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Any train fans around?

Ar-Pharazon

Ar-Pharazon

Admiral
Admiral
I just watched this interesting video of some Union Pacific units, donated to the Railroading Heritage of Midwest America in "nearby" Silvis, IL. They're all going to be refurbished to their former glory.

A Challenger 4-6-6-4, the very last TTT-6 2-10-2, a massive DDA40X, an ex-Amtrak E9B and an ex-CNW F unit, among various other cars.

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I'm on the opposite side of northern Illinois, but I may make the trip out in the spring, assuming one can get in to see all these gems. And I'm not a massive train fan, but the history there......

I went to see the 4-8-8-4 'Big Boy' on it's 2019 tour. A massive beast, that one.
 
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This is a nice video on the old Silvis locomotive shops.

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I like old trains, not only steam but also diesel and even electric.
One of the most famous electric trains we had running here in the Netherlands was this one.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Mat_'54
They had "hondekop (doghead)" as nickname, they also were VERY solidly built. :mallory:

There's a later series which was built in the '60's
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NS_Mat_'64
Looks almost the same so it got the same nickname as well.

We've got the third busiest railroad system in the world. :mallory:
 
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I used to know someone who would go to a parking lot/area by a railroad crossing for "train watching". He said time to time, there were interesting trains/models that would pass by. He was savvy enough to familiarize himself with the train schedule, as well as which tracks would yield more interesting types of trains.

I've seen him get excited when he saw a train car that was supposedly to be incredibly rare/unique.

He claimed to have met people doing the same, like people doing bird watching.
 
Ar-Pharazon said:
I just watched this interesting video of some Union Pacific units, donated to the Railroading Heritage of Midwest America in "nearby" Silvis, IL. They're all going to be refurbished to their former glory.

A Challenger 4-6-6-4, the very last TTT-6 2-10-2, a massive DDA40X, an ex-Amtrak E9B and an ex-CNW F unit, among various other cars.

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I'm on the opposite side of northern Illinois, but I may make the trip out in the spring, assuming one can get in to see all these gems. And I'm not a massive train fan, but the history there......

I went to see the 4-8-8-4 'Big Boy' on it's 2019 tour. A massive beast, that one.
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That video popped up on my suggestions yesterday :)

Couldn't work out if the rusted old diesel loco was running or it the was current service one (the later would make more sense but who knows :)

There's also a series of videos by a guy who used the name Darkness the curse on the best and worst locos. British Rail fans either know it has produced some utter turkeys of locomotives especially in the diesel era or they will have to block their ears :)

Think it's the British Rail Museum that has the Curator videos and a herritage railway in the Midlands has a pile up as well.
 
funny-iliketrains.gif
 
Though my Dad was a CSX man, most of my interactions have been with Norfolk Southern.

At one of my jobs, we would get a reefer car…and I would check the temperature. I called the 1-800 number, and told the operator the warehouse was very near their yard. But the repairman was given bad directions—and I made it a point to get the actual yard number from him.

At another job in the 90’s, one of their trains would pull up…back up…repeat.

This blocked the entrance to a huge quarry in Birmingham, with the rails only a few yards from a cliff of 150-200 feet…you could almost see the length of an entire train as it came around that bend…a stunning sight.

One of the front-end loader operators got so mad from the blockages he threatened to topple a switch-engine off the tracks.

It was then that I found out that switchman have a nickname for us:

FRNs:

R and N for “Railway Nuts.”

You can guess the rest.

I often worry that train will fall into the “Blue Hole” of the water filled quarry off Arkadelphia…I think there was a fatal accident in another state caused by a man texting rail fans, sadly.

A train at speed probably has the same energy as small nukes…and are fearsome looking things at night with a single baleful eye. I don’t see many “slugs” and fewer caboose cars—though I did see one with an ETD:
https://www.thomasklimoski.com/post/end-of-train-devices

We actually have a nice yard right in downtown Birmingham’s city center…and gridded streets—-something Atlanta never thought of…they put in with aviation…which seems the better choice.

