Hey Jar, how's it goin'? Folks, do you hear this guy? Nothing like the sound of a 4-6-4 or a 2-6-6-6! Red Caps, CABOOSES!!!
Folks, I sit at the feet of such people. I am sooooooooo jealous, . . .
in a good and very respectful way, of course. A man or woman who can talk about the sound of a 4-6-4 or know what a Red Cap was, has truly seen a part of America long since past, a time when the country (for the most part, I know plenty about our sins, not here to get into that) was still filled with a spirit of cooperation, and was still being built, so that folks my age (now 47) could live an easier, better life, with greater advantages and opportunities.
What Jar has experienced was an age of railroading when the railroads didn't have to contend with the crimes perpetrated daily upon freight trains in the desert and yards these days, and overzealous railfans grilling burgers and making themselves unsafe and obnoxious around railroad tracks. To know what a steam locomotive is, much less to have ridden in the cab in an age when engineers and caboose workers could afford to be friendly is truly the stuff of which the rich lore of American history is made.
Yes, I've seen my share of 'F' units pulling 100 car freight trains and real cabooses, and I remember when FRED was the guy in the caboose's real name, not Flashing Rear End Device to denote the back end of the train these days, but what Jar is talking about goes back to stuff I only read dreamily about as a very young child when my interest in railroading was ignited by a gift of a Lionel set from my father for my fifth or sixth birthday.
I never really lost it for trains, although my interest has waxed and waned through the years. Still and all, 40 years after watching 80-120 car freights pulled by as many as seven 'F' units for Gulf, Mobile and Ohio, I still love railroading, and living where I do now, tucked into the Lower Hudson Valley, that interest is burning brighter and brighter since I ride along a historic portion of railroad back and forth to NYC at least four days a week, and also get to look across at long freight trains pulled by semi-modern diesels of CSX on the freight line across the river. What's really interesting is seeing 100 car freight trains on my side of the river!!!
Thanks for stoking the fire, Jar.