Sitting here hearing the sound of a distant train whistle and wondered, who's traveled...?

Question

Sitting here hearing the sound of a distant train whistle and wondered, who's traveled...?

Answer 1

I'm an Engineer so I'm on trains all the time of course. What I wonder about are all the Engineers, Conductors, Brakemen, and people that rode these tracks before me. One of our lines was completed in 1868. There was a heck of a lot of people here before me. Once is a while I happen across an old photo of a train and maybe its crew too, taken at one of the towns I go through. On a day off I may go to a car show, or to a restaurant, or a county fair in one of these towns and that's when I might catch a collection of such photos. This was an extremely busy railroad when it began operations. It's too bad that part of history is so far gone now that all we have are a few photos. And photos of people - working or riding on the railroad - with no names.



At one time this railroad was very very busy. Both freight and passenger service. (Now just freight.) There's a rumor that this portion of the line was the first in the country to install ABS (Automatic Block System) lights back in 1917. I'm not declaring this as fact. It's just what I've been hearing for a long time. Many of the original battery bunkers still exist. They are shelved to house large glass battery jars. It probably took a small army of men to maintain that ABS system too. Yeah, ya gotta wonder who all those people were, where they came from, and if they stayed or moved on. I know there's been hundreds of thousands of people who have been on this railroad before me - working, riding every week or more, or just riding through one time. Presidents, Senators, war time troop trains, regular commuters, and the single soul on his way to a new opportunity some place. Many many people with many many stories. Too bad we couldn't get just a few of those stories back.

Answer 2

Commuted every day for 3 years on the train... also took another commuter train once a month to get close to my brother's ranch when I would baby-sit his animals.



Rode the Swiss, German, French, and UK trains when I was in my teens and made two visits to Europe... LOVED that !! French bread, sausage, mustard and a Coke carried along for our meals and watching the countryside. Rode the Japanese trains into Tokyo when I was stationed in Japan... FAST but CROWDED.



DREAMING of the day that the California High-Speed Rail project gets underway and someday starts operations !! Would LOVE to go from Stockton to Anaheim in just a few hours, avoiding the airports, seeing the countryside, and getting my daughters and grandson to Disneyland !!

Answer 3

Traveled from Chicago to Los Angeles on Amtrak.



Pros: Pleanty of leg room in seats and you can eaisly stretch out, not cramped in like planes. You can also get up and walk through the rail cars to the Lounge car which has hugh windows for viewing.

The train stops at various stations and your free to get out for a few minutes to look around. You can buy meals in the dinning car and meet different people who are interesting.



Cons: Bathrooms get dirty quickly and you really don't want to use them but still have a day's travel and no time at stops to use outside restrooms. If you don't get dinner reservations, then your stuck with the food in the lounge car, which gets old fast. The seats tilt back for sleeping, but are very uncomfortable as the head-rest does not move and and gives you a sore neck.

Answer 4

I’ve traveled by train numerous times, both here and in the UK. I like them, as they are fast and convenient. The only part that I don't always feel comfortable with is when I don't know when I will be getting off, if I'm unfamiliar with the route, and worry that I'll miss my stop! It's great, though, that you can walk around and do things and eat while en route!



I recently took a train from Washington DC to Baltimore, Maryland to visit a friend there. The train ride itself was pretty uneventful until we got to Baltimore, where the train tracks run through a really, really bad part of the town. It did look like a war zone; just terrible conditions for the housing there. Just awful. And such a contrast to the "better" parts of Baltimore, at the inner harbor. From one extreme to the other! But train travel is so fast and convenient. My friend was originally going to come to DC to pick me up but instead arranged for the train trip, which was quicker than driving into the city.



I’ve also taken the train to Chicago a few times. Much better than driving in the Chicago traffic!



Being from Michigan I can’t help buy sing to myself the old Simon and Garfunkel song "America" when I am on the train...even though it’s about riding on a bus....it's so appropriate to travel!



"Michigan seems like a dream to me now"

It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw

I’ve come to look for America



Laughing on the bus

Playing games with the faces

She said the man in the gabardine suit was a spy

I said "Be careful, his bowtie is really a camera"



"Toss me a cigarette, I think there's one in my raincoat"

"We smoked the last one an hour ago"

So I looked at the scenery, she read her magazine

And the moon rose over an open field"







On my first trip to the UK I purchased a Brit Rail pass. I was traveling alone in my early 20’s and very adventurous. The BritRail pass allows you to just jump on a train and go, no ticket to purchase throughout all of Britain. I remember riding the train overnight from Edinburgh, Scotland to London, and the train had compartments rather than the usual row seats, but the compartments were full. I had to sit in the hallway outside the compartments where it was terribly cold all the way to London...but it was all part of the adventure!



