mjotrainbrain Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 Is anybody else on here a railfan? I have had my train hobby on the backburner for quite a while now, but just yesterday I went out to chase the Pere Marquette #1225 (Polar Express). 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RainGoat Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 Fun vid. We’ve got a couple around here. A neighbor friend of mine travels around the country taking his autistic son on different trains. I’ve done a fair number in CO & AZ but always wanted to fo Copper Canyon. I actually use the train between here & Vancouver BC & Portland, OR. Check out the Coast Starlight or Empire Builder, two runs I wouldn’t mind doing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjotrainbrain Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 1 minute ago, RainGoat said: Fun vid. We’ve got a couple around here. A neighbor friend of mine travels around the country taking his autistic son on different trains. I’ve done a fair number in CO & AZ but always wanted to fo Copper Canyon. I actually use the train between here & Vancouver BC & Portland, OR. Check out the Coast Starlight or Empire Builder, two runs I wouldn’t mind doing. Once again, the west coast wins. There's a lot of really cool trains out there that I'd like to see, especially in Colorado. That's really cool of your neighbor, it's a great activity for a father and son to enjoy together. I haven't ridden trains for regular travel much, although I may more just for the sake of doing so. Given the fuel economy of a 4x4 I doubt it would be that much different in cost! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onespiritbrain Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 I’ve always been intrigued by trains and after I worked at Cargil I looked into becoming a loco pilot but unfortunately I didn’t finish acting like a feral animal until just a couple years ago and ruined any chance of a good job in transportation. When I was younger I had a Lionel train set. You put mineral oil in the engine and it would smoke like crazy and it smelled amazing. I love that smell...Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjotrainbrain Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 1 hour ago, onespiritbrain said: I’ve always been intrigued by trains and after I worked at Cargil I looked into becoming a loco pilot but unfortunately I didn’t finish acting like a feral animal until just a couple years ago and ruined any chance of a good job in transportation. When I was younger I had a Lionel train set. You put mineral oil in the engine and it would smoke like crazy and it smelled amazing. I love that smell... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk From what I understand it's properly hard work. You have to be ready to replace couplers at any time in case one breaks, and apparently they weigh about 90 lbs. The smell of Lionel smoke is one of those smells which is timeless; it was great for generations decades ago, and it's still great today. Those Lionel trains have gotten absurdly realistic in the last 5 years or so, even down to "steam" coming out of all the correct spots (whistle, etc.). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 I was heavily into trains as a kid and my dad and I built a couple of N scale (1:160) setups. Unfortunately our funds and skills fell pretty far short of what I wanted to build, and I think I spent more time troubleshooting cheap faulty equipment than much else (and the parts are right proper fiddly in that scale). Still had a lot of fun and I'd love to get back into it if I can ever afford to do it properly. That is one hell of a grease gun! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjotrainbrain Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 9 hours ago, Slartibartfast said: I was heavily into trains as a kid and my dad and I built a couple of N scale (1:160) setups. Unfortunately our funds and skills fell pretty far short of what I wanted to build, and I think I spent more time troubleshooting cheap faulty equipment than much else (and the parts are right proper fiddly in that scale). Still had a lot of fun and I'd love to get back into it if I can ever afford to do it properly. That is one hell of a grease gun! I've got an N-scale railroad going, but I haven't touched it in years. Could never get it to run quite right through the switches and I ran out of patience. That grease gun was super cool, they must have pumped grease into each fitting for two or three minutes; can only imagine how much grease they used to go through annually! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlabamaDan Posted October 22, 2018 Share Posted October 22, 2018 When I was younger I had a 4x8 HO setup, nothing fancy, but I loved playing with it. I had an N scale too, but never setup it up. I've still got all my stuff. