who knows what's going to happen to EMD under their new management. I'd hate to see myself in 20 years saying, "Man I wish I had shot more of those 70MAC's. Who knew EMD would be out of business by 2025?" The late Don Ball Jr. had some interesting comments about the same type of thinking in his books. As he said in one of them (America's Railroads, the Second Generation maybe?), and I paraphrase since I don't remember the exact quote, as long as it's a steel wheel on a steel rail it's good. There may no longer be SD9's on Madison hill, but for me, there's still AC's, and 9043MAC's struggling with the tonnage up the Moffat line. There may not be many ALCO's, but there's some Pumpkin GP30's that make it out on the Coors line every now and again. There may not be F units, but there's still the Ski Train F40PH's painted in a lovely shade of D&RGW yellow. There may not be regular steam, but there's the Cumbres and Toltec Scenic that comes awfully close. The 1950's may not be around anymore, but there's still railroading, and that's good enough for me![^] Chris Denver, CO -ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams Reply 123 Join our Community! Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account. Login » Register » Search the Community Newsletter Sign-Up By signing up you may also receive occasional reader surveys and special offers from Trains magazine.Please view our privacy policy More great sites from Kalmbach Media Terms Of Use | Privacy Policy | Copyright Policy
QUOTE: Originally posted by zardoz The same can be said of the railroaders of today compared to even 25 years ago. Although in many ways railroading was much more difficult then, it was also much more interesting. I remember how thrilled we (the crew) we were when our locomotive actually had a radio! No more trying to find in the darkness lineside phones to call the dispatcher. I remember how nice it was to get a SD40-2 with dynamic brakes in my train. I remember the interesting combinations of power we were expected to get over the road with (6 unit consist, 3 of them working with 2 of those not making transition). I remember trying to grab the floppies (train orders) at 50mph in the middle of the night (and what we had to go through if we missed). I remember thinking nothing of it to let some train fans up into the cab, and take them for a ride around the yard. I remember 5-man train crews. And cabooses (cabeese). I remember how much more challenging it was operating a train when you had two men in the caboose that you had to be concerned about when considering the various ways to handle a train, so as to not injure the men in the caboose. Were they the "good old days"? I'm not sure; in some ways yes, in some ways no. And just think, 25 years from now, you younger folks will be telling similar stories to the next generation of fans and railroaders. I'm only 51, but I remember my parents had only one tv, and it was black & white. The fridge had to be defrosted every month. The milkman came daily. There was no central air. What's a computer? What's a remote control? Gas was 29 cents per gallon, and you could actually see the road under the car if you looked in the engine compartment. In 1985 I bought my first computer. It had a 4.77mhz clock speed, with a whopping 20MB hard drive, a 5 1/2" floppy drive, and EGA graphics. And it was nearly top-of-the-line at the time! Only 20 years ago!! Time flies when you're having fun.
-ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams
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