How about telling a train story.

My 999 engine from my set was run until one driver spun on the axle, but it would

still run when the water heater broke in the basement.

I wrote a train story for a creative writing class, about a ghost train buried in a

tunnel collapse....

I also have a 400 page manuscript western novel of General Palmer building the D&RGW (and a lot of rejection slips), dunno if they qualify as  "stories".

My Dad took me to a LA train station when I was very young to watch the trains. Even at a very young age I was a Lionel fan. The thing I wanted but knew I would never get was a Santa Fe F-3. That was the real Santa Fe. A passenger train pulled in but it was pulled by PA double A units. We walked over to it and I said "Dad, that's not a real engine and I was serious. Don

My grandfather was a railwayman, and so trains have always been a part of my life. But my Mum is the one who started my interest in trains. One of my earliest memories is of my Mum holding me up over the side of a bridge to watch as the steam engines passed directly underneath as they hauled goods or passengers out of the station. I will never forget the experience of the whole world disappearing into a cloud of warm sooty smoke and steam as I looked directly down the funnels.   A few years later my school was right beside the main line, and my journey home involved crossing the tracks via a footbridge. Yes, I would often arrive home with a blackened face and smelling of coal after spending a while hanging over the side that bridge.  Although this was at the end of the days of steam on the southern, and electric units were taking over more and more each day (At least they were 3 rail electric!), I'll never forget those days. I have a great deal to thank my Mum for, but her enthusiasm to develop my interest in railways, both real and model, is one for which I am most grateful. Oddly enough, my brother was never interested in trains at all, so I guess that the railway genes run through the female line in my family. 

My neighbor grew up in western OK on a farm in the late 1920's . The tracks ran

though the back of the property over a small creek. He would ride his horse to the

creek about the time the trains would pass. It was a mark of good horseman to see if you could keep your horse calm while the train went by.

 

 One day while they were in town a few cinders from the engine flew out the stack

 and landed in the field. This started a fire. The crew jumped off the train and ran 

 to put the fire out. The only reason they knew this is because after putting out

 the fire the crew left a note on the kitchen table.

 

 Oh and PS. we helped ourselves to a sandwich and a glass of milk. 

Nicole your post brought back a memory. There is a street bridge in Toledo Oh that overlooks the city RR terminal, my parents would take me there and the smoke from the engines leaving the station would surround the bridge..Thanks for the memory.

Some years ago I pounded spikes for the SP.  My gang was out of Truckee Ca.  At the top of the hill, the big hole exited into a shed about 150 yards long.  All wood.  On occasion we worked that shed.  The single track split into two inside the shed.  You would think that looking into the tunnel you could see a train coming, but you could not.  However, when the wind picked up you knew one was coming up the hill.  On occasion the overhead door at the end of the tunnel would wind down in anticipation of the train.  I was told they did this to keep the air inside the tunnel from being pushed out and cause engine problems.  At the last minute the door would raise back up and out would come a roaring set of sd40s, sometimes T2s and sometimes sd45s, or a mix,  along with so much smoke that it was tough to breathe.  We always rolled em bye standing between the tracks in the safety of the middle pilings holding up the center of the shed. Wow.

Don't worry.  You don't actually qualify as a Real Writer(tm) till after the first 100 rejections.  Ask me how I know.  Second thought, don't.

 

As for train stories, I suppose most of mine come from the many years I spent as a kid down at the station in my home town, on the PRR 4-track main line.  My friends and I would go down and stand on the station platform, waiting anxiously for the clang-clang-clang of the crossing gate.  If the train was a westbound, we could see its shimmering headlight approaching from miles down the track, on the long, straight stretch next to the river.  But if it was eastbound, it would suddenly -- and silently -- appear as if by sorcery, rounding the curve beyond the paper factory.  The horn (or in earlier days, the whistle) would sound for the crossing, and then the gigantic locomotive would be on us in a hurricane of dark thunder, side rods hammering, the heat from the firebox briefly toasting our faces as it crashed past.  The roar of the diesels was less impressive, but went on longer as the multiple units streamed by in their sustained explosion of power.

 

The freight cars themselves were nearly as interesting. If they were on the near track, all we could make out would be flickering, almost subliminal, impressions of road names.  But on the opposite track, we could read the rolling billboards as they announced themselves in colored paint: Santa Fe; Pacific Fruit Express; Reading; Northern Pacific; New York Central; Railway Express; Pennsylvania Power & Light; Southern -- and of course, the home team, PRR.