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjotrainbrain Posted October 22, 2018 Author Share Posted October 22, 2018 4 hours ago, AlabamaDan said: When I was younger I had a 4x8 HO setup, nothing fancy, but I loved playing with it. I had an N scale too, but never setup it up. I've still got all my stuff. There's a classic setup! I always wanted to give HO a spin, perhaps on an old door for fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlabamaDan Posted October 23, 2018 Share Posted October 23, 2018 Basically all I had in my bedroom was a train table and a bed. LOL 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted October 30, 2018 Share Posted October 30, 2018 For anyone who finds themselves on the dry side of Washington state, there's a little train museum near Reardan that's worth a stop. It's small, but they've got some cool stuff in there. https://inlandnwrailmuseum.com/about-us 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjotrainbrain Posted October 30, 2018 Author Share Posted October 30, 2018 3 minutes ago, Slartibartfast said: For anyone who finds themselves on the dry side of Washington state, there's a little train museum near Reardan that's worth a stop. It's small, but they've got some cool stuff in there. https://inlandnwrailmuseum.com/about-us If I ever find my way out there it looks like a great place to visit! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RainGoat Posted October 30, 2018 Share Posted October 30, 2018 For anyone who finds themselves on the dry side of Washington state, there's a little train museum near Reardan that's worth a stop. It's small, but they've got some cool stuff in there. https://inlandnwrailmuseum.com/about-usGood to know. I didn’t know about that one, though it’s an unlikely spot for me to stumble across. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPath88 Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 On 10/29/2018 at 7:00 PM, Slartibartfast said: For anyone who finds themselves on the dry side of Washington state, there's a little train museum near Reardan that's worth a stop. It's small, but they've got some cool stuff in there. https://inlandnwrailmuseum.com/about-us Dry side of Washington state? Blasphemy! everybody in any other part of the nation knows that it rains 24/7/365 everywhere in the Pacific Northwest and there is no sun, ever... just ask them! Okay so on a serious note, I've never been there myself but one day I'll have to stop by. But this thread does remind me of my early childhood living in Hoquiam, WA, very near to a sawmill with train service. The regular engineer who ran in and out of that on a daily basis during the summer and some weekends used to stop and pick up all the neighborhood kids and give us a ride for five blocks, to the edge of our neighborhood, and drop us off and we'd all walk back home happy as can be. It may have only been five blocks but it was freaking awesome! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RainGoat Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 Dry side of Washington state? Blasphemy! everybody in any other part of the nation knows that it rains 24/7/365 everywhere in the Pacific Northwest and there is no sun, ever... just ask them......my early childhood living in Hoquiam, WAHoquiam, Gray’s Harbor is literally the rainiest area of WA outside of the Hoh perhaps. Reminds me of when I lived in PDX & mentioned Seattle & they would say @Oh, I could never live there, it rains too much!”. Sadly, by comparison, they were right! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjotrainbrain Posted November 4, 2018 Author Share Posted November 4, 2018 14 hours ago, RedPath88 said: Dry side of Washington state? Blasphemy! everybody in any other part of the nation knows that it rains 24/7/365 everywhere in the Pacific Northwest and there is no sun, ever... just ask them! Okay so on a serious note, I've never been there myself but one day I'll have to stop by. But this thread does remind me of my early childhood living in Hoquiam, WA, very near to a sawmill with train service. The regular engineer who ran in and out of that on a daily basis during the summer and some weekends used to stop and pick up all the neighborhood kids and give us a ride for five blocks, to the edge of our neighborhood, and drop us off and we'd all walk back home happy as can be. It may have only been five blocks but it was freaking awesome! That sounds like a lot of fun! All the kids had to love that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPath88 Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 21 minutes ago, RainGoat said: Hoquiam, Gray’s Harbor is literally the rainiest area of WA outside of the Hoh perhaps. Reminds me of when I lived in PDX & mentioned Seattle & they would say @Oh, I could never live there, it rains too much!”. Sadly, by comparison, they were right! Yep it is wet there for sure, but it is often very very nice as well. Lived in Hoquiam and Aberdeen in the early 80s, after moving from the beach, and then again in Aberdeen in early 90s for a combined total of about 8 years. If it wasn't for the crappy economy, which can mostly be blamed on the hits on the timber industry, it'd be a better place to live. Instead it's just been getting worse over the past 20 years. