DonVA Loc: British Columbia and New Mexico

In December of 1989 my wife and I celebrated our 20th anniversary by crossing Canada on the soon to be discontinued 'Canadian'. It was still the age of innocence so if you asked nicely and had a ticket you could sometimes ride in the cab. This is taken over the shoulder of the engineer of the F unit that hauled our train.
The slide is yellowed and fading but the memories are not.
The Canadian came back a few years later but on a different route. Even so it still takes you back to a time when travel was an adventure instead of an ordeal.

Don

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Quixdraw Loc: x

Great photo, and better memory. What a world it was! As a small boy travelling alone to vacation with relatives in stationed in California with the Military, I got to go into the cockpit of a Lockheed Super G Constellation. Got Wings for it as well. Too Funny, a 5 pack of Cigarettes came with every meal, and I got to take mine home to my parents.

DonVA Loc: British Columbia and New Mexico

Thanks quixdraw. Too bad you didn't have a camera with you at the time. Sounds like an incredible experience.

Quixdraw Loc: x

Actually, I did have my Brownie and took a couple of rolls of film in California. It would never have occurred to me to take a photo on the plane. Don't know why, but of course, the films were pretty slow back then, and people mostly shot outdoors. I think the shoot everywhere method came later with 35mm cameras and faster films.

Tim Stapp Loc: Mid Mitten

Wow! I remember my first cab ride in an F1. My Grandfather had retired from the PRR. He and I were with my mother at the feed elevator when the local came and was switching cars out. The engineer and fireman recognized my grandfather (he worked the engine house) and they threw me up into the cab and Grandpa came along. We went from Howard City to Cadillac, dropping and picking up cars along the way. They dropped us off at the station on the way back through.

I remember Grandpa telling the guy at the Feed Elevator "tell his Mom we'll call her when we get back." The guy at the elevator later became my Father in Law. He remembers it to this day. I was four years old at the time.

DonVA Loc: British Columbia and New Mexico

Wonderful story! I have one similar. In 1983 my wife and I and our three boys were vacationing in the Canadian Rockies and wanted to catch a shot of a train at the spiral tunnels of the CPR. We waited at the viewpoint for an hour and no train (they never come when you're watching for them) so we drove down the hill to the town of Field where a train was just starting to move out of the yard. Thinking to go back up for my picture I called up to the engineer to ask if he was heading out (instead of just making a switching move) and he said "yeah, you guys want to ride?"
Field to Lake Louise in the cab, my three boys and I, while my wife, bless her heart, drove the car there to meet us.
It is a spectacular piece of railroad with two spiral tunnels. Coming out of the first we could look down to see the back half of our train going into the lower portal beneath us. It was then that the engineer got up from his chair and put my youngest boy into it. Showed him how to put his foot on the dead man peddle and showed him how to blow the whistle at the W posts. He was eight years old and he drove a one mile freight through the upper spiral tunnel.
He's 45 now but deep down I think I still haven't really forgiven him.
Some things were better then.