Tom,
Your regrets and observations are interesting. One fellow in our local
club who spent a few years as a brakeman, recently wrote an article of
the passenger trains he took and missed as a youth. In many ways
similar to your situation.
In my situation, we had a local twice a day that picked up boxcars of
grain and delivered cars of machinery, lumber, some mail and returned
empties that was always followed by the unique Milwaukee branchline
combines. Although walking "down to the tracks' was discouraged by my
mother, I was always disappointed by the site of that car--it wasn't the
red caboose that my AF train had and what was described in all the books
I had read. Other than that combine, I never saw a real passenger train
until I was much older on a trip to the Seattle's World Fair in 1962.
We had planned a trip to Arizona for Christmas of that year also, but
the costs for 5 people was a bit much, so we did it our 60 Chevy. As I
recall it would have been a tough trip anyhow--we would have had to go
600 miles East to Chicago before going 1400 miles Southwest.
BTW, my Soo Line passenger train is called the Enderlin local. I spent
a week in that fair city in the mid 60's. The town was a major division
point with a multi stall roundhouse that contained probably the last of
the maroon and gold F units--what a classic scheme.
This is quite a trip down memory lane--sure glad I have one!
Bob Werre
Ken,
Your commentary brings back memories. I recall seeing the
Minneapolis-Hutchinson mixed train switching cars on the yard tracks
that we under Lyndale Avenue. The mixed always had one of those rare
GN NW-5 units equipped with a boiler but still carried an ancient
combine painted in Pullman green.
Although I lived two years in Hutchinson, I regret not riding the
mixed on Friday afternoon back to Minneapolis. Wending its way around
and over the Minnetonka lakes and bays, the train would have offered
some scenic vistas one never sees from Highway #7. I had plenty of
opportunities to take that ride but never did.
Another possibility would have been to go to Kimball north of Hutch
and catch the Soo Line local from Enderlin, North Dakota. That thing
stopped at every town between there and Minneapolis but would have
offered a great ride. Missing these two train rides is something like
fishermen's stories of the one that got away.
Tom
