Anyone here love trains? :D

[aragonjohn1]

I like trains : )

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

No Peggy, the Canadian Shield doesn’t really appear around these here parts.
The rock is buried under quite a few metres of soil. When I travel north or especially west the Shield starts to appear.

Here’s railroading through the Shield:
View attachment 12844

Here’s the perfect song to go along with The Last Spike:
youtube.com/watch?v=Yzo6Otpgj-E&feature=BFa&list=PLE95D7371BDDF89B7&lf=plpp_video

Yes! This is the perfect song to go with the book. In fact, I found myself humming it as I read. When I’m in the car, I put the CD in and hit replay, because I love this song so much.

Speaking of the CP: have you ever been over the Rockies and Selkirks? I was wondering about those tunnels Berton talked about, the ones that were drilled in 1909-1910. He described one as a figure-8 through Cathedral Mountain and another (whose name I have forgotten). Plus, there was another one built when the route was changed in 1910 or so. The originals sounded too scary to be real!

 

[The_Reginator]

Yes! This is the perfect song to go with the book. In fact, I found myself humming it as I read. When I’m in the car, I put the CD in and hit replay, because I love this song so much.

Speaking of the CP: have you ever been over the Rockies and Selkirks? I was wondering about those tunnels Berton talked about, the ones that were drilled in 1909-1910. He described one as a figure-8 through Cathedral Mountain and another (whose name I have forgotten). Plus, there was another one built when the route was changed in 1910 or so. The originals sounded too scary to be real!

I once took a trim on the Canadian National Railways line through the mountains. Unfortunately I was only two years old. All I can remember is wondering if we would be getting one of those older black locomotives (a steamer of course) or one of the newer yellow and green locos (CN’s colours for their early streamliners). I DO remember seeing that the train was to be pulled by diesels. After that I remember nothing. (I still don’t remember anything – just ask my wife.)

I’ve seen pictures of the tunnels, or at least the Spiral Tunnels. At the Science Centre in Toronto there used to be an N scale model of those tunnels complete with a model of ‘The Canadian’ looping through.
Check this out: **CPR Spiral Tunnel 3 parts of same train at once in shot! **

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I once took a trim on the Canadian National Railways line through the mountains. Unfortunately I was only two years old. All I can remember is wondering if we would be getting one of those older black locomotives (a steamer of course) or one of the newer yellow and green locos (CN’s colours for their early streamliners). I DO remember seeing that the train was to be pulled by diesels. After that I remember nothing. (I still don’t remember anything – just ask my wife.)

I’ve seen pictures of the tunnels, or at least the Spiral Tunnels. At the Science Centre in Toronto there used to be an N scale model of those tunnels complete with a model of ‘The Canadian’ looping through.
Check this out: **CPR Spiral Tunnel 3 parts of same train at once in shot! **

That’s fantastic! Not you falling asleep on the train as a tot, but that youtube! I had no idea this is what it looked like. I thought it the figure-8 was all inside the mountains. This is even better! Wow!

What I find really amazing is that this long, long, long train has only one engine and what looks like a “slug” engine at the front, and one engine (pusing?) at the rear. So different than the long, long, long trains I’m used to in the States, where I sometimes see four or five engines or slugs pulling.

Thanks so much for the link, Reg.

 

[Sneaux]

I live by railroad tracks and I’d always stay at my grandparents as a young child, and they lived by train tracks. I’ve always loved, and been drawn to the sound. It’s a sound that brings memories and calms me. A great connection to childhood for me.

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I live by railroad tracks and I’d always stay at my grandparents as a young child, and they lived by train tracks. I’ve always loved, and been drawn to the sound. It’s a sound that brings memories and calms me. A great connection to childhood for me.

I know what you mean, Sneaux. My childhood home sat across the street from the Southern Pacific tracks in what is now Cypress, California. Orginally, it was a streetcar line, carrying passengers from Los Angeles to Santa Ana on the Big Red. But, by the time we moved there in 1961, the tracks were carrying freight only, for the SP. At least twice a day, the whistle blew across from our house, as the train neared the crossing at Crescent Ave and Moody St.

The last time I was home, 17 years ago, I asked my Mom what had happened to the train. She said the track had been abandoned some time before, and it is now torn up and gone. There are actually houses built straddling the old right of way.

To me, it was the saddest thing that has happened in my old town.

I don’t live close to tracks now, but sometimes at night, the whistle of a BurlingtonNorthernSanta Fe engine drifts up to Burien (I’m a mile due west of SeaTac International Airport) from the tracks down in the Duwamish Valley.

 

[christian7777]

I think trains are cool. When I am older, sometimes I will travel by train if my destination is not extremely far away.

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

I think trains are cool. When I am older, sometimes I will travel by train if my destination is not extremely far away.

You are never too young to travel by train. I took my son for his first trip (Seattle to Los Angeles) on the Coast Starlight when he was 6 months old.

 

[iHeartThe60s]

I know what you mean, Sneaux. My childhood home sat across the street from the Southern Pacific tracks in what is now Cypress, California. Orginally, it was a streetcar line, carrying passengers from Los Angeles to Santa Ana on the Big Red.

What a bummer that you moved after the Pacific Electric left I would have loved to have seen/ridden on those big red MU cars had I been born just a few decades earlier
The Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, CA has a few of those cars nicely refurbished and running. I first heard of it through a railroad series hosted by Ward Kimball back in the early '90s. Here’s one of them:
oerm.org/pages/pe418.html

 

[Peggy_in_Burien]

What a bummer that you moved after the Pacific Electric left I would have loved to have seen/ridden on those big red MU cars had I been born just a few decades earlier
The Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, CA has a few of those cars nicely refurbished and running. I first heard of it through a railroad series hosted by Ward Kimball back in the early '90s. Here’s one of them:
oerm.org/pages/pe418.html

I had the honor and privilege to ride the Pacific Electric cars on the last day of their operation in April 1961. The driver had painted tear drops falling from the headlights.

I’ve spent many a day at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris with my parents and later my own kids. In fact, we found a Seattle Metro Bus that was the same one, Rte 16, that my husband used to ride. You may have noticed an engine painted Strato Blue with the Strategic Air Command logo on it. It used to haul the radars and the sleeping quarters of the First Combat Evaluation Group around to the various electronic bombing ranges in the west and mid-west. I didn’t realize at the time I first saw that engine that I would be part of that Group. Unfortunately, I got there just after the trains were retired. Many an airman has complained to me about having to sleep on the trains, but I would have been in 7th Heaven. Lots of happy memories there.