For awhile, Birmingham and Atlanta were about even…look what we used to have:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Terminal_Station

The last trolley that went through Inglenook ceased in the 1970s. Mayor Larry Langford tried to revive streetcars…but it fell apart.
 
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I'm not into the technical stuff, I just like riding trains. I'm a huge geek for mass transit. Subways, light rail, buses, streetcars - you name it, I've ridden it.

If my city had decent mass transit, I'd sell my car in a heartbeat!

(sorry if this isn't enough for this thread. As I said, I'm not into the technical side of trains. I just like to ride ON trains.)
 
was trying to remember the probably name for the some of youtube videos I mentioned above.

The answer is the Watercress line.
 
first home I lived in was practically right off the old Clinchfield RR tracks. To this day I sleep better with the occasional train passing by, and its probably no accident my current home is within earshot of the nearby BNSF line. I'm not good at being able to identify the different engines, an equipment, either. i just have always found them interesting.

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there used to be a few interesting hobos that would record their journeys. some of the best are gone. Stobe got killed when his backpack got caught by a train going opposite on the other track (or something else, stories differ)
but Shoestring is still around. He survived a battle with cancer and is back on the rails. Apart from the journeys itself, the guy really knows trains and the rail procedures. He's done this so long he's probably more familiar with railroads than anyone else in America.
 
Where I grew up in NE Illinois, we had Soo Line tracks running through the center of town, so that was my main RxR line.

The other tracks at the south end of town were Milwaukee Road and that's where the passenger line from Chicago to our range of suburbs ran (before they all got bought up by Metra).

They're all owned by one or two of the very few lines left at this point. Either UP (which own C&NW now) or CP (which owns Soo now), with a couple other UP lines (one of which Amtrak runs on).
 
Ar-Pharazon said:
The other tracks at the south end of town were Milwaukee Road and that's where the passenger line from Chicago to our range of suburbs ran (before they all got bought up by Metra).
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Stuff gets recycled. Some of the really old Metra rolling stock got sold to Nashville for their nascent commuter rail, the Music City Star
 
XCV330 said:
Stuff gets recycled. Some of the really old Metra rolling stock got sold to Nashville for their nascent commuter rail, the Music City Star
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The old double-deck, bare stainless steel cars, or earlier ones? I know a lot of old SS cars are still in use up here along with much newer ones.
 
XCV330 said:
the stainless double deckers.
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"Gallery" cars? With single upper-level seats on either side, and a railing to keep you from falling into the open center? Caltrain in Northern California still runs some of them, but for many years, they've been switching over to more modern bilevel commuter cars.

Amtrak also runs two distinct (but mutually compatible) kinds of double-deck cars. Superliners have the main level (and the end doors to pass between cars) on top, and a lower level with restrooms, carry-on racks, and accessible seating, and are used for long-distance trains where tunnel clearances permit; they were modeled after cars built for the 1956 version of the Santa Fe's "El Capitan." "California cars" are similar, but designed for shorter runs, like the Surfliners, the San Joaquins, and the Capitol Corridor; they're like Superliners, only with more Spartan seating, bigger stairwells, fewer restrooms, and twice as many doors (all power-driven, whereas the doors on Superliners are manually operated).
 
hbquikcomjamesl said:
"Gallery" cars? With single upper-level seats on either side, and a railing to keep you from falling into the open center? Caltrain in Northern California still runs some of them, but for many years, they've been switching over to more modern bilevel commuter cars.
Click to expand...
thats's them. I did not know their name. thanks
 
Somewhat. I get nostalgic about train travel. And that's because Canada has scaled back dramatically when it comes to train travel, with far less routes. I think the last time I took a train was in 1994. At that time, you could take a train everyday, and now it only comes through my town once a week, and doesn't even stop at a station anymore, but a junction. Passenger service just isn't the same here anymore, and I've heard some of the infrastructure is even being pulled up. What's left are the corridors to some of the bigger cities and the luxury national trains like The Mountaineer and The Canadian. When passenger service was scaled back, we began to rely on the bus more, but eventually Greyhound pulled out of Canada.
 
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