Share your experiences as a young or {very young}, rail fan......

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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This is a wonderfully fun thread…

Earliest I can remember was living in NYC (before I was 2) and seeing trains on the old West Side line – I can remember riding in a cab and pacing what I now know was a FA for at least a mile north of the Morningside Park tunnel mouth.

We moved to Tenafly in 1959, and I have many memories of the Erie (and then EL) RS units and Stilwells on the Northern (thanks, PB!). To a little kid, those things looked as tall as skyscrapers. I thought in my innocence that those were passenger trains and that they were going to ‘Chicago’ – we all know that every passenger train out of New York northbound is ultimately going to Chicago, right?

When I turned 4, friends of my grandparents in Wilkes-Barre managed to set me up with a cab ride on a consist of CNJ 6-motor Alcos (!) – I still vividly remember watching through the little windows to check the smoke from the engine stack (long hood forward) and how hard it was to pu***he airbrake handle (and the disturbingly loud noise it made!)

The big thing that defined my love of railroading isn’t actual trains, though. Sometime in 1962, one of those folks selling magazine subscriptions stopped by the house and was talking to my mom. I was idly looking through the list of available publications, and there it was… a magazine with the name TRAINS! I said I wanted a subscription – Mom said ‘that’s a bit too advanced for you to read’ – I said “Well, I can look at the pictures, then”… and I got my subscription. Much of what I know, I can therefore attribute fairly directly to JPM and Kalmbach. (Wish I could prove the exact date, but apparently the old subscriber data have been gone a few years).

I can also remember loving GG1s from first seeing a picture in the old World Book Encyclopedia, and then in Trains. We used to go down to central NJ for college football games, and I can still remember seeing a beautiful G curving in to parallel us on the Turnpike – I particularly r

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When I was 10, I got a LONG cab ride in Great Northern NW5 #192

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My first experiences were similar to Greyhounds’s. My first home backed up the Boston &Maine so I had a good show, day and night. The family story has it that I would wake up and go to the window to watch the train and my parents would have to tuck me in afterwards. I f I were missing, I could be found next door at Mr. deMaio’s yard, watching the trains with him.
And I’m still watching 'em!

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Here is a little history on my experiences with the ATSF as a youngster. This was posted a while back, so it might look familiar to some.

In the mid 70’s to early 80’s, Galesburg, Illinois was the railfanning place. The railroads split the town of around 64,000 into 4 seperate sections, with the Burlington Northern slicing northeast to southwest and the Santa Fe running east to west. There was almost no place in town you could go without crossing railroad tracks. Life in Galesburg left no choice as to whether or not you interacted with the railroad. It was just a case of when and where.

Back then, Swings Mobile Estates sat on the west side of town, only a cornfield away from the Santa Fe’s mainline from Chicago to Los Angeles. While the Burlington Northern had a line that split from it’s main that passed close by, traffic seemed to be limited to an occasional coal train. All of the action was on the A.T.S.F. from my vantage point. Not only was a constant stream of mainline traffic provided, but the Admiral (later Magic Chef/Maytag) refrigerator plant played host to some interesting switching operations. The double ended yard consisted of holding tracks with spurs into both the large main building and the paint area. Boxcars mainly filled this yard with a few other car types from the industries served in town and switching occured on a 5 day a week basis.

The locomotives that were used here ranged from recent rebuilds to older power, but mostly Geeps. I almost recall an SD26 working the area at one time although I may have confused it with a GP20. During the weekdays, the switcher was parked downtown next to the piggyback ramp and scrap yard, but come Friday it was parked with outgoing cuts in the Admiral yard.

From a vantage point that consisted of a tall tree across the road from our families’ home, I witnessed what seemed like a never ending stream of boxcars go in and out of the plant. Seeing long strings of cars slowly enter or exit the plant was a sight I w

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Trackside, late on warm summer nights, at the age of 11 or so… Waiting for a distant horn to indicate the EJ&E #21 would be approaching through the darkness on it’s nightly run to Waukegan. The #21 was always somewhat of a mystery, and was really the only chance to actually see a train at all on the line back then. In later years, new block signals would give the clue of an approaching train. I’m kind of glad I didn’t have a radio back then… I think that would have ruined the magic.

Dave
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Another memory I thought of was when we were having a Family Party and my Dad was suppose to helping to get the Burgers grilled but him and I decide to go out for Amtrak’s City of Everywhere which was the CZ/Desert Wind/Pioneer as one train, saw a lot that day but when we got home my Dad was in deep soup with everyone at the party since Dinner was late. Another one I remember is when the Downers Grove Local Crew tossed out 2 Bottles of Water for my Mom and I once a long time ago.

