I have been on the empire builder twice and on the SP&S no.700 I have also gotten the opourtunity to drive a fireless steam locomotive owned by my great grandfather.
I am wondering what trains you have been on
I got a cab ride in an old Alco/MLW C425 one day… That was cool! Got a coulpe of neat pics, and a few very nice details from the friendly crew on both the line and the unit involved.
Otherwise, simply local excursion/passanger trains. Once steam, a handful of times diesel. The steam trip was eventful, as the local FD was asked to refill the water, and, on accident, used the foam side by misteake…
I just so happened to be standing next too one of the organizers, and he was less than impressed…
I haven’t ridden any trans, but I have ridden a few trains.
From memory:
-
Amtrak San Francisco Zephyr (Osceola IA to Sacramento 1975)
-
Amtrak San Francisco Zephyr (Sacramento to Denver 1976)
-
Amtrak California Zephyr (Chicago to Osceola IA and back 1983)
-
Amtrak California Zephyr (Chicago to Sacramento and back 1990)
-
Nickle Plate steam excursion (Bloomington IN to tulip trestle and back 1992)
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Amtrak Lake Shore Limited (Syracuse NY to Chicago and back 1996)
-
Amtrak (Syracuse to Washington DC via NY City 2000)
Amtrak
Stations: Altoona, Tyrone, Pittsburgh, WAS, NYP, BOS, Philadelphia, Alexandria, Charleston, Savannah
- Three Rivers
- Pennsylvanian
- Capitol Limited
- Silver Star
- Silver Meteor
- Palmetto
- Northeast Regional
- Acela
Scenic:
- Texas State
- Strasburg
Commuter:
- South Shore Line
International:
- Heathrow Express (Heathrow to Paddington)
- South Western Railway (London to Hampton Court and back)
- Eurostar (London to Paris)
- TGV-Lyria (Paris to Zurich)
- Swiss Federal Railway (Zurich to St. Moritz)
- Rhaetian Railway (St. Mortiz to Tirano)
- Trenord (Tirano to Milano)
- Frecciarossa (Milano to Venezia, Firenze to Roma, Roma to Napoli)
- Frecciargento (Venezia to Firenze)
In no particular order.
The Strasburg Rail Road, at least 60 or 70 times, maybe more, including being there to see N&W J 611 run. First time as a child, not long after they opened, most recently this past December. It is less than an hour from my house.
B&O RDC excursions on the Baltimore & Annapolis RR in 1964/65
Western Maryland Scenic Railroad, both the fall excursion on the old B&O Mainline, and the normal run to Frostburg.
B&O Railroad museum train ride thru the area where the B&O main shops once stood.
Liberty Limited dinner train, long gone now, near us in southern PA.
Great Smoky Mountains Railroad.
The Edaville Railroad two foot gauge.
Essex steam train and river cruise in Connecticut.
Baltimore Trolley Museum, multiple times.
National Capital Trolley Museum
DC Metro
Sheldon
Not counting fan trips - I’m a member of “The Friends of 261” so I’ve been on quite a few excursions behind that old Milwaukee Road engine:
Pre-Amtrak:
Milwaukee Road commuter train Minneapolis to St.Paul MN
Great Northern “Badger”, Minneapolis to Superior WI.
On Amtrak:
About 20 years ago my wife and I took the Empire Builder from St.Paul to Chicago and then another train…can’t think which, but I think it was on former NYC trackage…to Grand Rapids MI. A couple days later we reversed the trip coming home. Best part of the return trip was a guy got drunk and obnoxious going across Wisconsin, and when we crossed over the Mississippi, the conductor kicked him off the train at Winona MN - and had him arrested. The guy yelled “what about my luggage?” and the conductor yelled back “don’t worry, it’ll be waiting for you at St.Paul!” (about 100 miles away).
A couple of years ago I got to run a C&NW SW-600 on the Wisconsin Great Northern. My ‘coach’ was Lynton Brooks, pictured on page 40 of the May 2021 Trains.
Rode a few, the most memorable: Key System trains with my late grandmother between Oakland & Berkeley in the late 50s. A 1960 Cub Scout field trip to Sutters Fort on the S.P. from Richmond to Sacramento (Sacramento Daylight or The Cascade?). Some trips over the past decade or so upon Amtrak’s Capitol Corriidor to the Sacramento Railroad Museum with the grandkids.
