Railroaders' Nostalgia > And then one day you find...

…10 years have got behind you. No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun*

Yesterday marked a 10 year span from the day I took my first railfan photo as a non-railroader since the middle of May 1978. At the time, I paid no particular attention because I was just settling into the newness of shooting with a digital camera, a simple point & shoot no less. I had this very thread in mind to commemorate the personal anniversary of sorts. I could have posted these images on any number days in the last week of this merry month of May, and found some kind of 10-years-to-the-day significance.

So I settled on tomorrow (June 1) because that’s the 10 year anniversary of starting my first full month of retirement. But a funny thing happened during today’s weekly kamikaze mission into town to stock up on groceries. At the grocery store I instantly recognized the music being played through the intercom system. It’s a good thing the store was still pretty empty. Because I stopped right in the middle of an aisle and listened. I drifted back 47 years to the very first time I heard this music. And that was during the sound check of a massive, mega-watt sound system inside Henry Leavitt Arena in Wichita, KS. The occasion was my first-ever major rock concert with my (then) beloved favorite Deep Purple as the headliners. The sheer power of that sound check snippet put a permanent Pink Floyd hook into me. Deep, and not necessarily purple.

In knowing I was about to post this 10-year thread thing, the lyrics up top popped into sharp focus. Has it really been 10 years? My, my, my… how fast it passed by! That’s when I knew I had to go ahead and post today…

1. On one of my a commute trips between Montana & Kansas I spent the night in Cheyenne. Heading east the next morning my first pit stop was Kimball, NE. Looking WNW at the Hi-Plains Coop, now called Frenchman Valley Coop. Looking closer we see…

2. …HPCX 7516, the resident hopper car herder, original heritage unknown. Both photos taken in Kimball, NE.

3. Just down the road at Dix, NE UP 6247 east represents the first railfan train shot of my knew civilian status. There would be many, many more to come in the next decade. I like to say I wasn’t actually trying to “make up for lost time”! (but now that I mentioned it… ;^)
3 photos taken May 30, 2010.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/20 12:30 by santafe199.

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Just in case you’re curious what my last official photo taken as a still-working railroader looks like:

4. This is the old BN depot in Helena, MT. We have just arrived on the main line for a crew change and my partner, engr Jack Dorsey is inside getting us tied-up with the crew office. Just a few hours after this shot we would be deadheaded back home to Laurel in a crew van. And my 32 year career in train service would officially be over.
Photo date: May 26, 2010.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

*Poignant lyrics from the Pink Floyd composition “Time” off the 1973 album “The Dark Side of the Moon”, one of the TOP selling albums of ALL TIME, world-wide.   DJ Sir L



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/31/20 11:34 by santafe199.

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Absolutely bloody amazing how music can throw your mind back decades with crystal clear memories washing over you in the damnedest places! I think many stores play old rock just to tweek oldsters into forming attachments to their place. Great photos, thanks.

Funny to think of "our" music as elevator music nowadays, lol! Floyd fan since I first saw them in 1970...

Funny thing Lance, while heading back from a short trip (non RR) to the Black Hills we drove through Kimball and of course crossing the tracks I had to look at the grain elevator .... and sitting right there was the very GP that you shot ... of course so did I, and like you I had no clue it was there!!!

8/2019 image on Google Earth shows same unit there then ... or a differtent one with the same paint scheme ...

trackplanner Wrote:
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> Funny to think of "our" music as elevator music
> nowadays, lol! Floyd fan since I first saw them in
> 1970...

Wow!  A pre-Dark Side guy.....fan base was much smaller then.....Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun........engage!

AA

Stanford White
Carmel Valley, CA

Good night shot of the track side of the Helena, MT depot.   The steel and glass door shown replaced the beautiful original oak door that was adorned with a large brass kick plate at the bottom with the NP monad prominently displayed outlined by brass rivets.  Hope someone saved it.

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just in case you’re curious what my last
> official photo taken as a still-working railroader
> looks like:
>
> 4. This is the old BN depot in Helena, MT. We
> have just arrived on the main line for a crew
> change and my partner, engr Jack Dorsey is inside
> getting us tied-up with the crew office. Just a
> few hours after this shot we would be deadheaded
> back home to Laurel in a crew van. And my 32 year
> career in train service would officially be over.
> Photo date: May 26, 2010.
>
> Thanks for looking back!
> Lance Garrels
> santafe199
>
> *Poignant lyrics from the Pink Floyd composition
> “Time” off the 1973 album “The Dark Side of
> the Moon”, one of the TOP selling albums of ALL
> TIME, world-wide.   DJ Sir L

That is funny...completing a 32 year career in train service in a crew van!

I seem to remember a condr who was retirement age at Ravenna, Ne calling his wife in Alliance, Ne to come and get him as was retiring right then and there. He had gotten called for short turn service which meant up to 12 hours of work, tying up and then called back out after 8 hrs to work to alliance. The management was pissed. Gave us train dispatchers a good laugh!

Posted from iPhone

agentatascadero Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> trackplanner Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Funny to think of "our" music as elevator music
> > nowadays, lol! Floyd fan since I first saw them
> in
> > 1970...
>
> Wow!  A pre-Dark Side guy.....fan base was much
> smaller then.....Set The Controls For The Heart Of
> The Sun........engage!
>
> AA

I started much younger...

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