Nostalgia Central - "Remembering" the railroad operations we just missed

[C855B]

From today's proto-photo thread:

I was born in Havre de Grace, and it is really nice down on the water.  Back in 1970, of course, my first trip from the hospital to my parents' home in Aberdeen, Maryland would have taken me over what was then Penn Central's tracks (now the Northeast Corridor) and the B&O's Royal Blue Line.  If only I could see what I saw back in those days but cannot remember.

DFF

I think we all have those what-if "memories". Mine was being born in Mojave when cab-forwards were still operating over Tehachapi. But just barely, they were gone even before I could walk.

There are, however, a handful of mind's-eye memories which find me wistful...

...seeing a late SP Owl from my grade school playground, with a pair of Bloody Nose PA's on the point. The only live PA's I ever recall. I sort of knew what PA's were because I had the American Flyer "Rocket" set at the time.

...the return leg of a cross-country trip to visit grandparents. Dad liked to drive US30 (I-80 wasn't complete yet) on the westbound trip, which as many of you know followed the UP from Omaha to SLC. My love of the UP came from the 1967 trip - DD heaven, an occasional U50, and GTEL8500 turbines. Special memory of a Barnum & Bailey eastbound train approaching Sherman Hill led by turbine #16. THAT one is etched in my mind.

...three railfan trips expressly to witness soon-to-be-gone railroads. First, the MILW western extension, with only four months left. Spent several hours, many tearful, with the operator at Cle Elum, whose job was to be cut with less than a year before qualifying for full pension. Since his whole railroad world was basically going away, there was no place left to "do his time" to qualify. Second trip was to Texas, Arkansas and Oklahoma, to see the Frisco like five weeks before becoming BN. Station agent in McAlister (...I think...) loaded me up with Frisco marketing trinkets and other memorabilia.

Third was a weekend jaunt to Green Bay to see "Alco central", the GB&W. There was no final date yet, but the handwriting was clear. The weather was gray and threatening snow so we didn't linger, but we saw one mainline train to get an idea of what we were shortly to see no more of.

[GaryHinshaw]

Here are a few memories I have from the 1960's:

• I grew up across the street from the NWP's Tiburon branch in Marin County.  This line ended at the southern terminus of the NWP with a classic car ferry operation that connected with downtown San Francisco.  The main motive power on the line were SP-style tiger-striped switchers and the ferry slip was served by a 44-tonner with idler flats:
  
  http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=171062&nseq=0
  
  It was all pulled up in the late 60s.
• Rode the City of Portland from Denver to Portland a few times in the mid 60s.  I have no recollection of what I saw along the way, except for lots of Armour Yellow. I will always remember how quite the dome cars seemed, even when full.
• I visited grandparents in Trail BC for several summers in the late 60s, and they had a house close to the big Cominco smelter in town.  I remember watching CP trains, with C-liners for power, quietly roll into town to start working the many jobs at the smelter: 
  
  http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=364318&nseq=0.
  

-gfh

[ljudice]

Two I remember...

-  The CNJ trainmasters and PRR E8's, E7's on the North Jersey Coast line

-  The old New Haven Bay Ridge yard and branch...   (Carfloat terminal)

[lock4244]

Wish I'd seen CP's RS-3, RS-10's, and FA's in action. They were still around when I was born, and I may have seen the odd one at Agincourt as a rat, but they were all gone when I started going trackside ~1986. The CLC's would have been nice, too, but the last of them were retired in the year of my birth (and Toronto is a long way from Nelson, BC).

Another would have been to experienced the plethora of CN and CP branchline operations here in Ontario before they were gone.

I remember CN operations on the now severed Newmarket Sub. We had customers along Kempenfelt Bay in Barrie (the Oshawa of the north... you have to be from around here to get that one) and I recall seeing both the Meaford Sub train working the yard and them getting out of town, as well as watching both VIA's Canadian and CN freights curling around the bay on the large horseshoe. This was in it's final year or so as a through route, and now its a stub ended commuter line from Toronto, Orillia , north of Barrie, has no railroad (sad considering it's Gordon Lightfoot's hometown, the man that penned the 'Canadian Railroad Trilogy'), a short section south of Washago remains to serve a customer in Longford, and the Washago - North Bay section remains as CN's access to the Ontario Northland (via the Bala Sub which crosses it in Washago. Wish I'd been photographing back then.