My old Key System token holds a lot of good memories.
Thanks & regards, Peter
The Long Island Railroad commuter train into NYC
The NYC Subways
A train I don’t remember a little ways north of NYC to go camping
Trains between Boston and NYC, before AmTrak and now, but NOT the Acela.
Boston MBTA subways, trolleys and commuter rail.
Lots of trains in Europe in my early 20s on a Eurailpass, including the Orient Express.
Florence to Venice and back a few years ago.
That’d really clean out the boiler…
Could the OP just edit the title of this thread to insert the missing “i”. Please.
My current favourite trains ridden:
Top of the list?
TGV from Nantes to Montparnasse station in Paris… according to the GPS we reached 300 km/hr… didn’t think much of the station itself, nice enough old architecture but trying to leave on foot is a challenge…
Next up?
The Royal Hudson from Vancouver to Squamish and back in the 70’s after her first refit. A MAGNIFICENT TRAIN
Third on my list?
Ravenglass & Eskdale miners railway (the Ratty) in the Lake District, Cumbria UK.
Fourth?
The Severn Valley Heritage railway from Kidderminster to Bridgnorth. UK. The gastropub we stayed at not fa
Ridden trans will certainly bring up some interesting searches. [:-^]
Model Railroading IS fun!
Cheers, Ed
City Park train in New Orleans.
Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum.
Train at Lakes Park in Fort Myers, Florida.
Train into park at Six Gun Territory.
Train at the Indianapolis Zoo.
Train at Busch Gardens in Tampa.
and of course… The train at the Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom.
Oh… the Thunder Mountain Railway, also in Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom.
-Kevin
Ferrocarril Central Del Peru in the late 50’s and early 60’s, between Lima and La Oroya; and
Passenger train pulled by Baldwin Consolidation owned by Cerro Mining Corp, between Cerro de Pasco and La Oroya. It’s highest point was at Ticlio, just over 15K feet.
German Autowagon rail car maybe ten passenger (?), also ran between Cerro de Pasco and La Oroya.
Steam train to Wakefield from Gatineau, Quebec. The steamer was an import from Sweden.
VIA between Ottawa and Toronto, return, business.
Slovenian Railway from Zagreb, Croatia, to Bled, Slovenia for a 72 hour R&R partway through my peacekeeping tour in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Return trip.
Alberni Pacific (heritage) railway to Canada’s only operating steam sawmill. Baldwin 2-8-2T. I have two lovely paintings by the Irish/Canadian mechanical engineer who rebuilt the engine about 20 years ago and who operated it until a few years before his death in 2017. His name was George Williamson.
Kamloops Heritage Railway’s ex-CN 2-8-0 between Kamloops and Armstrong on a fall colours excursion.
British Columbia’s Heritage Railway Royal Hudson, a short pull of maybe 25 km each way in the lower mainland, from New Westminister to White Rock.
White Pass & Yukon Route, day out-and-back from Skagway. Glorious day, glorious Mike on the front end, lots of photos and memories. Would do it again.
Sorry GN24, but you need to edit your thread title…we pretty-well all know what you meant, but as it stands, it’s easily interpreted as offensive.
Wayne
My family and I rode in the UP City of Los Angles from Salt Lake City to LA and the SP Golden State from LA to El Paso TX in December 1949. Great ride, the City of LA got stuck in deep snow on Donor Pass for 19 hours. Quite an experience for a 12 yr old.
For my 14th birthday I road in the cab of SP Cab Forward 4287 from El Paso to Alamogordo NM and back in the cab of SP AC-9 3807, my greatest railroad moment ever.
In the 70s the family road the Durango Silverton many times, the Cumbres and Toltec once. After moving to California in the late 80s we road the Sugar Pine and Roaring Camp narrow gauge several times.
Mel
My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/
Bakersfield, California
I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.
