Hi Guys, heres some rail pics from my hometown Hamilton here in Scotland and how the rail scene has changed over the years. The modern pictures beg the question, whats left to stir the imagination ?? , I think the steam era wins ...?? 
In 1950 I was 7 but we lived in the sticks and I saw few trains at all. I do remember still now being at a relatives house, standing right by the tracks when a steamer came by.
Although I've only seen a handful even though I'm old, they are very relevant.
I'm 63 next month and vaugely remember seeing Pennsy switchers in service in the Philadelphia and a long dead line of Pennsy steamers probably around the Chester area around 1957 when I was about 4 when my dad took me for a ride to see the trains. Most kids today who might have interest in trains will lean toward Amtrak, CSX etc. I have about 50/50 but defenitly prefer Steamers.
I don't think so. There will always be history buffs and the steam engine is a significant part of American railroad lore. That they aren't around anymore is irrelevant to what continues to be a keen interest area for many. Pat KN mentioned WW II aircraft - a great analogy. Piston engine warbirds are as popular as ever with the model aviation crowd (another hobby I enjoy) even though most of the enthusiasts are too young to have experienced one first hand outside of museums or airshows, if ever.
As for my experience with steam locomotives, I am 54 and was born to late to see working steam, but I was a fan from an early age none-the-less. The first time I saw a live steamer in person was the American Freedom Train T-1 in 1976. I was awestruck! I ran steam and first gen diesels when I was in HO, but run steam exclusively on my O Hi Rail layout.
Good evening, I am a steam fan first ,and far most a Pennsy fan.
When 765 came to the Altoona area the whole area between Harrisburg and Gallitzin was a buzz. A steam engine was on the rails today !!!!!!!!!!!!
It was amazing to see the old timers out to see the 765 perform, but what was more amazing was the younger crowd with their kids.
Some dressed like little engineers from the steam era and others sporting a Thomas the Tank Engine clothing.
When the 765 stopped after passing thru AR and sitting on the West end of the Portage tunnel people could get closer to the engine than if it was protected by a railroad property fence.
The pointing and the questions and the continuing clicking of cameras was almost as loud as the engine sitting there relaxing after her performance.
When 765 whistled off a roar came up from the crowd of cheers, as she pulled out and headed east she and her crew got a standing ovation also.
Very few of the onlookers left until the last coach went by and slowly disappeared out of sight.
I am 53 years old. To young to see a steam engine out on the main line , but remember going to the Horsecurve and looking at the K4s 1361 and wondering.
My wife wanted to buy tickets to ride behind 765 and my response was no, I just want to listen to that engine make all incredible sounds that only a steam engine can make.
Today in my travels I will always ask the locals about the railroads and steam engines in the area. Sometimes it is amazing what you find and the conversations you strike up with different people and it's always amazing how the conversation will turn to " back in the old days "
I really don't think the beautiful black steam engine will ever be totally erased from mankinds memories !!!!!!!!!
I hope there is always some interest in steam locomotives, railroads, and toy trains. I have fleeting memories of the Central Vermont's steamers sitting next to Lake Street in St Albans, VT waiting to be scrapped. Still, I've always had a love of steam be it model or the real thing. It's hard to beat the visual impact, motion and sound of steam.
Who knows what the future will bring. I'm know that the railroad I volunteer with would benefit by having more younger men and women help continue our preservation efforts.
I know this is a forum for toy trains, but I like real trains and locomotives just as well.
Modernised by the Swiss,this German BR 52 kriegslok is cleaner than any diesel anywhwere in the world.Burns recycled vegetable oil I believe,no black smoke, and its supposed to smell like french-fries. The loco is much more powerfull than as originally built too. Enjoy..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...N0&nohtml5=False
Davy Mac posted:Modernised by the Swiss,this German BR 52 kriegslok is cleaner than any diesel anywhwere in the world.Burns recycled vegetable oil I believe,no black smoke, and its supposed to smell like french-fries. The loco is much more powerfull than as originally built too. Enjoy..... https://www.youtube.com/watch?...N0&nohtml5=False
Just because it was converted from coal fuel burning to oil fuel burning, does NOT make it "more powerful". The 52 class 2-10-0 locomotives were fairly light axle loadings, so that the could be used anywhere in Europe, as Germany "conquered" more territory during WWII. The biggest, and best, locomotives the Germans had was the large 44 class 3-cylinder 2-10-0 locomotives, which were much more powerful than the 52 class.
