Railroad Memories - Yours and Mine

BarstowRick May 1, 2020

  1. BarstowRick

    BarstowRick TrainBoard Supporter

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    Here's one lucky youngster. The impressions of the railroad and how it is run will last him forever. We can only thank him for sharing it here.



    While I was on the floor watching three rail trains go by he was helping his dad out with the Real McCoy.

    I did get to watch from a distance my family of rails switch the Barstow Santa Fe freight and passenger yards, bring the locals into the yard, at the end of the day. Witnessed Union Pacific and Santa Fe passenger trains pass the Casa Del Deserito, Harvey House and Santa Fe Passenger Station. REA had a small building just West of the station complex and there was a ready track for Santa Fe's Red Warbonnet passenger motors. Watched a great uncle of mine work the small Ice Deck at the East end of the passenger yard. Crew changes, more times then not. Never allowed to get to close.

    What's your memories?
     
    Last edited: May 1, 2020
  2. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    Dang Rick, this is awesome!!
    My Dad used to take me up there all around Stevens Pass as a kid in the 70's, thru the 80's. We'd get up to Sky before dawn, have breakfast with the helper crews in the Cascadian, then chase trains over the Pass to Wenatchee and back!

    Great memories, I try to get up there a couple times a year. Still love it up there!:love:
     
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  3. Randy Stahl

    Randy Stahl TrainBoard Supporter

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    I think I can still be prosecuted..
     
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  4. BarstowRick

    BarstowRick TrainBoard Supporter

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    There's a story here. :whistle: Of course anything you say can and will be held against you. :confused:
     
  5. gmorider

    gmorider TrainBoard Member

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    The "Great" Great Northern...Yes, Thank you.
     
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  6. Josta

    Josta TrainBoard Supporter

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    I remember going on the Santa Fe from San Diego to LAUPT with my mother, then a bus to Bakersfield where we'd board the train from there to Fresno every summer.
     
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  7. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Many memories! Just yesterday I was looking at a picture of my old home town. With the NP tracks curving past my elementary school. It stirred recollections of watching the local switching the siding, work equipment and more.
     
  8. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Our family moved to the Chicago area in the mid '60s when I was young and to my delight, I could clearly see the EJ&E mainline from my bedroom window. Combined with Lionel in the basement, my love of trains was cast.
     
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  9. Hytec

    Hytec TrainBoard Member

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    Sometime in 1952 New York Central Harlem Division shortened the train that ran for years from New York City, GCT to North Adams, MA, ending it at the Boston & Albany station in Chatham, NY, I had taken that train many times, but this last time I had to transfer to a B&A RDC-1 from Chatham to North Adams. After the stop at Pittsfield, MA, I was the only passenger. So the engineer told me to come stand beside him during the final half hour to North Adams. The track condition wasn't great, weeds everywhere, rocking back and forth, but it was exciting for a seventeen year old. Then I glanced at the speedometer...we were doing 80! My pucker string went PING! But he seemed to know what he was doing, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the thrill. :cool:
     
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