Johnny, As I posted the other note, I was thinking of all the railroads that used St. Louis Union Station. I can recall the Frisco, GM&O, MoPac, New York Central, Wabash, Pennsy and I'm sure there were others. I never paid a lot of attention in those days. Perhaps someone could give a better listing than I have. Ed
Ed, if it weren't for you, I may never have seen Cincy Union Station! (sniff! weep!) By the way, am I going crazy or did 113% of people vote in the poll?
When Landing at O'hare airport in Chicago..you come in over the south and South west which means you are coming over Bensinville Yard and Bryn Mayr. This Is Milwaukee's old yard in the area...Bryn Mayr is the Juction point where the Milw freight only line and CNW freight only line come together and head north to Minneaplois. The CNW is now UP and the Milw line in Bryn Mayr is CP Rail with the yard in Bensinville being sold to IRL and now I believe the DME bought out the IRL. That place Bensinville is getting really interesting now. Wish I was back there to record the changes
Ed, you should run a weekend tourist run for railfans who come to Cincy. Your tour was worth a million bucks indeed! But, when I get back in August, I'll be on a really tight schedule. Cincy isn't that far for me or maybe we can try Muncie as you mentioned. I just hope to get some railfanning in......... Hopefully I can return yet again after that before the end of the year. We do have to come out for Home Coming in Oct. Hmmmm. Fall folliage railfanning in Ohio I bet would be great! JT
St Louis Union Station was quite a spot. My memories of it are bittersweet. Rode the overnight pullman of the GM & O , The Midnight Special, from CUS to St.Louis Union when I enlisted in the Army. I couldn't sleep a wink all night. I remember standing in the vestibule, peering out the dutch door into a cloudy rainy March morning, crossing the Mississippi river! and wondering "what in the hell have I done?". We detrained in St.Louis, they fed us at the station restaurant and then put us on a super-annuated Frisco rattler special to whereever, (Cuba MO?) and then on busses into Ft. Leonard Wood. I am glad the rest is history! CT
I've also been in Kansas City Union Station, and the closest I've ever been to the one in St. Louis was the Greyhound bus terminal building that is passing for an Amtrak station. At the time I went past these facilities (1981), they were well past their glory days
I was also in Rome's train station, which I will try to spell incorrectly! TERMINI (?) Lacking any Italian railfans with me I was unsure of how many different companies came in there, but it looked like a lot. That was my one bit of overseas railfanning. Did ride the subways a lot. Very interesting contrasts (well....until now so to speak..such as Genesis, AEM's and stuff like that) in motive power than here in the US. Some of their motive power was pretty old stuff. We were in St. Peter's station and shot my last picture when an old old old old diesel rolled in pulling two side rod diesels (I think!) right up to me and stopped dead there for 10 minutes!!!!!!!!!!!! NO FILM! STUPIDO! SLAPPING MY FOREHEAD! The engineer was yelling at some guys in blue station master type uniforms that had come out of the station onto the platform. Arms were waving and lots of yelling, leading me to believe the engineer was ticked about these two locos he was pulling.. He was not a happy camper, but no one did anything other than yell and look at them! My kingdom for a video camera!!!!!!!!!
Went thru Boston in 1964 on my way to Great Lakes Naval Training Center. Visted the Union Station Hotel in Nashville, TN last month. They no longer sell tickets, but you can still stand out on the balcony overlooking the tracks and watch the CSX crews make their change-over
IRL is newly created Illinois Rail Link...owned by the same guy that own Montana Rail Link. DME is Dakota Minnesota and Eastern....Sorry for the delay in the reply