MarkStrittmatter posted:I really don't think the beautiful black steam engine will ever be totally erased from mankinds memories !!!!!!!!!
I don't think anyone thinks it will be. Just ask any Civil War re-enactor about recalling the past.
But that doesn't mean the majority of the public knows (or cares) about battle formations at Shiloh. Just because you have seen a few people into something, that hardly represents the majority. And let's face it, plenty of people wouldn't even look up from updating their Facebook if they were stuck at a grade crossing and a steam locomotive was pulling something on the main right in front of them. I once watched a family who never looked up from their screens when 4449/844 was roaring Northbound through Auburn, WA from Portland in 2007... Tearing through there at almost Amtrak speeds and not one of them even looked up.
mwax516 posted:I'm mainly a steam engine guy and had a thought last night while working on my display if (I'm 42) my grandkids one day will have any idea what a steam engine is lol.
all we run at Riverside is live steam and every run day i see kids like this little guy who have probably never seen an actual 1:1 scale steam locomotive totally enjoying the trains...
fun stuff! ...gary
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You want to keep your Grandkids interested om Stea,? Just take them to see, hear feel, ride behind #765, #611, #261 or any other real main line steam engines. Kinda hard to push those thumb buttons on a "dumb phone" when one of these engines is charging past at 40 - 50 MPH. Made a believer out of one of my Grandsons.
Paul fischer
Gene H posted:I'm 63 next month and vaugely remember seeing Pennsy switchers in service in the Philadelphia and a long dead line of Pennsy steamers probably around the Chester area around 1957 when I was about 4 when my dad took me for a ride to see the trains...
Thank goodness for people like Gene H who can share their stories and anyone who bothered to photograph steam operations. In the twilight years of steam, the fine photographic work of talented artists like O. Winston Link, Don Ball Jr. and David Plowden continues to tell this important story and will for many years to come.
Tom
naveenrajan posted:I am 38 & I have never seen an operating steam locomotive & because I have only been in the US for the last 15 years, I have no appreciation for or interest in steam locomotives & other historically significant but obsolete train models like the California Zephyr or the EMD F-units. In the past I also used to get annoyed with model train importers who focus a lot on older generation models over modern equipment. But now I have chosen to enjoy the somewhat limited models of modern equipment available & vote with my wallet.
These are just my opinion,
Thanks,slivan
Naveen Rajan
You need to go to Strasburg Pennsylvania. There is a working steam engine that runs most of the time.
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Hot Water's answers are on the money. I would add that steam locomotives will only become irrelevant if we want them to be. It is not an issue of chronological age so much as a love of history, romance, color, power, geography, determination, engineering and the many other categories that we could cite that make up a love of railroading.
We don't have to teach the youngsters to love steam engines. If we love them, they'll come along. 
Scrapiron Scher
MNCW posted:Gene H posted:I'm 63 next month and vaugely remember seeing Pennsy switchers in service in the Philadelphia and a long dead line of Pennsy steamers probably around the Chester area around 1957 when I was about 4 when my dad took me for a ride to see the trains...
Thank goodness for people like Gene H who can share their stories and anyone who bothered to photograph steam operations. In the twilight years of steam, the fine photographic work of talented artists like O. Winston Link, Don Ball Jr. and David Plowden continues to tell this important story and will for many years to come.
Tom
I wish I could go back in time and see what kind of steamers they were. At 4 they all looked alike but I remember my dad telling me that we won't see them around much longer. 90% of my collection are Pennsy.
Gene H posted:I wish I could go back in time and see what kind of steamers they were. At 4 they all looked alike but I remember my dad telling me that we won't see them around much longer.
I think it's better to have grown up after the death of normal steam than it must have been to see them all slowly fade to black.
