There’s something about trains

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(I hope you’ll indulge me in this off topic post tonight) I love riding on trains.  In my personal experience they are vastly superior to planes.  It’
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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DDelta, jburk07, geekdom, wdburt1

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I like them both. I’ve an interest in railroads and commercial aviation, though I consider my flying days to be over (as a passenger) and they never started for train travel. Once they started with the scanners, that was it. It’s too much of a hassle with the TSA.

Trains… for long distance travel, the tickets aren’t much cheaper than planes, if they are at all, and of course, they take far longer. If you’re actually trying to get somewhere to do something, and your time is valuable, the train trip taking a few days to get to the other coast is far too costly even if the tickets were free. Time is money, of course. But if you’re out to have an experience and you have the free time (ie a vacation), I’ve often thought about how cool it would be to take an Amtrak across the country. When I used to fly, I always got a window seat, and when I’ve gone on road trips, I’m always looking at everything around and soaking it in, so naturally I would do the same by rail. Alas, the longest train trip I have taken was on one of those excursion lines, totalling about an hour and a half out and an hour and a half back. It was fun, but it’s not the same as actually going somewhere (where you get off the train at a different point than you got on!).

I’ve watched some long-form Youtube videos of Amtrak trips cross-country, and even though they were hours long, I find myself wanting more, and I wish they would have been truly unedited, in their full length, so I can really get a feel for the pace. I don’t have to sit there and give the whole video my rapt attention… I can put it on and continue to do other things, much as I would if I were actually on the train, and I can always pause it and resume my vicarious journey later. I saw one video that depicted an entire airliner flight from Europe to the US east coast, uncut, from door close to door open. I watched the whole thing at normal speed (though not all in one sitting). Seeing Greenland by air was especially enjoyable.

In this era of attention spans that would make the proverbial goldfish think people had ADD, I guess there is not much stomach for “slow and enjoyable” anymore. The so-called “digital natives” start TL;DWing aviation videos (something they’re presumably interested in if they’re watching them) in the comments if the taxi segment in the beginning is a minute long sometimes. It’s no wonder that they make jokes about what happens if their phone isn’t charged when it’s time to visit the bathroom for the kind of visit that takes more than a few seconds. (I’ve never done that, and had no idea anyone did until it became a meme.)

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Nathan Parker

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The point that digital is not the first technology to change the world is well-taken.

More fundamentally, thank you for the historical awareness, which is increasingly rare these days.

Two quotes, badly paraphrased: Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it. And history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.

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Trains are a special world of their own.

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Nathan Parker

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Many Christmas seasons my husband and I would go to see these trains

https://www.brandywine.org/museum/exhibitions/holiday-magic-brandywine

and we’d follow it up by a visit to Longwood Gardens to see all the decorations at night.

https://longwoodgardens.org/events-performances/longwood-christmas

 

I sold my Lionel train set (from the early 50’s)  and Plasticville village pieces to a train collector. Since we don’t have room to set it up, it seemed like a waste to keep everything stored away in boxes when someone else could be enjoying it.

 

The last extensive train travel we did was on our 5 week trip in Australia. Since I lived in Sydney, I was a pro at getting around the city and suburbs by train. In the US, we took the autotrain to Florida. The trip was a disaster! The train left VA hours late and as a result, we’d have to move off the tracks so night time freight trains could make their schedules. We arrived in FL, a day late. Never again.

Got coffee?

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I go back to childhood days trainspotting with steam trains here in the UK, and with a model railway at home. Later on model railways also became an adult hobby that was dropped only when home computers piqued my interest. There’s certainly something special about trains, and I know that the modern computer train simulators are pretty impressive. My son and I both enjoyed the original Railroad Tycoon back in the day!

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OscarCP

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I still have the set of 1952 Lionel twin Erie diesels along with the freight cars, & caboose.  My father bought it for me when I was four years old.  I added more cars, track, switches, and accessories over the years.  I haven’t had those trains out of the boxes in many years mainly because the transformer went bad and a lot of the all steel 027 gauge track has rusted.

