(Topic ID: 255211)

Are there any other train nerds here?

By Pinless

4 years ago


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  • 94 posts
  • 50 Pinsiders participating
  • Latest reply 4 years ago by Looprunner
  • Topic is favorited by 8 Pinsiders

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There are 94 posts in this topic. You are on page 1 of 2.
#1 4 years ago

Has anyone been following the Big Boy steam engine’s trek across the western half of the US? We saw it today and it was awesome!

Check the map if you’re interested in seeing it. It may be coming to a train station near you.

https://www.up.com/forms/steam-trace.cfm
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#2 4 years ago

I have always loved model trains. Had a pretty cool HO scale setup that my grandpa left for me when he passed. I was very young and my dad had built it for him. As I got older I kind of drifted away from it.

Every now and then I checkin on the hobby via the internet and YouTube.

#6 4 years ago

LTG : )

#7 4 years ago

Our 7 year old is the foamer of the house. The Big Boy is rolling with a special guest engine

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#8 4 years ago

Traveled by train a few years ago with my son from Texas to Chicago to see the Stern factory.
Trains and Pinball!

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#9 4 years ago
Quoted from Nevus:

Traveled by train a few years ago with my son from Texas to Chicago to see the Stern factory.
Trains and Pinball![quoted image][quoted image][quoted image]

Sounds like a great trip! We are planning a 2020 trip on the Amtrak Acela Express from DC to Boston.

#10 4 years ago

I rode on the Trans Siberian Railway from Moscow to Novosibirsk .

#11 4 years ago
Quoted from Pinless:

Our 7 year old is the foamer of the house. The Big Boy is rolling with a special guest engine[quoted image]

drove this engine a few times

#12 4 years ago

I love real trains, model trains and pinball! I've been following Big Boy on and off. It's awesome!
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#13 4 years ago

Saw that it will go through Los Angeles but could not figure when by their website.

#14 4 years ago

I'm a train nerd just once a year when I pull out the LGB Christmas train, now up to 7 cars and a powered coal tender, and about 40' of track. Kind of takes over the living room and rolls around the tree of course.

#15 4 years ago
Quoted from ccbiggsoo7:

drove this engine a few times

We are going to need to hear more of this story.

#16 4 years ago

I may or may not have been involved with a bunch of other people in an incident on the Orient Express.

#17 4 years ago

Rode it in the mid to late 60's

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#18 4 years ago
Quoted from marspinball:

Saw that it will go through Los Angeles but could not figure when by their website.

I believe it already went through L.A. a few months back since the schedule now has it in TX and heading East/Northeast.

https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/schedule/index.htm

#19 4 years ago
Quoted from RobertWinter:

I believe it already went through L.A. a few months back since the schedule now has it in TX and heading East/Northeast.

https://www.up.com/heritage/steam/schedule/index.htm

https://www.up.com/forms/steam-trace.cfm

LTG : )

#20 4 years ago
Quoted from DCRand:

I'm a train nerd just once a year when I pull out the LGB Christmas train, now up to 7 cars and a powered coal tender, and about 40' of track. Kind of takes over the living room and rolls around the tree of course.

Ive been collecting LGB for over 25 years. Get a few or at least one piece/car/train a year.
Just la8d eyes on the stack yesterday. I will start the xmas layout in a week or so. It went under 5 pins and around tree last year.
Damn, can only find this one fuzzy picture.

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#21 4 years ago

Welcome to East Tennessee.

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#22 4 years ago
Quoted from DCRand:

I'm a train nerd

No, THIS is a train nerd....

Nobody else comes close.

#23 4 years ago

Been a railfan & model railroader my whole life, but growing up in a railroad yard might have something to do with that. I often say my experience from model railroading made me well equipped to handle pinball restoration as well as all sorts of other DIY skills. And my side gig writing for the industry actually pays for most of the pinball stuff, since RR space is at premium right now.

I haven't lived where any meaningful RR action occurs in 20 years and my kids and gigs keep me too busy to railfan much, but I make opportunities count when I can. This past fall break we took a road trip eastward to focus on some railfanning and excursions, which my kids seemed to enjoy. I just wish they got to routinely hear the earth-moving resonance of EMD 645's like I did. But my oldest loved riding open-air behind a classic GP9; she voluntarily said "that engine has rhythm", so she gets it

I posted some of my models here a few years ago, in a thread about scale modeling, wherever that was.

