Nostalgia & History > Railfan trip I should have made! Do you have one?

Looking back at the years (1971-1993) that I photographed trains, I can think of a number of trips I would liked to have taken to have seen and photographed trains. Definitely included would have been a trip to photograph the great lakes car ferry operations. For various reasons they did not happen. I didn’t make it as far as PA and NJ to photograph the RDG and CNJ but did make it to Hagerstown before CS renumbering. I did make it to Michigan City to photograph Insull era equipment on South Shore but did not get to ride because of failure to adhere to trip plan. There were really many things I got to see and photograph.

One trip I did not make really stands out. That would have been a trip, during the time I lived in NC 1972-1976, to photograph the Southern Railway’s operations on Saluda and the short line Cliffside Railroad. The round trip would have been no more than 350 miles. It could have easily been done in one day. Time and expense would have been minimal. There were no excuses for not having made it.

Do you have a trip you should have made?

ALLEN

Do I have a trip??? How about a dozen or more!  Riding the "Century," "Broadway" and "Builder."  Cajon
Pass before the SP and the Santa Fe rebuild.  Sherman Hill before it got to be off limits.  And that's just
off the top of my head!  I tend to cherish the trips I did make and try to forget the ones I missed. 

Nick Tharalson,
Marion, IA

Alwaysv regretted never asking my Dad to take me up to Inyo County during the'50s to watch the SP narrow guage (former Carson & Colorado) in action...

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

ntharalson Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Do I have a trip??? How about a dozen or more! 
> Riding the "Century," "Broadway" and "Builder." 
> Cajon
> Pass before the SP and the Santa Fe rebuild. 
> Sherman Hill before it got to be off limits.  And
> that's just
> off the top of my head!  I tend to cherish the
> trips I did make and try to forget the ones I
> missed. 
>
> Nick Tharalson,
> Marion, IA

I'm right with Nick every step of the way on that list.

Traveling by train: Add the Panama on the IC,  as well as the Southwestern on the NYC and Spirit of St. Louis on the Pennsy, and the Olympian Hiawatha on the Milwaukee to the list. All would've been tough to do given my youth in the day, but if I had put my mind to it I probably could have pulled off at least one or maybe two of them (as Dave Ingles' trip articles from time to time in Classic Trains have reminded me, unfortunately -- where there is a will, there often can be a way). And a few others, probably more practical being in the region and also lower cost, and as much for the mileage than the fame of the train or service: Wabash's domed Blue Bird and IC's Green Diamond between St. Louis and Chicago; the Burlington's and Rock Island's joint Zephyr Rocket from St. Louis to the Twin Cities; and the Q's Kansas City or American Royal Zephyr, Chicago to KC.

In the Amtrak era: the North Coast Hiawatha and the Pioneer before their demise.

Railfan events: the 1987 NRHS convention in Roanoke, one of the greatest steam events ever. And the 2012 heritage diesel gathering at Spencer. I've asked myself (and kicked myself) a thousand times or more on missing those. What was I thinking? Answer: Duhh -- I wasn't (and working too hard probably too).

One I did not miss, and for which I am forever grateful for having made the effort to do it: D&RGW's Rio Grande Zephyr through the Rockies Denver to Salt Lake and back. I wish it could have been the full CZ, of course, with the Feather River Canyon too. But I will be forever grateful for that dome (and dutch door) ride Through the Rockies, Not Around Them.

MC
Columbia, Missouri

South Africa before "real" steam ended.

Biggest is never making the trek to Salt Lake City and riding the Rio Grande "never on Wednesday" Zephyr". Also in seventies had plans to head to Alaska, but didn't until '94.
JB

There are many trips I wish I made.  Here are three:

1) Riding the Canadian on its original Canadian Pacific Railway route between Toronto and Vancouver and also on the Sudbury - Montreal section.  By the time I learned of its discontinuance, I was into my first year of a new job it would have been difficult to make the time to ride this train.

2) Riding any of the late 1980s/early 1990s Norfolk Southern steam excursions on the former Nickel Plate.  I corrected about 1/2 mile of that on last Sunday's 765 excursion when it entered the former Nickel Plate in Ashtabula to reach the park at which lunch was served and when it backed out before entering the former New York Central line.  Maybe next year there will be excursions on the former Nickel Plate between Cleveland and Buffalo.

