Trains!!
When I was a kid I had a couple different layouts, O-27 and HO. I think my dad enjoyed them more than I did. I still have my Lionel stuff stashed away.
As for the real thing, I've ridden the trains from Windsor to Toronto, from Ann Arbor to Chicago, the Algoma Central "Snow Train," and from San Francisco to LA. That one was by far the best, through Big Sur and the Tehachapi Pass. Sitting in those sideways couches on the second level with those picture windows, watching the tail of the train follow us around the circle, was a surreal and very cool experience.
I used to ride an excursion train that went from Port Huron, Michigan, to Three Rivers, Indiana every fall. The Port Huron Historic Railroad Society would bring in a steamer once year to pull the antique cars. You had your choice of air conditioned or open-window cars. Open window was the best, because you could shout and wave at the crowds gathered at every grade crossing - until you got a cinder in your eye. One year they brought in a beautiful Streamliner, but by far the best was when they had a Big Boy. The first car behind the tender was the sound car, and you'd better not make any noise that would interfere with the enthusiast's recordings! Halfway there we'd stop for coaling and watering. We'd all disembark, they'd back the train up about a mile, then do a high-speed run with the whistle going. Feeling the heat and the ground shaking as it roared by made the hair stand up on your head. And heaven help those who made any noise while the sound folks had their stereo recording equipment running!
Without pressurized grease guns they'd put the grease (which was hard as a rock) into a tool with long long handles, stick them on the huge grease zerks on the drivers and connecting rods, and squeeeeze. When it let go it was like a gun going off.
One year when attending a fall Apple Butter festival in central Ohio, I was standing off the the side, drooling, while a little switcher engine pulled in from a one or two mile excursion run for the attendees. The engineer yelled down, asking if I'd like to ride in the engine for the next run. OMG!! The view from the cab was something I'd never expected to see as we hurtled down the rails at a blistering 10MPH!
Just a month ago I rode the high speed train from Madrid, through Córdoba, and down to Málaga, Spain. Amazingly, at 190MPH it was smoother than the 60MPH trains I've ridden here.
What a shame we can't do that kind of thing here. Riding the RER and Metro in France, and to a lesser extent, the subways in Washington DC and New York, make me wish we had a better public transportation system here. I was thrilled when they were talking about putting in high speed rail from Tampa to Orlando, but of course, that never came to be.
Stephanie