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#24 4 years ago

Always loved trains since I was about 4. Still have tons of HO trains in boxes that someday I'll break back out. I've collected telegraph insulators for about as long... kind of related hobby to many railfans.

#25 4 years ago

I go to work and make locomotive parts. I get to see these behemoths up close every workday and I'm still amazed by them.

#26 4 years ago

Yes huge train fan here, thanks to my dad. Have a 4x8 HO train board we built when I was a kid, with dual transformers, powered remote switch tracks and powered roundhouse turntable.

Saw the UP big boy for years at the Pomona fairgrounds on display, and of course recently when it rolled through LA.

Over the years have ridden White Pass RR in Alaska, Durango and Silverton in Colorado, Southern Pacific Daylight in the 1980’s, and the Philmore, CA “Christmas Train”

My dad also has quite a collection of real full side RR vintage equipment, signage, steam locomotive brass builders plates, and dozens of steam whistles and horns plumbed to a 100 gallon air tank for listening!
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#27 4 years ago

Train nerd?...could be... dedicated room.

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#28 4 years ago

I also have this piece of Disneyland RR history, a piece of the Mark 2 monorail. It was dismantled in the 70’s when Santa Fe RR was no longer a sponsor. This piece of the hull was near the end or start of the train, depending which was it was going, so there were only 4 per. The curved part formed a window, and the top is rolled inwards forming the roof. All the rivets were drilled out and carefully removed, and the sound deadening material is still on the back with sealant. The panel measures about 3’ square

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#29 4 years ago

I don't have a super nice layout. It's just a bunch of stuff I purchased over the years attached to plywood. LOL. However; everyone who comes over to play pinball asks me to run the trains while we play.

Here's a picture of my amusement park with my pinball machines in the background.

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#30 4 years ago

Vintage Santa Fe wall art advertising

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#31 4 years ago

Love the old Railroad paraphernalia.

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#32 4 years ago

Lots of train stuff here, from signage to lanterns to Lionel and HO, books, pictures......

John

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#33 4 years ago

I’m a huge train nerd. Not the engines so much though. I’m into rolling stock, and what rides on the sides of them. I don’t want to catch any guff, I just document.

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#34 4 years ago
Quoted from orangegsx:

I don’t want to catch any guff, I just document.

Don't trespass, please.

#35 4 years ago
Quoted from Coyote:

Don't trespass, please.

Again.. no guff

#36 4 years ago
Quoted from orangegsx:

Again.. no guff

I've killed trespassers. I'd hate to run you over.

#37 4 years ago
Quoted from Coyote:

I've killed trespassers. I'd hate to run you over.

How would you ever hit me on a siding, standing next to a train, not connected to an engine, and a huge yellow track lock on the only way in?

#38 4 years ago
Quoted from Coyote:

I've killed trespassers. I'd hate to run you over.

I've seen trespassers get arrested. Guns drawn and everything. RR police get off on that stuff.

#39 4 years ago
Quoted from orangegsx:

How would you ever hit me on a siding, standing next to a train, not connected to an engine, and a huge yellow track lock on the only way in?

First, that's a derail. And it's there to stop the cars IN the siding from getting out and fouling the mainline Second, ... te fact the detrail is there should tell you, 'hey, these cars COULD move'. And unless you have an eye out constantly, how do you know if there isn't someone working at the other end of the runaround/siding, locomotive or no? Trackmobiles exist, and some are quiet (running off of LP or Electricity). You're also between two tracks there, not just one.
I have hit (not fatally) more than a few trespassers in a yard, sadly, usually when I don't have my conductor spotting on the far end and I have to push cars into a siding. The tower can't see everything, and it's certainly possible that if they DO spot you and radio me, it's too late.

Quoted from BillySastard:

I've seen trespassers get arrested. Guns drawn and everything. RR police get off on that stuff.

Fuck yeah. And they should. Sorry, but after you plow into a teenager with headphones? ... You're all for keeping dumbasses off of tracks.

