Steam & Excursion > What made YOU a railfan..?

All of us have that one memory that we can say was the defining moment that solidified our status as railfans, and I'm interested to hear everyones stories...

For me, it was long ago when I was 4 years old....PRR engines 7002 and 1223 were doing a doubleheaded special and my grandfather took me and my brothers out one day (can't remember where exactly we went) to try and catch a runby. So we're standing there for about 30 minutes and not a sound. I think my grandfather thought he'd missed them and was about to take us back when we heard a faint whistle, and he set his camera back up again. Seeing the train in the distance....the tall pillar of smoke, the sound of the engines exhaust getting louder and louder as it got closer...then watching them soar past us, blaring the whistle...left me in complete awe. It's a memory that 23 years later, I still remember quite vividly. From that day forward, I was a railfan... I couldn't get enough of steam engines after that. Especially if it's from the PRR.

Couldn't help catching this scene yesterday along the Narrow Guage. I think this youngster is hooked.

Ed

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Thanks for the information, I don't remember when the bug hit me but I did have an HO layout when I was about 8 or 9 years old. My parents gave me an American Flyer ser when I was about five or six. When I started ridning my bike around town, I enjoyed going down to the FEC station in Delray and checking the train board to see what was coming into town. Many times I would ride along old Dixie Hwy. and enjoy seeing a sleek passenger train pass by me. Sometime in the early 1970's I took my first steam excusion and was hooked on steam trains. I have since taken train rides behind many of the famous ones, 4501, 1218, 1552, etc. There is still nothing like coal smoke and the sounds of a steam engine working up the grade. My two grandsons like train riding and I hope they will until they become adults.

What sealed it for me was a 1968 trip form the SF Bay area to Alabama and return. rode on the City of San Francisco Richmond-Chicago; Seminole Chicago-Hackleburg AL; City of Miami Haleyville AL-Carbondale; Missouri River Eagle St. Louis-Kansas City; El Capitan Kansas City-Barstow; San Joaquin Daylight Bakersfield-Richmond. Busses between connecting points. Most of these trains aren't around anymore; some of the rails are gone (Milwaukee Road east of Omaha; IC's Birmingham extension). But, it was that trip that took the "little boy" fascination with trains to the next level.

My Grandpa worked for the Grand Trunk Western from 1928-68. When we would visit them, my grandpa would take me to work with him for a couple of hours. I was fascinated with the huge, to me anyway, F-3’s and GP-9’s but what did it for me was when I was 4, the year he retired, he took me for a ride on the South Shore to South Bend. I still can recall much of the ride even though it was 40 years ago. The funny thing about the trip was my dad dropped us off at the suburban Chicago station and picked us up in South Bend. At the time I thought nothing of it, but it gives you an idea on how slow the train was. I just had a blast and have been hooked ever since.

Steve Black
Rogers, AR

Well, although I had a Lionel set, and HO gauge stuff as a kid, the "Hook" was in 1975...Yes, you guessed it, The AFT. Went down to Fort Lewis Wa. with a US history class just wanting to see the 4449 up close, and when we got there the class went to tour the train, I stayed up with the locomotive. As I'm walking around it, a guy looks down from the cab and says "Hey kid,you should go back and look through the train, there's some great stuff to see" so I ran back, shot through the train, and was back up at the engine in no time. So the guy looks down from the cab and sees me millin' around again and says "Back already?" and I said "I'm really just interested in your GS-4 Sir", so the guy laughs and says "well, you better come on up then"...

I got to spend the next hour in the cab with Doyle and Jack...Way Cool.

Cheers, Dave

My father hooked me. He used to take me to see water being scooped on the NYC Hudson River Line, I guess it was at Rhinecliff. Then it would be off to Hopewell Junction to watch the NYNH&H. And sometimes we'd hang out in Poughkeepsie to watch the parade pass through from the street above the platform (all steam). This was during WWII.

Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad in Los Gatos, and Roaring Camp Railroad in Felton... :)

My dad. He was a mechanical Engineer. When I was a kid back in the 40's we would always go for a Sunday ride that somehow would include things mechanical like cab forwards, GSxx's ................

being related to my father. drew jacksich or drew1946 as he is known on TO.

My first steam powered excursion was in 1976, the Southern's Chattanooga to Crossville fall color cruise (behind 4501).....been hooked ever since.

Well if you are talking about steam engines, the best answer was published in Sunset magazine in 1955: "From the day he first succeeds with a toy mechanical windlass - or even slides wooden beads along a cribside wire - a man's love for mechanical things is profound. Nothing is more candidly mechanical than the steam "hog" with its array of side rods and valve gear in plain sight where you can see them work..."

For me it was at the age of 3, repeatedly watching an SP switcher trundle down the middle of a city street in Oakland, CA, towing several boxcars.

I've been interested in trains since I was about 3 years old. I got interested in photography when I bought a Minolta SRT-101 at the BX when I was stationed at Ubon Thailand in 1968. I never put the two together and started chasing and photographing trains until 3985 came through Las Vegas in 2000. That got me hooked! Here's the line that always works for me when I want to upgrade my camera -- "But sweetheart, $2,000 for a new camera is a hell of a lot cheaper than $25.000 for a new bassboat!"

Old Bob out in Lost Wages

Ubon, Thailand......now THERE'S a place that brings back memories.