I keep saying “one of these days, I’m gonna get them out” and see if they still run.  They’ve been stored in the garage for many years.  We’ll see, thanks for bringing it to my mind, I tend to forget about the trains when as a kid I couldn’t wait to put them up at Christmas time.

Being 20 something in the 70's was far more fun than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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[wavy]

Don’t dump them, maybe store them someplace dry. Collectors out there with $$

I sold my 50s era Gilbert American Flyer set, just no space to store. But it gives me fond Xmas memories to remember running them..

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by wavy.

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I have traveled many thousands of miles by train, altogether, over many years, in: South America, Australia, Taiwan, Japan and across much of Europe, but very rarely in the USA. Here I have flown or traveled by car to distant places, most of the time. Primarily because of the poorly developed passenger railway system, but also because the distances to places I usually want or need to go are often huge and flying is the only way to get there in time.

Going by train, if one is not in a great hurry, it is possible to see the places one goes through, read a book, engage in conversations that sometimes and unexpectedly teaches one things about people and about the world one did not know already. Or at least it used to be like that, before most travelers found it more interesting to scroll in their cellphones looking for nothing much than to see the world beyond their own limited horizons at home, or to entertain themselves with conversations that were often both enjoyable and informative.

The same things used to be possible in long flights, before people started closing down the windows without even bothering to ask first of their fellow one-or-two-seats-in-the-same-row-as-them travelers whether they minded. It used to be that, flying to a destination of the West coast of the USA, one would go sometimes over the Grand Canyon, Meteor Crater and other landmarks along the way, and admire them from on high; but not any longer, with all the windows shut to better watch movies or TV.

I do not watch movies or TV on long flights, I can watch as much as I like at home, thank you very much; I read a book instead, when (almost invariably) the outside view is so impertinently blocked by curiously incurious fellow travelers.

Fortunately, that is not so common in trains. Provided one sets on the side likely to be mostly the opposite from the sunny one.

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Seff

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I must clarify a statement above: In the USA I have flow when on business or too far away to drive. I have traveled long distances by car mostly on holidays, perhaps after flying to a place near where I wanted to start and end my drive. And I would stop along the way here and there, to see the sights, then make night around sunset whenever I might find a nearby motel or hotel with a room available. I’ve never planned those trips ahead and, when making one, always have stayed off the internet in any of its forms. It is a peculiar delight to be away from everything and lost to the rest of the world, living one’s own little adventure. For emergencies, I could always make a phone call.

As a child my parents will take me with them to stand on a railway bridge to see the trains go by (our town was at a major roads and railways’ junction). Particularly those trains driven by the still in use steam locomotives when the diesel-electric ones were just starting to be around: they will come in towards us and envelop us in their clouds of steam and smoke from their engines. And we all felt it was a grand spectacle and real fun to be a part of it. Which it was.

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Seff, GoneToPlaid

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That last paragraph of yours. Envisioning what you had the opportunity to see as a child is simply majestic.

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Some fun stuff which I hope that you all will enjoy…

A Lionel O scale Big Boy locomotive which has amazing and very realistic features and sound effects:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqRZCB5rBng

Even more amazing is that the coal in the tender actually depletes when you run this locomotive!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j_iPaYKI-g

 

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Seff

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Trains certainly are superior, particularly in the UK.

Next summer, when Covid-19 restrictions have been lifted, I’m going to do a circular tour of mainland UK, hugging the coast as much as possible and not going through the same station twice.  Additionally I’ll visit the northernmost, southernmost, easternmost and westernmost stations.  Travelling from 10am to 6pm-ish (this is not a race) it’ll take me 14 days and 55 trains.

That’s what I call seeing the country.

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[Seff]

I agree that trains in the UK are very good, not so sure about the track and signalling (or the timetables and tickets)! However, I do yearn for the days when you could open a window or door yourself rather than being in a hermetically sealed sardine tin between stations.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Seff.