Also remember CN's F7Au's... we paced an A-A pair down the Don Valley on a school trip to the Royal Ontario Museum. I remember little to nothing of the ROM, but can still see those F units as if it were yesterday. Saw a quartet of them around 1989 sitting at Mac Yard stored after their retirement.

[kornellred]

I was born in Newark NJ in 1949 and until the age of 5 lived right next to the PRR main line.  I became interested in trains as soon as I developed self-consciousness.  Talking about "just missed" - the PRR Broker, running out of Exchange Place in Jersey City, was steam-powered until the mid-1950's.  My attention being essentially fixated on the PRR main line, I clearly remember GG1 powered trains and MP54 MU trains.  I do not know if I actually saw the steam-powered Broker or not, although I can easily construct mental images, being intensely familiar with the PRR infrastructure, and later becoming familiar with K4s locomotives via books and video.  Even if I did happen to see the Broker, it still is something I "just missed".   Damn.....

[wazzou]

Here are a few memories I have from the 1960's:

http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=171062&nseq=0

-gfh

That picture really illustrates how wide the Bachmann 44T hoods are.

[Kisatchie]

I was born in 1950. The only memory of live steam I have was seeing an 0-6-0(?) Southern switcher working the Southern freight yard 2 blocks from my house in New Orleans. I'm guessing this was around 1955 or so.


Hmm... I wasn't around
back then...

[wm3798]

I was 11 in 1975 when the last Western Maryland main line train rolled alongside I-70 near Hancock.  Every summer of my youth, I would go to Ohio with my family to visit my mom's relatives, and every summer we would zip by there in the old Plymouth Satellite.  It was usually daylight, and I know I remember seeing trains once in a while.  There was a long siding at Tonoloway, where eastbound trains would be held to wait for westbounds, so logic would dictate that most of the trains I saw weren't moving.

Track remained in place into the late 70s or early 80s, and toward the end, Chessie used the siding to store dead or dying rolling stock.

So I know I saw trains, I know I saw cars.  I just had no idea what I was looking at.  But I've been back to try to jog my memory a couple of times...


Lee

[jagged ben]

I grew up across the street from the NWP's Tiburon branch in Marin County.

Holy crap I'm jealous of that!  I grew up in the 80s and all the car ferrys were out of service by then.  However, it is worth noting that, unlike the one in Tiburon, the NWP ferry slip in Fisherman's Warf still exists, and so do both ATSF slips, all now rotting away of course.

I caught a few glimpses of the still existing NWP in the 90s, including when it was run by Cal Northern. 

For me, the 'didn't quite see it' stuff is SP commuters on the Peninsula before Caltrain, and the Santa Fe through Franklin Canyon (before BNSF), which I could have seen if I'd quite realized that it existed when I was still in school.

[GaryHinshaw]

Holy crap I'm jealous of that!

Sadly I was only 7 or 8 when it was torn up, and I only saw the operations for a year or two, so I effectively missed it.  Two specific memories I do have though:

* The southbound job coming into Tiburon would usually come through around 6 or 7 in the morning, and it usually had a lot of flats with wrapped lumber loads.  The sound of the train would wake me and I could see the line from my bedroom window, so I would bolt up and count the number of cars with loads wrapped for Fibreboard Corp., the company my dad worked for.  Once I had the count I would run out to the kitchen where dad was getting ready for work and proudly report the count.

* The elementary school I went to had its playground adjacent to the tracks, with a cyclone fence between them.  It was not very common for a train to come through during school hours, but the first time it did - when I was in kindergarten - I bolted out of the class and pressed my nose against the fence.  Afterwards I was promptly escorted to the Principal's office.

I'm sure my parents were proud...