3) Riding/photographing the Knox & Kane over Kinzua Viaduct.  This was dumb as I live in Western Pennsylvania and a day or a weekend would  have been easy to do.  A friend told me that the Knox & Kane was a slow ride.  However, there was an option for a shorter trip and, even if I wasn't interested in riding, I should have made the trip to see and photograph a train on the Kinzua Viaduct.  I didn't make it to the bridge until 2006, but by then the bridge was partially destroyed by a tornado three years earlier.  Watching a PBS documentary about the Kinzua Viaduct, "Tracks Across the Sky" caused me to understand what I missed.

1. China for the last of big steam on the planet
2. Cartier before the MLWs were retired.
3. Shawmut, CBL, and a whole host of shortlines right in my backyard that I never had time for when I was a kid.

Amtrak started just before I entered college. In terms of post-1971 trains that I could have taken myself, I particularly regret not riding the ex-SAL Raleigh-Petersburg and Savannah-Jacksonville-Tampa (which would have been easy to arrange) and the ex-NP through Montana (not so easy). On the other hand, I'm happy that I rode both the Floridian and the Pioneer end-to-end.

There were also numerous Southern steam excursions and ferry trips over routes that would be improbable if not impossible today, but on the other hand I bagged enough of those to be content.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/15 18:14 by ctillnc.

I kick myself for not riding the "Royal Gorge"...I lived in Denver and would have been old enough to remember (early teens). As much as I've come to love riding in dome cars
I can only imagine what it would have been like to ride in the dome south out of Denver over the Joint Line and then over Tennessee Pass. I did ride the Rio Grande Zephyr many times at least...

The two that I consciously did not make that I later wish I had:
1. Milwaukee's Pacific Extension.
2. More BCR.

Don't know how either would have worked out, lots of miles and not many trains per day. Throw in weather and car repairs and it may not have worked out very well.

Maybe add the SP Oregon Coast Branches.

Pacific Electric Long Beach Line before it quit in 1961.  But I made sure I was on the first Blue Line train out of Long Beach in 1990.

Several Orange Empire fan trips in the mid-1960s--couldn't find enough coins under the sofa cushions.  But I did do the LA to Bakersfield trips in 1967 and 68--even got a cab ride in a Krauss-Maffei during the layover for the 1967 trip.

When I look back, especially when reading old copies of the Official Guide, I was to have a good cry into my Red Car Ale, but now we're seeing electric rail projects blossoming in Los Angeles and other cities (gotta get to Denver!), steam engines running in many places, and progress in railway preservation.  I'm too busy planning new adventures to worry about the past very much.

As to riding one when work vacation time was available : Amtrak's North Coast Hiawatha.
For a steam excursion : N&W 611 St. Louis to Moberly and return.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/03/15 08:55 by UP951West.

There were several trips taken by "The Berkeley Boys" that I couldn't go on for various dumb reasons that I cannot recall now. More than likely it was lack of funds. The trip I most regret not taking was one to fan the BC Rail back in the late '80's or early '90's, the classic days of big MLW's in both the two-tone green and RWB hockey stick schemes.

Mike

I SHOULD have found a way to play hookey from MRL and drive down to shoot the once-in-a-lifetime Santa Fe Red & Silver-led psgr special, BN exec Fs special & the UP 844-led special gala wing-ding blow-out hullabaloo @ Solomon, KS in 1990. Only EVERYONE I knew was there.... (sniff, sniff...)

Lance

THANKS to all for sharing your stories!
ALLEN

I missed this one earlier. My big mistake was not looking at the Indiana Sub and the Hoosier Sub and the through St Louis to Louisville, St Louis to Cincinnati trains that ran even ten years ago. When I was chasing the Kentucky Cardinal in 2003 I stopped in Seymour for McD's breakfast where not one but three CSX trains were stopped and doing various stuff. I figured I was there for the Amtrak train and I could come back and get the freight traffic later, but never did. A couple years later both in 2005 and 2006 I did get CSX coming through Tunnel Hill but failed to get the reverse move in Mitchell and the trek down the Hoosier Sub passing all the semaphore signals because I was there for the last days of CP Rail on the Latta Sub. Once again I figured I could come back, it's only a two hour drive from Cincinnati. I never did make it back in time.

I thank you for your posts from around southern Indiana and Louisville KRM, you have some stuff that I either saw and did not take pictures of or saw after the fact.

Jim