jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Yes! I saw that two days ago. Before the pandemic, I would go to Altoona every year for a ukulele event. On the last day, we would take a train ride and play our ukes.

This is it - https://everettrailroad.com/

dougbev3 Loc: Pueblo, Colorado

They have been putting two empty coal trains together so that would be just under 3 miles long. They even tried putting 2 loaded coal trains together , but they took so long to get over the road, getting torn in two, three, four. When that happens it is a total mess.

LDB415 Loc: Houston south suburb

Want to see trains? Check out the world's largest railyard.

https://visitnorthplatte.com/directory-posts/union-pacific-bailey-yard/

Dannj

The trains were here long before the cars. That might have something to do with it.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

Wow! A train photographer's dream day of photographing a lot of different aspects of railroading.

PhotogHobbyist Loc: Bradford, PA

I think there is a requirement of a pulling and a pushing engine on those trains plus a rather slow speed limit so the cars will not be pulled sideways and de-rail in that sharp horseshoe curve.

Dannj

When I was 10 or 12 years old my friends and I would climb through a hole in the fence at a nearby railroad yard and play games: hide & seek, cops & robbers, war…all common for my generation. We did this despite our parents warning us not to go to the yards. None of us ever got hurt beyond normal scrapes and bruises and we didn’t cause any damage. One Sunday morning there was a story going around the neighborhood…a story later confirmed…that a fifteen year old boy, known to us all as a troublemaker, a “juvenile delinquent”, was shot and killed by the railroad police. It turned out that the boy had been spotted rummaging through freight cars at about two in the morning. The railroad police ordered him to stop but he ran. The police fired at him aiming to wound but a bullet ricocheted off his hip bone and killed him. The rumors quickly went around that the railroad police were looking for other kids who might have been there with him. My friends and I hadn’t been there in weeks but yet we still feared that the police could associate us “Jimmy” and arrest us too. My parents never confronted me about it but about a month after the incident, my Dad managed to work a lesson into conversation. The lesson was primarily about the obvious but he managed to include a lesson about guilt by association. None of us ever went back to the railroad yards.

LDB415 Loc: Houston south suburb

I have two good train memories.

When I was a really small kid the track ran perpendicular to the end of our street, about a dozen houses away. My dad put a second bicycle seat on his bike between his and the handlebars and a crossbar for my feet on the downtube. I was 3 and 4 years old. On his day off he'd ride us to the corner at the right time to watch the train go by.

To get to my dad's clinic from home the road passed underneath a railroad overpass. My mom would time our going to visit my dad so the train would "run over" us on the way.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

I recall a busy track running near where some of my friends and I lived. We played around those tracks and would put pennies on the tracks to be flattened. Once or twice I even put a nickel on a track to be crushed but only did this a time or two because back in those days a nickel would buy a full size candy bar. A Baby Ruth was much more pleasing than owning a flattened nickel!

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

When I was a kid we used the local commuter line to flatten a few pennies. We once visited a railroad museum and told them about the pennies. The docent said that if we had placed the penny right under the wheel when the train was stopped, it would not be able to move. It required the momentum to lift the train up the thickness of the penny. Nobody wanted to stick their fingers holding a penny right by the train wheel to try it out. When we learned a bit more in school we decided that all the train had to do was back up 6" and get a "running start" at the penny. That meant we had to put a penny on both sides of the wheel.

I vaguely recall my father leaving for work on the train. That was before the local train line was electrified so they were pulled by steam engines. Those engines had wheels that were twice as tall as I was then.

The railroads had emergency signals which were a small package of explosive material that had lead strips attached. You would place the package on the tracks and bend the lead strips around the rail to hold it in place. When the train ran over it, the explosion was loud enough to make a noise audible to the engineer, but not large enough to do any damage. So we would make our own using the powder from our caps.

Dannj

We did lots of pennies but the thought of using a nickle never entered our minds😂

AndyT Loc: Hampstead, New Hampshire

Jerry.....same train.

Bridges Loc: Memphis, Charleston SC, now Nazareth PA

If you live in or around the Lehigh Valley of PA and like trains, you are in a very good spot! Steamtown in Scranton is a great exhibit, but also the train museum and railroad excursions in Strasburg, PA is excellent. They also have a motel built entirely from caboose cars. Jim Thorpe has a very picturesque Railroad Station and offers train rides throughout the year. Strasburg and Scranton are within an hour-and-a-half drive and Jim Thorpe is only a forty-five minute drive. PA was a major player in the use and development of the railroad system in America. This was largely due to the huge amount of coal extracted and sent to the major cities of Philadelphia and New York.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Thank goodness for that! Imagine a car two miles long!

Dannj

Well, it might separate me from the back-seat drivers😳