The UK train system is much more developed and used than it is here in the US. We’ve taken out a lot of our train tracks here. There it’s a very common method of getting from here to there, and very reliable.

Answer 5

from the age of a very young child till now, nuthin stirs my spirit as much as that lonesome cry in the night. somewhere off in the distance almost out of hearing range a stranger will pull that cord softly bellowing out a welcome call. and that strangers moniker wofts eerily across moonlit valleys and mountain sides until it reaches me, never satisfying, yet making me yearn for more.



hearing an old recording made in the glory days of steam by some lucky chap can choke me up, and almost set my eyes to tears. and everytime i hear it, i think to myself, i was certainly born in the wrong age. one clip always comes to mind of NKPs 779 gently fading into the night. you can hear frogs and crickets chirping in the foreground almost drowing her out as she chugs along effortlessly. distinguishable at first, then slowly, slowly, she is gone. and soon after an old auto grumbles across the wooden planks of a crossing nearby. then silence is left to the animals.



makes me wonder who was on that train that night. what would they see as they rolled into the distance? what were they carrying? where were they going? and where had they been? curiosity has always been human nature. unanswered questions bring a certain trepedation. and without hesitation, stir the need for answers to my questions.



leaning out the cab window, takin in the smells of creosote and brimstone, becomming mesmerized by the setting suns last glimmers reflecting off shiny siderods stomping across the vastness of the american countryside. who were these lucky few? what stories could they tell us? Cold, hard, faces stern with professionalism. only noticed now and then as they flew by in a streak of black smoke. a suttle wave, the thunderous roar of a thousand and one cannons only equalled by the thunder from the heavens above. then as fast as they came, off into the unknown distance chasing green light after green light til the last station was met, then home to sleep off the weary dawn.



oh yes, who can say they havent been enamoured by a whistle in the night? wondered such thoughts? yearned for another cry as if it meant your next breathe depended on it. who were these great men that harnessed the power of water, fire, and steel? only to brag to us, the standers by, that they alone commanded such glory. And where are they now?



i miss those fine ladies that plied cold steel rails. beautiful lines, sleek letterings, shiny silver and black, forever pasted into the memories of my life. the varnish cars of old carefully packaging our simple human race as it scurried here and about. and what of the boxcars that many have held our very sustanances of life? simple red and white lettering denoting famous slogans such as " Southern serves the south" or " the route of phoebe snow" or " El Capitan".



for 120 years this same cliche has inspired many many people to wonder these very same questions. to each our own in our own way, how that far off whistle cry will make you feel. i miss that era, and i miss those trains. so for each that i hear now, i choke up a lil, maybe hold back a tear or two, and remember.... i was born in the wrong age. remote control and MTV be dammed!

Answer 6

That was how I went from home to college, moved to another part of the country, etc. Then interstate highways got built everywhere. It was very much more time-consuming than travel by car or planes, however. Stops at every little place. It's advantage was low cost and not having to drive yourself.

Answer 7

I've never been on a train in north America, although every time I hear the whistles late at night I get chills. I agree with you that is somewhat of a romantic notion...



I have however been on a 12 hour trainride from Bangkok to Chiang Mai, Thailand - and while it's not the classiest of digs, it was not primitive by any means. Because we bought the tickets about an hour before departure, there were no more rooms, but the sleeping berths were MORE than adequate. And the gentle rocking and white noise of the train make it easy to sleep - however, because it was Thailand, there is not much regulation on the train and because of that, I ended up getting very little sleep due to a group of about 10 inconsiderate drunken American college kids whose conversations resembled every "profound" issue you can think of when you're in university and attempting intellectualism.



I have also ridden the train through the Chunnel from London to Paris - which was very nice, and to the South of France in a sleeping car.



My experiences have no been those of a classy dining car, or anything remotely close to that - somehow I think that just doesn't exist anymore.

Answer 8

Since we ended up the same place we started (Bryson City, NC), but I rode the Great Smoky Mountain Railroad this year on spring break with my husband. I loved the train travel (well, for the four hours I was on it, anyway), but my husband (who, truth be told, falls asleep in anything that moves) was out cold within half an hour. I had ridden trains before, but that was in Japan, and this was a very different experience - it was kind of like being on a bus tour, but it felt like we saw a lot more "off the beaten path" because we were travelling away from the highways and freeways and out into the middle of nowhere. Plus, we met a few really cool people along the way.

Answer 9

Except commuter Amtrak lines in Los Angeles area, never rode trains in USA.