 

We never had to wait more than a few minutes between trains, and it wasn't very unusual for all four tracks to be occupied at the same time, rich and exuberant with the colorful commerce of an economically powerful nation.

 

Then there were the passenger trains.  But that's another story.

I remember when my Dad was in between tours in Vietnam that he bought a Lionel set and we ran it at my Grandma's house for a long time on the carpet.  One day she moved it to clean and saw what we had done to her carpet - that's the last time I saw that train actually run!  Later, in HS, my Aunt bought me a model spaceship set from JC Penny, but when we opened the carton, instead of the $10 model it was an HO ready to run set!.  Well, I loved that train set and ran the heck out of it for a few years, until my train table - a piece of plywood on a couple of sawhorses, started to bend and fall apart from us all climbing on it and stuff.  About 7 years ago I wanted to get into toy trains again and went for Lionel.  I bought a cheap $90 loco and a few cars.  Then I found a bunch of heavy old postwar log cars and added them.  Well - that engine burned up trying to pull that heavy train through O27 curves, lol!  I asked around and you (Jim 1939) and another friend helped me find a place to get replacement parts for the actual can motor and e-unit.  I fixed the engine and never tried to pull that long of a train on that layout again!

Yes Brutus I remember that. A string of diecast cars on a small set engine...Fried the motor and the board.

While running my NYC hudson at a fall open house, a youngster decided to flip a switch, directing my train onto a staging track with a very expensive 3rd rail locomotive.  It looked like a head on collision of expensive proportions was imminent, but the larger 3rd rail engine stood its ground while my smaller semi scale hudson came to a halt within about 1/4" of hitting the other engine.  Thank goodness the staging track was block wired and powered down.  My loco was coasting on flywheel momentum only.  I quickly powered up the staging track and backed away to get back onto my original route.  It was opening weekend for deer hunting, so I have dubbed this event as "Steamers in the Rut".

The best story I can tell you is a short one, though long in its effects.

 

I began the layout (Version#1 out of 9) in my basement, in 1994, just to please myself, recovering something lost to childhood. I didn't need anybody to see my trains.

 

Then, my wife got involved by my asking her, one day, as she passed from the garage through the cellar to the stairs, what she thought of a particular feature. From then onward, she got more and more involved, at my volition, and that has made all the difference. A "mine" became an "ours."

 

Now, the layout has become a large feature of our entertaining guests in our home. They ask to see our layout and we show it to them. My layout has become our layout, and that has, indeed, made all the difference. I am the happier for it. We both are. And I recommend such an arrangement highly.

Frank (and Ginny)

My story hasn't happened yet. Both my wife and I love riding on long train trips and it's been many years since we traveled together. So, in a couple of weeks, we go to our local station, which is on the main northern line, and travel to Brisbane, about a 12 hour trip. We fly to Darwin, a 4 hour flight, and then take "The Ghan" from Darwin south across the country to Adelaide, 2 nights on the train, (about 2000 miles?), then the "Indian Pacific", another day and a half, back to Sydney. We will take two weeks, and travel about 4000 miles around Australia, it's going to be so good.

I had a Marx steam loco set in the late '50s - frankly I do not remember what model.  Cast metal, 2-4-2 or 2-4-0.   Initially I had a 30 by 66 inch layout on a plywood sheet that would slide under my bed, but eventually I got a "big" layout on a 4 x 8 table in the middle of our basement, between my Dad's workshop on one end and the washer and dryer, etc., on the other.

 

My friends and I had a lot of fun with that train layout, but our favorite thing was to take all the extra straight track and some odd wood blocks and cans and build a "rocket ramp" about ten feet long across the diagonal of the layout.  We would tape an rubber army man - an "astronaut" -- in the cab and then mount the loco on the far end of the ramp and I would hit the power full up as quick as I could.  The engine would spin its wheels briefly, then zoom across the layout and launch intself "into orbit." 

 

If we were lucky it would sail across the room and land in my Mom's laundry basket.  If not - well, it never broke, although eventually it was an 0-4-0.  I remember my Dad looking at us doing this and I always appreciated that he never told us to stop but just shook his head and went on with his wood work. 

Lee's story of launching his Marx loco brought back to my mind what my sister and I used to do.

