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How many of you remember coal fired steam engines and cattle cars??
dreher
Member Posts: 8,791 ✭✭✭✭
I remember seeing the occasional steam engine when I was little. I can also remember seeing cattle cars with cattle in them while sitting at a rail crossing.
These are memories from when I was four, plus or minus a year. They are surprisingly vivid after all these years. I'm thinking being a little kid stopped at a rail road crossing watching any train go by was really special but the noise and smoke from a steam engine was extra special!!
But to see a cattle car, with cattle in it, while standing up in the back seat of my grammas car was cool beyond belief!!
As I look back, I had a wonderful childhood.
Comments
There was nothing and never will be anything like the mournful howl of a steam engine's whistle.
The only one I've ever seen outside of a theme park is the UP 844 all the local railroads scraped theirs about 5 years before I was born
I'm old enough that I remember the first diesel engine I saw in a rail yard up by Akron Ohio. When I was a kid and we lived in a town that had tracks going down the middle of the street we lived on. The engine was a Baltimore & Ohio 0-6-0 switcher. I always ran out to wave at the engineer and fireman. I could feel the ground quiver as the engine went down the street.
Later we moved to another small town the Pennsylvania RR ran through. They still had steam engines on the line until about 57 or 58.
Through the years we've gone on many vacations that included steam train rides all over the eastern US and even the Algoma RR in Canada.
Joe
i remember gas 8gal for a dollar
I remember my Grandfather taking me to the rail yards to see a couple of diesel electrics pull a train that was composed of just steam engines and tenders and a single caboose. Going to the breakers.
Sadly they have gone the way of the Dodo.
I remember seeing the Virginian Railway electric locomotives come through our town. Sparks would fly from the overhead catenary wires.
Catenary wire, haven't heard that term, since 1966. My Dad was a NJ state police Det. Sgt.. Called upon to investigate a
RR theft and death of bare #9guage copper wire. The thief was fried on an aluminum ladder with wire cutters still in hand. Current of Canenary wire was 25 kV !
I sure walked a lot of miles of railroad tracks in my life! Entertainment growing up was to put pennies on the tracks. The tracks were quite a short cut for heading to the lake to fish all seasons of the year. Used to do quite the distance doing just the rails like a tightrope walker. Then those long stretches as a young'un trying to stay on the ties.
We had single tracks with working trains most of my life until I was high school age that ran about 1\4 mile from our house. Mostly used by the C&O R\R hauling fruit and supplies to the local orchards and canneries. Today, all those tracks are gone and paved for Rails to Trails. I moved 40 miles away from our old homestead 6 years ago. Here there are single tracks with working trains about 1\4 mile away. Hearing those whistles blow makes me feel right at home again!
Yup, switch engines in the apple yard. Best were the coal fired snow plows used on Steven, Blewit and Snoqualmy passes. (WA) Those puppys could really pitch the snow !
Long after the age of Diesel, steam engine were still being used as "pushers" in freight yards. They would create the train, and await the Diesel OTR locomotive.
I do not remember them but remember a fascination with trains as most young boys do ? my dad told me a story first time they seen a diesel engine it was coming thru a tunnel ( Tennessee ) him and his buddies were walking the tracks something very normal then , he said the head light was flashing in the dark tunnel and the sound scared the crap out of them they all went running to a safe distance it was the first one in the Valley as he called it
my oldest son loves trains , he travels the country chasing and photographing them he belongs to the 765 engine club in Indiana one of the old big boy steam engines they keep in operating condition also just got back from a "chase " out west some steam engine they closing down for repairs for 5 years last run before it gets back in service
he has 10 of thousands of slides some he took and others he has bought he sells and trades does well at shows and on the internet selling them I know some of his photos were put in books and on calendars but have no idea which ones
Just barely remember the coal fired engines. Cattle pens and cars were still on the line when I was very young. Grandparents lived less than 1/4 mile from the end of the pens and Granddad was the local "drayman" who hauled the freight from the RR dock to the businesses in our little town. The rails were very important to local economy up through WW2. Even into the 1970's, grain, fertilizer, and heavy equipment transportation by rail was a big deal but by then everything was diesel electric powered.
