That quote was someting a relative of mine said when I drove her from the airport. I was completely shocked. I mean it would be like saying something like the runway isn’t next to the airport terminal. She later asked, “When did they start doing that?” My response was, “For quite some time.”
Anybody else have people that asked some “ignorant” train questions?
I was super detailing an F unit cab and took it to work to show someone. He said wow what a great job but you forgot the steering wheel. I said it was still in the mail.
Pete
I was giving a quick tour of my layout to some friends, switching some cars with the locomotive pushing, and one of them pointed to the cement hopper on the leading end and asked where the engineer sat…
Just goes to show ya…passenger rails are a thing of the past for a huge component of today’s society. I guess subways are out of their history, too. [xx(]
True story: about three years ago my sis in law dropped by for a chat and some info. We got to talking about environmental things, and the subject of my N&W models came up with all the coal hoppers. She stated that why would the railroads have invested so much in hoppers and huge engines when there was so little coal used in N. America.
Uuhh…say what?
I had just learned of shorpy.com, and scooting her aside (she was seated at my computer for some reason that I can’t recall…) I entered that site and soon found the images many of you will know…the ones with the black-faced breaker boys and such. She grew quiet. I showed her youtube videos of twinned Y6b’s at the front of 10K ton coal drags, with another Y on the back end. I didn’t have to lecture her, or attempt to humble her…I let the images do the educating for me.
I didn’t bother to find pictures of blast furnaces and ask her if she knew their purpose. I figure it was enough for one day.
-Crandell
The steering wheel gag never gets old. Ive had people ask me the same thing and I always laugh and explain that a steering wheel kinda goes against the whole premise of having tracks…
-Cahrn
I’ve had a few from people not familiar with railroads or railroading. My favorite happened a couple of years ago when I had a party at my house for some fellow teachers. They wanted to see my MR run, and I happened to have a Yellowstone hooked up to a freight on the team track in Deer Creek. I started it off with the train and one of the teachers looked askance at me and said, “That locomotive is too long. It will NEVER go around that curve!” BTW, she’s a Physics instructor.
I smiled at her. “It’s called an Articulated.”
When the front driver set wheeled into the curve, she stared at me. “I doubt that REAL locomotives ever do that.”
I just smiled. It was either run the train or give her a History Lesson. Besides, most of the other company was mumbling things like “That is COOL!”
Tom [:)]
I’m hoping my memory isn’t faulty, but if I recall correctly, a throttle resembling a steering wheel was used in some Swiss electric locomotives (Re 4/4, Ae 6/6, Re 6/6, etc.).
At least that’s the way I remember it. Haven’t been to Switzerland since the late 80’s.
Andre
So last night, we were on an oubound NJ Transit Multilevel train. My dad and I were sitting in the upper level (my mom and brother were sleeping down in the lower level).
My dad says to me “Why does it look like we’re so high above the tracks?”
I’m like “Uh, dad. We’re on the TOP level…”
Must be your first day on any forums.
I think I read that onct upon a time, like before 1850s, railroad ticket offices were frequently NOT located by the tracks but at a separate location.
Had a friend of mine call me one day when it was pouring down rain and ask wehre are you? I am at work waiting to get this locomotive out to its train. Long pause. Your working? Yeah why? I thought you didnt work when it rained. To his defense he was a construction guy lol.
I like the steering wheel one.I always thought about having a wheel with me to act like it had fallen off while going through a crossing.But i figure the RFE would get a phone call and well he has a sense of humor but the Supt doesnt lol.
Perhaps we have all been there (on each side of the coin) at one time or another.
More decades ago then I care to count, I found myself reporting to start work as a laborer with Western Pacific, at the Oroville roundhouse.
The Foreman took me to the Steam cleaning track at the end of the shop, and after showing me how to start up and shut down the steam cleaner. He then said “steam clean the trucks and fuel tank”. I looked around and I asked “what trucks…Ah don’t see no trucks? …All I see is a bunch of locomotives.”
Of course when I said that, there were also three other older employees behind me that started cracking up laughing at me, then they all started razzing me.[
] But what I really regretted saying in their presents while trying to regain my composure is," You want me to steam clean clean the Cow Catcher too."
However many years latter when I became a Foreman and I was on the other side of the coin. I do enjoy a little humor a young lad asked what the letter “F” designates on the front of a locomotive stood for, being he answered his own question I said the F is designated for the fatal end of the locomotive. [:D] other things I chuckled about is “Will you quit calling it a hitch… its a coupler” “whatyaaa mean I cant call the superintendent a frog”
have a nice day and I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving.[dinner]
BEST reply of the thread.
I recall, way back in my youth, taking a fellow Cadet-Midshipman to Midtown New York. As we crossed Park Avenue north of GCT, he got a confused look and asked, “If that was a railroad station, where are the tracks?”
I looked up the wide avenue, with its generous center islands, and answered, “They’re right under your feet.”
He started to give me a really strange look. Just then a train passed under the nearest ventilation grid (the reason for those center islands) with the usual grinding, gear whine and squealing flanges. In mid’stride his comeback changed to, “Well, I’ll be …”
Don’t know why that surprised him. We’d taken the subway to get there.
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - without subterranean stations)
Tracks with rails to spare. “Where’s the track?” Gee, guy,
Mark
I remember the old passenger station in Columbus, Ohio on North High St
The tracks ran under the street level station and could not be seen from the entrance
you accessed the trains by going down a flight of stairs and could not see the tracks till you boarded the train
Last winter I was at the Jackson St. Roundhouse / Museum in St.Paul MN, which is right next to the BNSF mainline between Mpls and St.Paul. When a long unit train of coal was going by, one lady who was visiting kept asking one of the museum volunteers about hauling coal in open-top cars. She said she thought it was wasteful, since so much of the coal would blow away in transit…[%-)]
Looking at Clapham Junction as a small girl my Aunt wanted to know how the train drivers knew which way to go. Of course we know that they don’t but have to have signalmen to tell them. Naturally in more equal modern times it isn’t unusual for either to tell the other where to go…
For thirty years I heard flat tyres at work and I’ve twice seen cars with dragging brake shoes go by with the whole tyre glowing white hot but it was only this year that I finally got to clearly see a flat tyre - a rather extreme case - the loco had 9 inch flats on the second wheelset. The other three sets had been able to turn a little and had massive burns through the tyres into the rims and slight flats. All these examples and there a still plenty of railwaymen and enthusiasts that don’t realise that a lot of railway wheels are made up of several different types of steel in different elements of the wheel… of course some wheels are “monoblock” designs.
Of course the daftest idea is that signals or engineers stop trains…[8D]
And I quote “They HAD to have seen that truck across the tracks. They could have just stopped.”
A few years ago, I had some friends over for a very crude operating session. One of them wanted to bring some cars into the yard, went clear through the switch, How come it doesn’t go through the other way? I have the wheel all the way." Uh, Cody, That’s the throttle. You manually have to throw the switch. That means is this little bar to move the pionts.
More recently, I asked a friend if he wanted to join my operatorating crew. I told him we would be working in the yard. He asked me if I wanted him to cut my grass.