 

The Marx steamers were so simple to remove the body from - just 2 screws, that we did so and would run it around an oval of track on the carpet (no permanent layout) with the cat sometimes chasing after.  We called it L'il Buzzy for the sound it made.

In the early fourties we lived in Elkhart IN. A friend David  and I rode our bikes down to the staging yards on the south side. We would climb on a moving car and ride to Goshen IN(about 12mi) and then hop a train going back to Elkhart. We only made a few trips when a conductor caught us. He beat us up pretty badly. We never told our parents or we would have gotten another beating. He probably saved our lives as we never tried to ride again. However, I never forgot the feeling  of excitement of riding on an open  train car pulled by a steam engine.  I bought my kids two O gauge trains in a Christmas eve sale as soon as I could afford them. But, I never told them this story!!!

Now, that is a good story, Shane. I could see every bit of it. Some of us did some wild and reckless things when we were kids. Sometimes, I feel, when people look at me nowadays, they cannot imagine I did things like you have descirbed. But I did.

Frank

As a kid, I shared a bench with the motormen laying over at the end of the CNSM Mundelein branch, watched the flying switches with the Soo, The Laker and Mountaineer flying past in a blizzard of snow, Roundout with the Hiawathas and  Leithton Tower, the EJ&E Baldwins..Northern Illinois ..was a great place for a kid who loves trains..still do. Wish I had a time machine...

I grew up near the Penn Central (Ex PRR) Ft.Wayne line in northwest Ohio.  When I was about 10 a loaded TOFC flat car broke at the sill.  The train stopped in Convoy before it tore up the switches at the cross over.  The railroad sent two "Big Hooks", one from Ft.Wayne and the other from Lima, Ohio.  I remember standing next to the grain elevator watching as the two steam powered cranes worked in unison to lift the trailers into a parking lot adjacent to the tracks.  The real feat was when they lifted the center of the flatcar and manuvered it into the siding.  As soon as they placed blocking under the car the crews quickly loaded up their equipment and left town.  The icing on the cake was that for the next several hours I watched a continous parade of trains that had backed up, both eastbound and westbound.  I have been facinated with wrecking cranes ever since.  Too bad they didn't have video cameras back then.

I guess my story is about a 2056 Baby Hudson that is my Dad's.  All my life I wanted a layout that I could run that engine on.  Instead of a Lionel set, my parents opted to get me an HO set when I was a child.  I embraced the HO set, built a layout and enjoyed the trains.  The Lionel engine stayed in a box.

 

The HO trains went by the wayside when the college years came.  The trains were packed up and the layout was taken down.

 

The magic of this hobby returned for me a Christmas morning a few years ago when  my son received a Polar Express set from Santa.  That morning the new Lionel Polar Express Berkshire and the 50+ year old Post War Lionel Hudson shared time on a loop of track around the tree.  That morning my interest in this hobby was rekindled.  I have not looked back since, and I don't expect I will.

Great stuff, guys - keep 'em coming!

Greaf stories guys. This is the OGR forum at its best!

Regards,

Joe Geiser

There once was a gal from Nantucket ...

When my oldest son was 4 back in 1993, we took a train trip from Houston back to my hometown in Pennsylvania.  Two days and one night on Amtrak's Texas Eagle from Houston to Chicago and then overnight on the Broadway Limited from Chicago to Lewistown, PA.  Three recollections stand out from this trip.  We were in a Superliner sleeper on the Eagle with my son in the upper and me in the lower.  I woke up somewhere in southeastern Missouri when dawn was just breaking, went and got a cup of coffee from the pot in the corridor and returned to our room and watched the sun come up, glinting off the sides of the engines and cars ahead of us as we banked through turns and cut through the morning mist.  It was one of those quiet mornings that all felt right with the world.

 

On the Broadway, we were in one of their heritage sleepers with our room on the end of the car above the trucks.  All night across Indiana and Ohio I listened to the thump, thump, thumping from a flat spot in a wheel directly below my berth. 

 

Last recollection from that trip was Horseshoe Curve.  When we came through the tunnel at Gallitzen, I paid one of the trainmen $20 to keep the conductor forward of the last car in the train.  My son and I then stood at the open dutch door coming down the mountain and around the curve.

 

Curt

My wife and I once rode AMTRAK's Texas Eagle from San Antonio to Chicago.  We met the most interesting people in the dining car enroute: a stage actress, an Australian just touring the USA by train, etc.  But one guy who stands out was a retired nuclear engineer whose current vocation was consulting for safety at nuclear power plants.  Nothing too unusual there, but he told us that he only travelled by AMTRAK for his work, and was enroute to Buffalo, NY for a job.  We thought it interesting that he had such an up-to-date vocation, but travelled by rail, such a well-established technology.