I once wrote to Ron Zeil, saying how much I admired and treasured his book, "The Twilight of Steam Locomotives" and mentioning how sad it must have been t watch the death of steam. He actually wrote back (on a typewriter, with corrections) agreeing with that idea.
FOR HOT WATER... in actual fact, the Swiss at SLM did improve the power output of the german 52 substantially, it wasn't just a case of converting it to oil burning. The one-off British experimental engine 4-6-2 "Duke of Gloucester" ,saved from the scrap line and re-built from scratch with modifications and fine tuning is also a story of a greatly improved locomotive ,and is still a coal burner. http://www.dukeofgloucester.co...ge=A+Concise+History
A good running steam model, with all that valve gear, will grab a child's attention!
But I still do not understand something. There is an American (made in China) Girl store here in Houston. People come for MILES to the place. The stuff is not cheap. A doll is almost the price of a older W/WBB Diesel. I have seen people spend hundreds in the place. It is the old fashion "hands on". What is AG doing that the model railroad industry is not?
Though I have seen some in the AG stores. Actually, what I have NOT seen in an AG store. One, parents seem to be involved with the girls ion the store. Two, it seems there is less cell use by the customers.
What is AG doing that the model railroad industry is not?
Dolls are still relevant to everyday life. Children still like to copy what their parents do and like to feel grown up. They aspire to be parents, and their parents encourage them.
I don't think the same can be said about trains and railroading.
As far as the American Girl brand goes, they've built a name for themselves, and can get the prices. Not having any little girls in my life, I am not really up on American Girl. Still, I think I read that matching outfits for the dolls and their owners (little girls) can be had.
Thank you for all the awesome responses! My girlfriend said something simple last night when I posed the question to her...something to the extent of "it looks like a train, kids will know" lol. Sometimes we get too caught up in it and need to take a step back.
I would bet that 10 to 20 years from now, Lionel will still be a brand and American Girl might not be.
Fads come and go and you'd have to he blind not to see the AG brand as a fad.
American Girl has been around since 1986, and was purchased by Mattel in 1998. So they have been around long enough that people who had them as children are now parents, and are likely buying them for their kids (or maybe the grandparents are). I'd guess that they will be around for a long time.
While I think that toy and model trains will be around for a long time too, I am not so certain about any one particular company, including Lionel.
mwax516 posted:I'm mainly a steam engine guy and had a thought last night while working on my display if (I'm 42) my grandkids one day will have any idea what a steam engine is lol.
Once you stand by the track when a steam locomotive passes you understand the man with machine connection. That happens a little with the first generation diesels but not much at all with the modern locomotives. Many years ago, OK about 3 decades now, I was at a wrecking yard in Kent, Washington digging around for a carburetor. Remember carburetors? When the sound of steam whistle blowing for a highway crossing drifted by. I leapt off the junk engine pile and ran for the fence along the tracks; a kid working there asked "what's going on". I yelled "a steam engine is coming". “What” he said? Then 4449 came into view and rumbled past on the way to the steam expo being held in Vancouver, B.C. The kid turned back to his mundane duties completely uninterested. I was stoked for the rest of the day making plans to go to Canada, which I did. It was exciting to see all the operating steam locomotives that showed up for the Expo.
I also suffer from a love affair with big radial aircraft engines and spinning propellers. Boeing had a big celebration for the 50th anniversary of the B-29 in 1993. FiFi was there and I was directly behind when they fired it up, wafting the over-rich smoke of 145 octane, leaded aviation fuel as the huge Wright 3350's came to life.
I just love machines where you can see, feel, taste, smell, hear and experience the conversion of energy to motion.
The modern world is just so much turn the switch and it goes, so regular if not dull, the senses lacking any emotional input. There is no pleasure in the activity when everybody can take the tram to the top of Mt. Everest.
Bogie
C W Burfle posted:American Girl has been around since 1986, and was purchased by Mattel in 1998. So they have been around long enough that people who had them as children are now parents, and are likely buying them for their kids (or maybe the grandparents are). I'd guess that they will be around for a long time.