20+ years in train crew, and I've seen it all. Most of the times it's suicide, but that doesn't make it any easier.
I'll shut up now - don't need to revisit memories. If you do get hit, I hope it's painless.

#40 4 years ago
Quoted from BillySastard:

I've seen trespassers get arrested. Guns drawn and everything. RR police get off on that stuff.

Maybe in big cities. Here they tell me where to find the good stuff to get photos of.

#41 4 years ago
Quoted from Coyote:

First, that's a derail. And it's there to stop the cars IN the siding from getting out and fouling the mainline Second, ... te fact the detrail is there should tell you, 'hey, these cars COULD move'. And unless you have an eye out constantly, how do you know if there isn't someone working at the other end of the runaround/siding, locomotive or no? Trackmobiles exist, and some are quiet (running off of LP or Electricity). You're also between two tracks there, not just one.
I have hit (not fatally) more than a few trespassers in a yard, sadly, usually when I don't have my conductor spotting on the far end and I have to push cars into a siding. The tower can't see everything, and it's certainly possible that if they DO spot you and radio me, it's too late.

Fuck yeah. And they should. Sorry, but after you plow into a teenager with headphones? ... You're all for keeping dumbasses off of tracks.
20+ years in train crew, and I've seen it all. Most of the times it's suicide, but that doesn't make it any easier.
I'll shut up now - don't need to revisit memories. If you do get hit, I hope it's painless.

I get where you are coming from. I’ve been doing this a long time too, I respect the railroad, it deserves it. I’m not a teenager with headphones on, I use my radio. I’m on the tracks just a long as I’d be on the tracks if they crossed a sidewalk. I know a lot of friends and family that work on the railroad and own the land around here the sidings are on. I have a far better chance of a train plowing into my house than me getting hit out there...

Again.. no guff please

#42 4 years ago

I miss seeing the caboose.

#43 4 years ago

Who else thinks this would be an amazing way to bridge these two communities...?

*start button*
"All aboooooard!" *ding ding ding ding*
Player pulls rail switch lever and ball launches with train horn sound.

Roundhouse ball lock, turntable rotates to launch balls into each stall.

Probably lots more ideas I can't think of right now...

(I'm sure a proper railfan will correct me on my terminology, and that's okay. Put that person on the design team.)

#44 4 years ago

I'm a big train fan. My dad was the western Canada sales rep for a major distributor. CN and CP RAIL would purchase a new Mark IV for example and my dad would show up. Every other week he was in British Columbia somewhere. During school breaks I'd travel with him to BC for the week and get on a rail spike gangs. Long, hot days feeding spikes but nothing beat the scenery. And the cash!

Took a passenger train (VIA Rail) from Edmonton to Vancouver when I was little. There's nothing like going thru the Rocky Mountains. Lots of tunnels cut into the mountains. Huge clffs/drops with natural waterfalls everywhere. Most beautiful scenery I've ever seen personally. I'll have to dig thru the photo albums next time I'm at my dads.

Train horror story. Buddy in high school one night ends up sitting on a flat deck rail after a busted house party. Train starts to roll so the 3 or 4 dudes hop off except he slipped. Train cut his leg off just above the knee.

#45 4 years ago

I've done my fair share of foaming over the years, although I have not done much in the last couple years.

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#46 4 years ago

I went to a farm auction in Rockhaven, SK a few years back. They had a few household items in the old farm house. Near the end of the sale the auctioneer came up to me and said that I was a good customer today and he forgot about these and wanted to know if I was interested in them, free of charge.

My wife really likes them and they've been stored flat since waiting to get framed eventually. They're prints and fairly large. 24 x 36. Artist is W.L. Lowther
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#47 4 years ago
Quoted from dirkdiggler:

Artist is W.L. Lowther

Search Google for artist W.L. Lowther lots of good info.

LTG : )

#48 4 years ago

140 minutes per day on NJ Transit has destroyed any affinity I may have had at one time for trains.

#49 4 years ago
Quoted from Blackjacker:

140 minutes per day on NJ Transit has destroyed any affinity I may have had at one time for trains.

That’s brutal.

#50 4 years ago

Always wanted to do a overhead train in either the basement and or the living room. SuAnn said she was good with either one...., so what am I waiting on right? Time basically.

John

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