I've unloaded a goodly number of fertilizer cars in the spring and hauled in the grain that filled a lot of cars in the fall.
No
We have the National Pike Steam, Gas and Horse Assoc right down the road. They pot on a nice show every summer.
I remember going to Boone, Iowa and having a diner and scenic train ride, with she who shall be obeyed.
They have quite the set up.
Edit to add, I grabbed the photo off of their website.
https://bsvrr.com/wp/rides-offered/wolf-dinner-train/#
Union Station in Ogden, Utah was the temporary stop for every GI who went to the Pacific Theater to fight the Japanese. Defense Depot Ogden was the huge warehouse site for every bomb, bullet, bean, and bandage to go there, also. Our Railroad history stems from the driving of the Golden Spike to today. Suffice it to say that this is pretty much Ground Zero for all things "train" in the West. If you love trains, you need to come here to see our train museum - co-located with the Browning Firearms Museum AND the Browning Auto Museum. I will be delighted to be your genial host and tour guide.
Back in the 70s there would be a steamer that would run from Atlanta to Charlotte a couple of times a year just for show.I think you could hear its whistle for 20 miles.
Union Pacific Big Boy - Wikipedia
Union Pacific Big Boy was the largest steam engine ever built. Withdrawn from service in 1962. It had/has a 4-8-8-4 wheel arrangement. Total weight app 1,200,000 lbs. l think there's one Big Boy still running with the Union Pacific restoring a second.
There's nothing like riding a steam driven train. l have ridden the Charleston to Branchville run a couple of times celebrating Branchville SC as the world's oldest railroad junction. There used to be a steam run in Dillsboro GA. I've ridden that one also. The wife and l spent 6 days riding trains in China back in 2001, before 9/11. We were on a Diesel train, but l saw quite a few old steam engines in switchyards shuttling cars to and fro. These were the old high wheeled type engines seen in Europe with those sissy high pitched whistles.
i'd sure like to see BIG BOY after it gets restored. Sadly they are converting it over to Diesel. We all know coal is just so FILTHY. lts all part of the ride experience feeling cinders hit you in the face
Used to go on bike rides with my brother and my dad to what we called the "lost railroad"..........we had great fun putting pennies on the track when a train was coming.
My uncle , Robert Mcdougald ,was an engineer for Seaboard Coast . He pulled freight and drove passenger trains . He was at the throttle of the last steam driven engine pulling the last passenger train that Seaboard ran when it made its final run .I have some of his operating instruction manuals of how to operate some of the old steam engines .
I remember these two. Our family friend Ralph MacAllister built them true to scale and drove them all over his property. The articulated Mallet was over 30 feet long.
In my 42 years on the railroad I seen a lot of cattle cars. Would switch them out and take them to the stock yard. Spooking cattle and hogs in a cattle car at night and in the dark, and your standing close to the car can get you covered with; Well you guested it.
Around 1973 1974 hauling cattle by rail was pretty much over.
Waltermoe. So many years since livestock has been moved by rail, but almost all railyards still have "cleaner tracks", with banked rails. I'm assuming there used to be a drainage trench running between them and all the manure was washed down the trench to who-knows-where. That was before my time. Now, even the locomotive washracks have been largely removed from service, probably due to regulations regarding the dirty water runoff and corporate cost cutting. Don't see many shiny, clean locomotives rolling down the rails these days.
One Big Boy is on tour at the moment. I forgot it was in the area yesterday (Poplar Bluff).
PSA: The news article in the link requires you to answer a survey question to read it.
https://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/hotlist/the-big-boy-the-worlds-largest-operating-steam-locomotive-chugs-through-st-louis-area-this/article_c0010936-4b2e-5be7-b07a-f57800eb16f7.html
Here is video of Bug Boy rolling through Arkansas earlier this week:
https://twitter.com/Max_Bennett17/status/1430960291790172161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1430960291790172161%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-2705614517209632840.ampproject.net%2F2108132216000%2Fframe.html