I'm from Wilkes-Barre PA, back in the early 60's when I was 12 my mother took me and my younger sisters to Woodward OK to see her parents, that I had not met yet. We took the Phoebe Snow out of Scranton PA to Chicago, I didn't know it at the time but I  think this was her maiden voyage as service was later discontinued. My grandfather on my dad's side was an engineer for the Lehigh Valley and early on I grew up around trains and stations but never got to ride on one, this was to be an adventure. It took over 48 hours to get to Chicago and after the first couple of hours I wanted to jump off the train. The cars were in a state of disrepair to the point that the a/c didn't work, the lavs were dirty with broken fixtures, the roof leaked and the seats were the old style bus seats of the era. It seamed that as soon  as the train got up to speed it would slow down for the next stop, it felt like the trip would never end. When we finally arrived at Union Station I was in awe of the massive building, the biggest I'd ever seen. We got off the train inside, not like in Scranton standing out in the weather. I remember the massive windows up high where people were eating and relaxing in the restaurant, I had to get up there, in fact I had to explore every part of this magnificent buildings. l could have spent the rest of my summer exploring this station and the struggle of the last two days vanished for memory.

      The magic was broken when mom told us we had to board our train, my heart sank, I couldn't take another minute on the once grand old gal called Phoebe Snow, I'd rather walk. Coming through the doors I could see the old train waiting for us, but to my surprise we turned away from it toward another platform with the biggest, shiniest train I had ever seen. I remember the engines, 3 of then, all silver and red and powerful looking. The passenger cars seemed as tall as a house, we actually had to walk up a flight of stairs to get to the seating area and the seats were upholstered and the headrest had a white cover on it and it reclined like expensive furniture. We didn't have furniture like this in our home. I was in heaven, this was my reward for the last two days in heck. I could have just sat there and looked out the massive window forever, and then we started to move.  Slowly at first but having cleared the station we picked  up speed like I never experienced before, it was hard to count the fence posts we were going so fast. I never wanted to get off this magnificnet machine, the name even inspired awe The SuperChief. Our destination came on us too quickly and abruptly we were thrust into the  wonders of the Oklahoma panhandle in July, its a dry heat I hear.

     Had to wrap this up, didn't know if there was a space limit here. Left out things like the best meal I ever ate in a restaurant on wheels, a view where every glance out the window was a picture postcard and bathrooms the likes of which I've never seen, and the porters, and servers took care of you like family. Maybe on another thread. Thanks for your time.

Regards,

Joe Geise

My favorite train story is about the train I rode a lot as a kid with my grandmother on the Atlantic Coast Line's Norfolk District which was a branch between Rocky Mount, North Carolina and Portsmouth, Virginia.  We lived in Portsmouth and and had relatives in Rocky Mount.  I rode it from steam days during WWII on through dieselization and to the abandonement of passenger service.  The line was torn up after the merger with Seaboard Air Line and is now a part of CSX.  I wrote an article about it for Lines South Magazine for the SAL/ACL historical society.

 

Ray

Here is part of my train story,

When I was very young my mother passed away from cancer. Soon after she passed my dad got my brother and I each a Lionel train set and he built a small layout in the basement where we all played with the trains. It helped us heal from the grieving we were going through and started my passion for O gauge railroading. It was a small layout but we would run trains for hours and hours. As the years went by we moved and dad remarried. We then build a large layout in my step grandfather’s attic that we used till I was about 12 years old. When my kids were growing up I had all of the trains that I had had as a kid stored away with no place for a layout and I promised myself that someday I would rebuild. After I retired I had space and time so two years ago I got back into it and now have a fair layout in my basement that I can share with my grandkids and hope to pass the passion on to them.

My grandfather worked for the original Norfolk Southern(Norfolk to Raleigh) for 45 years. Once and a while he would take me and my brother on a diesel ride usually on 1000hp Baldwin switchers numbered 1001 or 1002. The usually run was Carolina yard to Little Creek where the PRR ran a car float  service to Cape Charles. Believe it or not the PRR was NS’s largest interchange partner. The PRR yard at Little Creek was filled with Baldwin switchers. Those Baldwin switchers could really move fast - what fun.