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One-Last-Chance For steam on the C&NW 1956/57.
Grew up by the C&NW (tracks paralleled Kenedy/NW Expressway around Austin Avenue -which had only a pedestrian overpass crossing the expressway). Had to cross over the tracks to get to school. This particular event occurred 1956-57, (I was in third grade) in the middle of the winter. As I approached the crossing the warning bells/lights started going off. Although this happened every day, we loved to watch the commuter express trains blast through our tiny station (Gladstone). Wow, what a thrill. This particular morning the usual muted sound of a diesel was replaced by those glorious, mechanically alive sounds, that only a steam engine can produce. Running for all get-out was a 2-6-2 (4?) with the weather curtains flying about the cab, not offering much protection for the crew. I’m sure the engineer was cold, but he seemed to have a smile on his face as he was enjoying a rare event on the, I believe, mostly dieselized C&NW. One of the Es probably refused to move that morning, and since their wasn’t another diesel around to handle it, they gave the proud steamer another chance to handle a consist on the main line one last time.
The next time I encountered a steamer was in the summer of 1976 when the 1776 Freedom Train came to Crystal Lake, Illinois. words are just not adequate to describe the power, size, and just pure pride you felt when you walked up the viewing platform to talk to the engineer - the luckiest man on the Earth- in my opinion.

Thanks for letting me give my 2 cents worth worth!

David

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I recall when I was about 6 or 7 my parents went to pick up my grandmother who was coming back to Baltimore from New York. She came into the B&O’s Mount Royal Station which was close to the end of its life as an active passenger station. I remember seeing those B&O blue and grey cab units coming into the station under the trainshed and how excited I got. The station and the train shed are still there but haven’t been used to servicse passengers since the late '50’s.
My other memory is when I was about 15 years old in the mid '60’s and riding on an excursion on the Pennsy’s Northern Central line out of Baltimore to Harrisburg. The line was single track then and we had to meet a southbound train along the line. I was riding the vestibule and when I first spotted the train in the distance, I wondered, out loud, if it was being pulled by a GG-1. Someone heard me and said, “Yeah, it’s running on batteries.” For those of you not familiar with the line, it’s not electrified. One of the good things about it was that it really drove home the point that I need to think about what I’m going to say before it’s said.
Maybe someone else would be willing to share and embarrassing moment from when they were young railfans.

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i am 17 and still hunt freight trains to this day an example would be like last night when was taking a walk i saw a ns freight train heading into philadelphia. I waved and the engineer saw me but it was dark and i enjoy my self. that is why i love watching trains.

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Back when we were about 8-9 years old, we used to love exploring along the railroad tracks. Going through town the tracks were elevated on a large dirt fill, about 16 feet taller than the surrounding street level.

In one spot there was a Heating oil and coal merchant that had a siding up top, on a wooden trestle that spanned over the coal bins where he received his coal.

Best way to describe it, there was one tie missing in the center above each coal pile, the gons were parked on the top, and dumped through the opening, that was the way the coal was delivered.

The easiest way to get down off the raised track in that area, was to squeeze down between the ties above the coal piles, and then walk down the side of the pile.

We did that all the time, it was filthy, but we were just kids. Good depth perception was a must, to make sure the pile of coal you were going to drop down on, was tall enough so you didn’t fall too far.

We were nuts by today’s standards, but we had fun. [tup]

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I don’t remeber how old I was but I would guess 4 or 5 years old. I used to live in Lititz, PA. In town the was a chocolate factory by the name of Wilbur. It was served by Conrail at the end of a branch from Lancaster. One day when I was with my mom the crew invited us up to the cab to look around. Then then gave me a bag of chocolate chunks that they had received from the factory employees. The memory is a litle fuzzy, but I haven’t forgotten.

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When I was young, I thought just hanging out by the tracks was dangerous, much less in a makeshift “fort” a friend of mine had created in an area we would now be arrested for. But on the day my friend said “let’s go watch some real trains”, my life changed forever. Okay, two things I did wrong. I had an old beat up shopping cart I didn’t need any longer because I was done my paper route, and decided to let a train take care of it for me. From a distance we watched and then went to find what was left of it (not much). I would never do anything like this now, and even knew better back then. I think it was symbolic of something. Another time my friend found an old fan laying in the garbage and decided to put it in front of a train, despite my protests. Sure enough, a guy watering his garden waved the engineer down and the train, which was just pulling out of a station stop, stopped to remove the fan while we ran like heck. Other than that, there were few incidents, just watching the parade of commuter trains and occasional freights everyday.