They said the same thing about Beenie Babies in the same timeframe that AG started. At one point some Beenie Babies were worth more than some of the rarer pieces of 3-rail.
You can't hardly give them away now.
Just because something is big at that very moment, is no reason to count on it always remaining thus. We have only but to look at the overall decline in the general interest model railroad hobby, population-wise, to see an excellent example of this.
I say No. There will always be a small segment of the population that will love and preserve steam. Steam was totally gone when I grew up and I love steam locomotives.
It's easy to be nostalgic about steam locomotives, but the fact is they were often dangerous and filthy and uncomfortable to work on over the course of a typical 16-hour shift, especially in the early days. Can you imagine firing a steam locomotive across a desert in blistering heat? Or shoveling tons of coal in a drafty cab during freezing cold winter weather, then you stand on top of an icy tender in a snowstorm to take on water? Wasn't too unusual for firemen to die of pneumonia before mechanical stokers came along. A rough ride in the cab with a lot of noise, have you experienced that? Great fun raking the ashes, cleaning the smoke box, doing inspections underneath from a greasy pit. Have you ever inspected locomotives from a dark greasy pit with pools of oil, at night? Yeah, it's easy to be nostalgic about it from a distance ...
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Yes and no, depending who you would talk to in 100 years. In 100 or even 1,000 years from now there will be some people knowledgeable on transportation history, but the vast majority won't know or care, just like today's generation. The steam locomotive represents humankind's giant leap from an agrarian and "by hand" based civilization to an industrial-based one where machines took the place of men and animals. That era ~ early 1800s to early 1900s was the most pronounced period of human societal and cultural change in history. The influence the industrial revolution had on humankind cannot be understated. The steam boiler and locomotive was the logical culmination of the "Iron Age."
I am interested in machines of all kind, and love the history of cars and motorcycles, in addition to trains. However, I am probably only part of about 10-20% of all the people alive today who are interested enough to visit museums, read books, have models, etc.
In 1,000 years transportation history books will probably have pictures of steam locomotives, and no doubt they will be just as fascinating to look at then as they are now. Diesels and electrics on the other hand, will get marginalized - cause they're boring in comparison, LOL.
ACE - I think you opened up a can of worms with that one. The same can very much be said about the early forms of any kind of transportation...from planes to rocket ships. While I'm sure some did suffer, these machines moved our culture forwards.
Ace posted:It's easy to be nostalgic about steam locomotives, but the fact is they were often dangerous and filthy and uncomfortable to work on over the course of a typical 16-hour shift, especially in the early days. Can you imagine firing a steam locomotive across a desert in blistering heat? Or shoveling tons of coal in a drafty cab during freezing cold winter weather, then you stand on top of an icy tender in a snowstorm to take on water? Wasn't too unusual for firemen to die of pneumonia before automatic stokers came along. A rough ride in the cab with a lot of noise, have you experienced that? Great fun raking the ashes, cleaning the smoke box, doing inspections underneath from a greasy pit. Have you ever inspected locomotives from a dark greasy pit with pools of oil, at night? Yeah, it's easy to be nostalgic about it from a distance ...
Way back in the mid-1960's My parents and I took a trip up to the Toronto suburbs for my folks to visit some friends. As the elders talked, I went exploring with my 8mm movie camera. I came across a Canadian Pacific crew doing some switching. They noticed me as I filmed and a couple of them came over to chat. One of them asked me if I liked steam or diesel locomotives.
I told them I liked steam. To a man they all said they were glad steam was gone, because diesels were cleaner and easier to work on and with.
As for personal experience, when I was with the IRM steam department, there were days when I couldn't wait to get off the locomotive.
And there were days when I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.
Rusty
I just wanted to make the point that steam locomotives should be remembered in their full historical context, and not reduced to sentimental nostalgia.
Years ago while riding the narrow gauge from Durango to Silverton I had a chance to talk with the fireman of the Mikado that pulled our train. As stated, running steam is/was dirty, cold, hot, and hard work. The man loved his job of fireman, he had been a school teacher! He said it was a step up from dealing with crap at school.......
They said the same thing about Beenie Babies in the same timeframe that AG started. At one point some Beenie Babies were worth more than some of the rarer pieces of 3-rail.
