NKP No.426 (a GP7) uses the runaround to get to the other end of the yard to do some switching so the pizza train run will be ready on time.
Time for some switching manuvers in the yard. NKP No.426 sits in the background waiting as No.200 backs a string of cars to her. They only need the heavyweight coach to add to the coaches already hooked on to No.200. Not needed today will be the wodden NKP boxcar, the steel PRR sand car, and the L&N transfer caboose.
OK, we have our car, the rest go back on a storage siding. (I’ve shown this pic before, but now you know the story behind it)
On the far end of the yard No.200 (a GP9, now known as ITMZ No.200) (Engine no. 200 was the first unit of Union Pacific’s first large order of road switchers, 190 units delivered in early 1954.) waits with her string of 1930’s era bud coaches waiting…
for NKP No.426 to back onto the train with the final heavyweight coach. The caboose track sit just off to the right.
The pizza train is now ready and loaded. The passengers are excited as No.200 heads out of the yard in Noblesville, IN. towards Atlanta, IN. to go get some food at the local pizza joint next to the tracks.
And that’s how I spent last Saturday!
Next Saturday they’ll hook up the Diner and you can eat on the train! [:D][tup][
In January, 1977 I was on my way to an Air Force assignment at Lajes Field in the Azores and I opted to go east to New Jersey via an AMTRAK railpass. I was on the Southwest Chief and at our stop in Albuquerque a group (six or seven I guess)of college students came aboard and immediately repaired to the club car (which, by the way is where I was spending my time - Kansas is/was dry and I sure didn’t want to leave Colorado with dry lips.) At Lamy a couple of these characters got off the train and I noticed them at a payphone on the platform. They came back aboard before we left and I just figured that they were calling home or somewhere. Shortly before we got into Raton I noticed that there was some money being passed around at the table where they were sitting and as the train slowed for its stop at the station a couple got up and went out into the vestibule. There on the platform was a pizza delivery guy with about three pizzas and before the train resumed its journey that club car was rich with the aroma of hot pizza sauce, cheese, and pepperoni. I guess that this must have been a recurring action because that pizza delivery guy sure didn’t seem like he was doing anything out of the ordinary; when that train stopped he was right there at that door.
Once cell phones became popular, one of the pizza joints at Sunday River Ski Area began offering on-mountain delivery. Not just a truck driving to the lodge, no, these guys would buckle up their boots, step into the skis and take the lifts up, finally delivering the pizza to race fans in the middle of of double-black bump run.
Unfortunately, I’m sad to report that the Iron Horse restaurant in nearby Bethel, Maine, is no longer there. The Iron Horse was in a train, serving dinner in a coach equipped with tables. The kitchen was in another car. The whole train is gone now, so I hope it moved on somewhere else.