Ed

There was never a time in my life that I can remember that I didn't love trains. Some of my earliest memories of life involve riding the New York Central and Lehigh Valley out of Buffalo in 1950-52, and we had a Lionel set from before my earliest memories.

Some key events that served to stimulate my interest: an uncle began sending my father a subscription to Trains Magazine beginning with the January 1952 issue (Southern E-7 at the New Orleans passenger terminal on the cover), so every month the world of railroading in words and pictures came in the mail. In 1961 or thereabouts I began modeling with my father in HO scale; in 1962 I began riding frequently on the 20th Century Limited, and in 1963 took my first rail photos of the abandoned yard and rolling stock of the Chicago , Aurora and Elgin in Wheaton, Illinois. That year I also discovered the Phoebe Snow, Lake Cities, and Owl on the Erie Lackawanna. In 1969 I fell in with a group of very active railfans in Binghamton, NY (previously I'd been pretty much a lone wolf), including Dick Allen, William S. Young, and the late J.J. Young, Jr., who soon became close friends and railroad and photography mentors. In 1970 I worked on the Delaware and Hudson as a trainman out of Binghamton and Oneonta, NY, thanks to Dick Allen's interceding on my behalf with the D&H agent in Binghamton. In 1971 I discovered the Chesapeake and Ohio, and became a serious fan and student of its history, and I model the C&O to this day. I then had the pleasure of sharing the hobby with my young family, and especially so with my son (born in 1973), who grew up to become a professional railroader as well as fan and modeler.

Railfanning and modeling have been essential elements of my life from the get-go. The hobby has brought with it friends and good times too numerous to recall.

Art House

Edwardjb Wrote:
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> Ubon, Thailand......now THERE'S a place that
> brings back memories.
>
> Ed

Yup! Some good, some bad. I take it that you spent some time there also. When and what unit?

Bob

getting coaxed into visiting Colorado narrow gauge pikes by a highschool-mate, followed by successive trips and a little befriending by local (OC) rails.

As a member of "Class of 1942", I was simply born into it...my Dad being an agent/telegrapher on the SP Coast Line. What, I'm sure, really hooked me was living above the Aromas, CA station during WW II, in 1943-1945. Aromas being the first station west (compass north) of Watsonville Jct, which had a huge yard, and serviced several branches. As the story goes, and it kills me that I have NO recall, when I was 10-12 months old, and learning to walk...I did just fine, but, when I heard a train approaching, in those days trains whistled for stations (when did that practice stop? At the end of train order operation?), walking was fine, but for SPEED, I would drop down and jet crawl to the window to see the train....and can you imagine the all day theatre of literally looking down the stacks of all those passing trains? Besides that, there were years in which our family did not own a car, so ALL of our travel was by train. And then there were those annual transcontinental vacations, and, for many years we enjoyed Pullman as well as RR passes. I remember well hating those new diesels, but what envy I had for everyone who got to ride those beautiful new streamliners...now, of course I appreciate all the more my old secondary trains of the day.AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

On of my earliest memories is standing next to a big silver locomotive, looking waaaay up at the engineer leaning out of the cab and giving me a smile and a wave. That was at the Berkeley, CA Sante Fe station. I spent my first five years living two blocks from there. I used to ride my tricycle to the corner when I heard a train, just to watch it go by. Later my folks bought stock in Roaring Camp when it was first established because the whole family could ride for free. I spent a lot of time behind the Dixiana Shay. My cousin, Al Holleffer, used to come visit us all the time. He took my brother and I on several excursions. One was to the Sierra RR in the early seventies as part of the NRHS convention in San Francisco. My family also took many trips to the Cal Western to ride the Skunk Train. But what solidified it was the 4449 Amtrak Steam excursion. Cousin Al called to say he was riding the LA to Oakland leg and the Oakland to Dunsmuir leg. He had a single berth on the Coast Starlight to return to Oakland. If I wanted to go, he told me to buy a ticket on the Steam Excursion and he would change from a single berth to a double berth. Well, my mom and I went down to 16th St. to pick up Al and watch the train come in. After we ate dinner, Al and I went down to the Amtrak Coach Yard where the 4449 had just gotten a bath after getting all sooty on Cuesta grade. We walked around the engine, then Al motions for me to come over and climb up in the cab! He apparently was friendly with Ross Rowland and knew Doyle as well. The next day we rode the excursion to Dunsmuir. The following morning, after returning to Oakland, we again borrowed my mom's car and went to Stockton Tower and wandered all over WP's Stockton Shops. I was hooked.

Postscript: My cousin Al worked for the Morristown and Erie as well as the Morris County Central tourist railroad. He is now a senior engineer for NJT, running mostly out of Hoboken Terminal and we are still in touch, 30 years later.

WP Mike

Heya,

Maybe I'm a little unusual, in the mid-late nineties I started riding Amtrak back and forth between CA and CO on the Zephyr. Then late nineties I rode a lot from Reno to EMY. Then I took several cross country trips. I was always riding to get somewhere.

Then I hit a point where I couldn't travel much and started modeling Amtrak. People I know ask, why Amtrak. I think we all model what we know, I model modern UP and Amtrak.

I think the bug really hit on a road trip to Helper, Utah, I had my video camera with me and started videoing trains. That was in 2005-2006, at the old age of 40 I guess I'm a recent convert.