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPath88 Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 2 minutes ago, mjotrainbrain said: That sounds like a lot of fun! All the kids had to love that. Yeah most of the kids in the neighborhood were in first grade or so at that time and we all loved it, it was a blast. :aok: 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPath88 Posted November 4, 2018 Share Posted November 4, 2018 Jump forward several years and I was living in another city in another state and obviously with a new group of friends. Freight trains used to pass through the city and very low speeds. Most of these trains were very long and usually had a handful or more of empty box cars on them, with the doors open. We would hop in them, along with out bikes for a quick and easy, albeit dangerous way to get across town. Really surprised no one ever got seriously hurt or killed Although at least one bike tire & wheel were not so lucky One day I remember two of us we were going to go to another friends who lived about 2 miles south of town. Luckily there was a train passing through town, headed south! What luck we thought! So we hopped it, with the intent of getting off about a mile later, before it was at a speed to fast to jump from as it accelerated into farm lands. We were bs'ing and just screwing around and before we knew it that jump point was long gone and the train was hauling-***!!! When it finally started slowing again, we jumped off and eventually figured out that we were in the next heavily populated city... about 50 or so miles south of home! Having no way to get back, we had no choice but to call one of our moms. A tense couple rounds of Rock Paper Scissors resulted in a "win" for me, so Travis reluctantly placed a collect call to his house. Lucky for us his mom was not home but her boyfriend was. He drove down and picked us up and in exchange (aka blackmail) for not telling our moms, we had to do a bunch of crap for him for the rest of the summer. Apparently he even told Travis's mom that the collect call on the bill was from his brother... as far as I know, neither of our moms ever found out what we really did that day! So did we learn from that? Come on seriously? We were in 5th grade and continued doing it through middle school too! 2 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjotrainbrain Posted November 4, 2018 Author Share Posted November 4, 2018 48 minutes ago, RedPath88 said: Jump forward several years and I was living in another city in another state and obviously with a new group of friends. Freight trains used to pass through the city and very low speeds. Most of these trains were very long and usually had a handful or more of empty box cars on them, with the doors open. We would hop in them, along with out bikes for a quick and easy, albeit dangerous way to get across town. Really surprised no one ever got seriously hurt or killed Although at least one bike tire & wheel were not so lucky One day I remember two of us we were going to go to another friends who lived about 2 miles south of town. Luckily there was a train passing through town, headed south! What luck we thought! So we hopped it, with the intent of getting off about a mile later, before it was at a speed to fast to jump from as it accelerated into farm lands. We were bs'ing and just screwing around and before we knew it that jump point was long gone and the train was hauling-***!!! When it finally started slowing again, we jumped off and eventually figured out that we were in the next heavily populated city... about 50 or so miles south of home! Having no way to get back, we had no choice but to call one of our moms. A tense couple rounds of Rock Paper Scissors resulted in a "win" for me, so Travis reluctantly placed a collect call to his house. Lucky for us his mom was not home but her boyfriend was. He drove down and picked us up and in exchange (aka blackmail) for not telling our moms, we had to do a bunch of crap for him for the rest of the summer. Apparently he even told Travis's mom that the collect call on the bill was from his brother... as far as I know, neither of our moms ever found out what we really did that day! So did we learn from that? Come on seriously? We were in 5th grade and continued doing it through middle school too! That's an awesome story! Luckily nobody got hurt, those are memories you'll enjoy sharing forever I'm sure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slartibartfast Posted November 6, 2018 Share Posted November 6, 2018 My dad's got similar stories of hopping trains to go fishing as a kid. Makes my childhood seem pretty boring! 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedPath88 Posted January 26, 2019 Share Posted January 26, 2019 Yeah things like that nowadays would be like you're talking about the end of the world. Oh my God you did what?!?! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now