But in Europe (I was born there) I travel on trains extensively -

Including the TGV (hi speed train) between Paris and Brussels very often.

I prefer taking the train rather than airplanes in Europe (short distances).

Even though I was an airline pilot.

The trains beat airplanes - No need to go to train station 2 hrs in advance.

Train stations are in town - Airports are far from cities...

Answer 10

In October 1989, I took a trip from Ann Arbor, MI to New York City. What I liked was that the fare was only $106.00 round trip (coach only), and that the train arrived at and departed Grand Central Station. This was practically across the street from the hotel where I stayed. The things which put me off about the trip were the layovers in Toledo each way, and a couple of delays without apparent reason in Schenectady and Albany on the way out.



I also rode the DB when I was stationed in what was then West Germany in the early 1980's. I liked the frequency of service and extensiveness of the routes. The high-speed trains were still in the planning stages then, but they sure had the punctuality down pat.

Answer 11

We've always liked trains in our family because my grandfather was a railroad man. He worked for the B & O, the Katie, the Southern Pacific, and the Union Pacific.



I rode trains to high school three towns away daily and to New York City on the weekends when we lived back east, on the New Haven Railroad. I also took the train to visit Washington D.C. and learned why you never drink the water from the dispenser at the end of the car.



I've ridden Amtrak from Miami to New York and back, and from San Antonio to Chicago and back more than once, even being fancy and getting a sleeper. I've ridden the train to Minneapolis-Saint Paul and back, and I've always wanted to take the train all the way across through Denver and the Rockies. I don't know how many times I've taken the train from Washington D to Philadelphia and back.



I've ridden trains in Spain and Peru. I've ridden trains pulled by modern diesel engines and trains pulled by wood and coal-burning steam engines. I've ridden really old trains where guys in cowboy gear pretend to rob the train and die dramatic deaths in a shoot out with the law. I've ridden little tiny trains and medium sized-trains and big trains.



I like trains. I like traveling by train. I like the whole process of setting the sleeper up for the evening, and watching out the windows to see the backyards of cities all across America. I like chatting with the friendly porters, many of whom had fathers and grandfathers in the same line of work. I love trains with names, like the City of New Orleans. I even like train songs and train whistles.



What I don't like is the smell of cigarettes that is so engrained in the fabric of the cars that you cannot get away from it.



What I don't like is the funky little bathrooms and having to go down the narrow steps on the Amtrak trains to get to them.



What I don't like are those "Union men" who figure they don't have to do squat because the contract says so, and the "Dining Car Nazi" who takes her uniform a bit too seriously.



But I do love trains.

Answer 12

I've been on trains 3 times. 4 if you count an overnight from NYC to Boston.



First was a train vacation in Europe. We flew into Oslo where we bought Scan Rail passes and went all the way around Scandinavia then into Russia. It took about a week. Very beautiful. Friendly people. Great trip.



The second was on the Alaska Railroad from Anchorage to Fairbanks in the winter.As you may know, the passenger train only runs north on Saturdays and south on Sunday in the winter. It took all day. There was 1 passenger car, a freight car, and the engine. No diner. You bring your own food. There were about a dozen people on board. We made a flag stop to let off a dog team near Talkeetna. Then we stopped another time to see a herd of caribou in the mountains. You aren't supposed to go into the freight car, but we all did so we could open the big door to see the caribou and take pictures.



The most recent was on Amtrak from Washington DC to western Virginia. Rather disappointing. Mostly saw the backs of buildings. It was cheap though. Considering the price of fuel and pollution individual cars give off, trains are a good way to get around. Apparently lots of others thought so too because it was a full train both ways.



We need to improve our rail system in the US. I had to go to the next town over because there wasn't a passenger terminal (only freight) in the town I wanted to go, so someone had to drive over and meet me. Historically, there was a passenger stop, but not anymore. Granted, you can't just go anytime you want and they are slower than planes, but trains are the most economical and safe way to go cross country.

Answer 13

I travel daily by train - I'm a train driver for London Underground on the District Line (the green one) going from Upminster to Richmond, Ealing Broadway, Wimbledon and Kensington Olympia. I've also traveled on most UK main lines, London Waterloo - Paris, Stiges - Barcelona, Baltimore - New York, Paris and Barcelona metro. Next year I'll be going from Denmark - St Petersburg.



The sound of the horn is used as a warning to people on or about the track and railroad crossings. The horn of the US trains sounds fairly sad/morose (in my opinion), but like elsewhere in the world they do epitomize the romance of the rails.

Answer 14

Before I retired from 40 years of railroad service with Southern Pacific, then Union Pacific railroads.

Answer 15

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