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It’s interesting some of the dumb things we do as kids. When I went to college out in Missouri, it used to be high sport to throw a hay bale over the fence of a missile silo and wait for the Security Police to show up. They were armed and could use deadly force, but that didn’t stop me and a couple of buddies from doing it.

Nor would I even think about crossing an active right or way now without asking permission… must be getting old…

Erik

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I am 11 and i do want to every thing that was mentioned!

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When I was now, I have seen alot of cool things, UP 3300, a GP7u, well I guess that’s it. Keep up the stories, very very interesting.

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As a kid going to Grandma’s house in Hearltand, WI I would love watching the orange and black diesels of the MILW Rd fly by on a regular basis. This was in the early 80’s when the Milwaukee had recovered somewhat and was proving it still knew how to run a railroad.
Also as a kid I would watch the CNW in Kewaskum, WI (where I lived). This was also in the early 80’s when that line through town was a big deal for the CNW. Lots of trains and lots of switching in town there.

Today the CNW line through Kewaskum is a bike trail (removed in 2000) and the MILW RD line has been single tracked and the trains don’t run there as frequently. Kind of disappointing. [V]

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Grew up in the mid-1950s in the small bunch of clapboard houses constantly being dusted with coal smoke and cinders between the big CB&Q and Illinois Central yards in East Cicero, Illinois. Those were the transition days, where diesels were replacing steam, but the two yards were full of soot-covered, grimy workhorses belching heartbeats of billowing exhaust skyward. I vividly remember hearing whistles blowing, slack pullout noise and couplers banging downgrade from the hump – only a block-and-a-half in either direction – 24 hours a day.

Unfortunately, my father didn’t care about trains so we never went to watch. I wish now I had that opportunity one more time. But man, those sounds and smells are forever burned into my memory chips!

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Modelcar: I think we had the same loco “builder” at about the same time. Only visible difference would be mine had a used garbage can as the boiler. No picture survives, dammit. Great rig. Much fun…

One Saturday morning in 1937, or so, my Dad got me up for breakfast with him. We were going to Santa Cruz Lumber, where he worked as a catskinner. The plan was to go for a ride on the logging train from the mill pond out to where the high line ended and return. I was wound up tight as could be, suffering greatly from anticipation. It was about, I looked at it closely years later, 6 miles from the pond to the steam donkey at the head of the high line.

Oil burning Shay and a string of empty log bunk cars and flats with bunks complete with caboose. All balanced on 3 ft gage track. Dad and I rode in the caboose on the way out. Stood, walked, sat around while the train was loaded and rode the Shay cab on the way back to the pond.

I didn’t think about it at the time, being barely four years old, there was nothing at the landing that would have convinced a person it wasn’t 18XX. Out at the far end of the high line it was obviously 193X. Diesel Cat logging was in full swing. I had been there before.

As I am writing this the smell of the Shay’s fire is in my nose. A truly lasting impression.

Another time, a year or so later, one of Dad’s cousins got me a cab ride in the passenger train from Boulder Creek to Santa Cruz on a Saturday afternoon. This was my first “close up” experience with full size locomotives. Quite overwhelming, the pure size of it. Made the Shay seem teeny tiny. Smelled the same . . .

We moved to Los Altos, near Palo Alto, in 1938. It was served by a daily except Sunday commute from Santa Cruz to San Francisco and return. 7:10 in the morning and 6:18 in the evening. Set your watch by them, along with the noon fire siren, and Permanente Cement’s 8:00, 12:00 and 4:00 whistle. I digress . . .

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What a great thread. I,too, have a pre-recall story. !n 1943 my dad was assigned to Aromas,CA, near Watsonville on the SP coast line. A young telegrapher, he was the only employee assigned there, probably worked 12/7, and was on call 24/7. So, from about “toddler-2 years old” we lived in quarters above the station, and my window on the railroad world was just about smokestack high…Oh, to remember those days. The story is when I was a toddler, just barely able to walk, and would hear a train coming, I’d drop down on all fours and JET to the window to see MY train. A while later, when I was about 4, we had come out from a store, and I went to the curb and just stood there…What are you doing?, my parents asked…Well, I had just been to the Big City, and I knew just what to do…I was, of course, waiting for a streetcar! Watsonville had no such streetcars in 1946, and may well have never had them. Thinking back to Aromas, the traffic must have been incredible during WW2.

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Lowell…Great story. {It’s amazing I have a photo of it…that’s the only one}…Seems lots of fans on here were able to look back to childhood and pull out some great memories. Thanks to you all for sharing your stories to this thread.