In 1965 I got to ride the Canadian Pacific ‘Canadian’ from Toronto to Vancouver, and from Calgary back to Toronto several weeks later. There were so many highlights that I could write a (small) book, but the best was a ride in the F series cab across Northern Ontario. A friend who I had met on the train asked the conductor if we could ride in the cab, and the conductor promptly ushered us to the front of the train and into the cab, with the engineer’s permission of course. Unfortunately it was at night so there wasn’t much to see, but I do remember the noise and the heat radiating from the engine room, and the occassional deer in the headlights.
Previous to that I had been to Toronto from Oshawa and back a few times but I don’t remember the details. I do remember being disappointed when my mom decided to take the bus instead of the train to get to Toronto in later years.
Other than that, I have ridden the Algoma Central from Sault St. Marie to the Agawa canyon, and I have ridden the South Simcoe Railway from Tottenham to Beeton and back behind 4-4-0 #136 built in 1883.
I doubt that this counts, but I also rode behind a large scale steamer of unknown configuration at the Richmond Hill Live Steamers compound north of Toronto. I remember being covered in soot! Their club used to allow the public to visit every Sunday but unfortunately insurance costs put a stop to that.
Our next trip train might be the Rocky Mountaineer. We have decided to take a trip with some of the cottage proceeds and that will definitely be on the list of possibilities.
Dave
P.S.
I was going to comment on the rather unfortunate misspelling of the word ‘trains’ in the title but the thought of such a thing made my back sore![swg][(-D][(-D][:-^]
I will add here as I get time to, an the memory comes back.
PRR #1361.
One of the Cass RR Shays.
Middletown and Hummelstown. M&H or Milk and Honey.
Hawk Mountain WK&S.
East Broad Top.
Something at Steam Town.
Oil Creek & Titusville.
Knox & Kane.
Stewartstown RR.
Something from Altoona to Johnstown.
Strasburg RR.
Tiogo Central RR.
WOW, you guys road some really cool trains.
On vacation in the UK, we rode the Intercity 125 from London to Edinburgh
We also rode the Fenistung (??spelling) Railway in Wales
IN Norway we rode the Flamm Railway. At a 5-1/2% grade, it is the stepest standard gauge traction railway in the world, and considered one of the 8 great railway journeys
Well seeing ffolkes are mentioning foreign trains…
The New Zealand Railways “Southerner” in the mid 70s.
Regularly rode the Sydney, Australia, suburban commuter trains in the early 80’s.
Couple of trips on the Glenbrook Vintage Railway, and a Mainline Steam excursion train, hauled by my favourite steam locomotive, the NZR Ja class.
Ja 1275 reversing on to the Te Kuiti turntable.
Ja 1275 by Bear, on Flickr
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
I live in the UK so I have been almost everywhere here by train and riden on many of the steam heritage railways. In fact I lived right beside the Severn Valley Railway for a few years.
In Europe I can’t think of a country I haven’t travelled on a train but I did a few years in my youth doing the Interrail thing.
In the US in 1988 I was on:
The Cardinal NY - Chicago
The California Zypher Chicago - Salt Lake City
The Pioneer Salt Lake City - Portland
The Coast Starlight Portland - Oakland
The California Zypher Oakland - Glenwood Springs return
The Coast Starlight Oakland - Santa Barbara
In 2009
Southwest Chief Chicago to LA
We toured around India top to bottom and side to side for 2 months in 1994 by train even saw 2 or 3 steamers shunting when we were on the train.
2006 Japan Osaka to Tokyo and Tokyo to Hiroshima.
Biggest trip of all over 3 months was in 2008 when I sold my shares in my company and went from Glasgow Scotland to Sydney Australia once they’d opened the line from Alice Springs to Darwin. That was via Paris, Moscow, Beijing, Hanoi, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore then flight to Indonesia and then Jakarta to Surabaya. Unfortunately from there it was back to KL and fly to Darwin and then Darwin to Adelaide and Sydney. I should also say I had to get a bus over the Thai border. I was lucky though because it was in a 15 year or so window after the Channel Tunnel opened and before the last service train from KL to Singapore.
I’d like to try the old single level equipment in Canada but the prices are hilarious for the sleeper. Conversley in the US at least in the '80’s 1st class was phenomenal value especially with the then delicious meals thrown in.
I’m wondering did you do the Flamm railway as part of the Norway In A Nutshell thing?