I don't know who "They" are. Beenie Babies were marketed as collectables, and as having investment potential. Is that true of the American Girl product line? I've haven't heard them mentioned in that context.
QUOTE from an item on the DLM modernised BR52 8055 2-10-0 Kriegslok :-
A relatively unknown but significant feature of the 52, and perhaps one of its most special aspects is its cab. Thanks to the oil-firing and heavy insulation, its working conditions are always as in the cab of any electric locomotive: normal room 
temperature, no sweltering heat, no black coal mess, no dripping or slippery lubrication oil, no dust particles filling the air, and no draughts because the cab is fully enclosed. Actually the cab's comfortable interior with its wooden panelled ceiling and wooden carved bench, that guests are reminded of a Swiss chalet setting.
Steam built this country and Canada. That's a fact it can never be forgotten.
C W Burfle posted:What is AG doing that the model railroad industry is not?
Dolls are still relevant to everyday life. Children still like to copy what their parents do and like to feel grown up. They aspire to be parents, and their parents encourage them.
I don't think the same can be said about trains and railroading.As far as the American Girl brand goes, they've built a name for themselves, and can get the prices. Not having any little girls in my life, I am not really up on American Girl. Still, I think I read that matching outfits for the dolls and their owners (little girls) can be had.
Each girl has its own set of books, and add on kits and dresses.
C W Burfle posted:American Girl has been around since 1986, and was purchased by Mattel in 1998. So they have been around long enough that people who had them as children are now parents, and are likely buying them for their kids (or maybe the grandparents are). I'd guess that they will be around for a long time.
While I think that toy and model trains will be around for a long time too, I am not so certain about any one particular company, including Lionel.
So I could see an AG having a Hot Wheels collection........
naveenrajan posted:" I have never seen an operating steam locomotive & because I have only been in the US for the last 15 years, I have no appreciation for or interest in steam locomotives & other historically significant but obsolete train models"
I would suggest to go online, find a local train excursion with a steam engine and go check it out. Post your findings afterwards, willing to bet after you've seen one in action you'll change your position.
Gary
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WestinghouseEMDdemoguy posted:naveenrajan posted:" I have never seen an operating steam locomotive & because I have only been in the US for the last 15 years, I have no appreciation for or interest in steam locomotives & other historically significant but obsolete train models"
I would suggest to go online, find a local train excursion with a steam engine and go check it out. Post your findings afterwards, willing to bet after you've seen one in action you'll change your position.
I'd be willing to bet that it won't. Seriously, I know plenty of people just like naveenrajan, for whom steam is meaningless in any context because they were born decades into the diesel era.
Many hobbyists are all about the new and little else.
I'd never met a train buff who didn't like steam as much as the newest diesels for most of my life, but in the last decade I've met a lot of them, all of whom are in their 40s or younger.
Once your focus group gets out of the baby boomers or older, you'd be surprised what spins the spurs of younger train buffs. I know I sure was.
Steam is King! Okay, at least that's my opinion. But I can understand that being an old guy, steam might have more of a note of familiarity to me. My layout, which is set in 1950, of course has steam for power. But it also has it's share of first generation diesels of most makes. But, watching the trains as I operate them, it's the steam power that I run most often and that I enjoy the most.
What I have a bit of trouble understanding are the guys that have really modern diesels on their layouts, some with all kinds of neat features, when all they have to do is go down to the nearest RR tracks and watch new trains go by. And, I know that a lot of us do just that. So, by way of my layout, I can visualize the way things were 65 years ago. I suppose that not everyone wants to do that but in my case, I'm 80 years old and I remember some of this stuff. Not good to live in the past, they say, but what the heck, if I enjoy it, why should I not do it?
Considering the ages of the people involved in steam locomotive restoration, apparently a strong memory of the past is not the only thing that fuels and interest in operating steam engines. There are some guys who become so enamored with the awsomeness of steam power that they have learned their trades and skills and devote their lives to the restoration and preservation of these antiques. They have become the future hopes for continuation of steam power in years o come.
Paul Fischer