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Seff: Also I am not sure of the wisdom of having so may seats reserved beforehand. I have traveled long distance several times in trains in the UK both before and after this blanket “reservations” fashion was introduced. Once, after it was introduced, being still ignorant of this innovation and, same as in the past not having reserved a seat — in this case for a round trip London – Newcastle — I had considerably more difficulty finding a seat than I ever had before, when I always found one somewhere, no matter what the seat was like (never being fussy about it) when I caught a train, or where this was going.

But, since I had not tried moving between carriages or opening windows after that change from “seat yourself wherever you can find a free seat” to “reservations”, I have not noticed the “sardine tin” issue mentioned by Seff. That, if as described, would be a real shame. First, starting with the Thatcher government, the authorities got rid of much of the amazing railroad network the UK used to have, for the usual “austerity” and “efficiency” reasons. Now, someone out there seems to be making it harder and less pleasant to use. I would not be surprised if railway company lawyers were not behind these later changes.

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Ascaris wrote:

I’ve often thought about how cool it would be to take an Amtrak across the country.

I am not sure what Amtrak might be like these days in the fall of 1979 I took Via across Canada from BC to Montreal. It was wonderful, the scenery was beautiful and the food was very good. I met some interesting folk on board. I only wish I had made provisions to make a couple of stop overs, Banff for one.

plodr wrote:

Since I lived in Sydney, I was a pro at getting around the city and suburbs by train. In the US, we took the autotrain to Florida. The trip was a disaster! The train left VA hours late and as a result, we’d have to move off the tracks so night time freight trains could make their schedules. We arrived in FL, a day late. Never again.

I also made the trip to Florida on Amtrak. I really did not want to go rail but my mother REALLY thought it was a good idea. Nope especially for her as she was a bit wobbly by that time. A great view of every bodies junky back yard, rotten food and on the return trip we hit a car. Who would think a bar on the hill side of railroad tracks with no entrance but over the tracks was a good idea? Some one in W.? Va. No damage to the train but the car owner did not drive home, maybe a good idea.

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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Wavy: No longer possible to make the whole trans-Canadian trip you were lucky to make: the part between Vancouver and Calgary has been for several years now a commercial segment exclusively reserved for commercial touristic trips — and fairly expensive ones at that, to book passage on. (I also tried, back when it was still possible, to go coast-to coast, but a railway workers’ strike prevented me from making the crossing of the Rockies departing from Vancouver, where I had been attending a conference, so I had to fly to Toronto to proceed from there further East to Montreal. Then I drove along the lovely shores of the Saint Lorenz all the way down to Niagara Falls and, from there, after some sight-seeing, I crossed back to the USA.

Point of interest: that was in the early days, mid-1990s, of the aperture of the Internet to the general public and, listening on the car radio, I got an NPR program with an interview to an enthusiast “net-libertarian” predicting all the wonderful things that the availability to all citizens of the means of mass communication would mean for politics in the future. When the truth about everything would be known to everyone Because information just wanted to be free. (Ironic emoticon not available, sorry.)

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wavy

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I have an extensive wooden train collection. Mostly Thomas the Tank Engine items, although I have some of the Brio items including the limited-edition Polar Express, Theodore Tugboat, Bob the Builder, etc.

I also had the privilege of actually driving a train once. It was up in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I actually drove the diesel locomotive on the return trip back, which was super fun. Even went through a level crossing (I accidentally almost reversed the train when the engineer told me to pull anything he pointed to and he accidentally pointed to the reverser).

I need to find a way to get the old MS Train Simulator running on a Windows VM when I have a free moment. Would be fun.

Nathan Parker

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I still have the “Big Rail Work Train” by Marx I received in the early 70’s. It still puffs smoke when I put a few drops in the smoke stack from the bottle of solution that came in the box. I remember watching the commercial for the train on tv as an eight year old (its now on YouTube) and wanting it so bad. Thanks to Santa (Mom & Dad), I got it.

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Nathan Parker

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