As you can see from the title on this blog, Amtrak is probably involved. I'm planning a vacation to the west coast on Amtrak. As I plan my 2006 vacation, I start this blog by reflecting on some of my early interest in trains. I should have started this a few weeks earlier but, well, I just didn't think about it until a few days ago. Most of the details of my 2006 vacation are pretty much figured out by now. In the next few days I'll go over some of the options that I looked at.
Click below if you want to read the extended entry.
I’ve always like trains. Every since I was a kid and knew what a train was I’ve always been attracted to them. My parents used to talk about taking me on the streetcars when I was a baby. I know, streetcars are not really “trains” but they do run on rails. I grew up on the corner of First and Avery (now Cardinal) Streets. I lived a block and a half from the L&N freight line and three blocks away from where the passenger line ran. I used to spend Friday nights with my grandparents from my mothers side. They lived a half block from that passenger line. When I got big enough to run up and down the street I figured out what time the trains ran. When I was visiting with my grandparents I would watch the clock so that I could run down to the railroad crossing and watch the trains go by. As a small child I always respected the railroad property. I didn’t play on the tracks. I would just go down there and watch the trains go by. My grandmother had a sister that lived in “Henry County.” They would go to visit here two or three times a year. That’s how I got my first train ride. Boy! Was I excited. I even had my own suitcase. That was probably around 1952. That was also a time when a five year old could walk down the neighborhood street and you didn’t have to worry about all the stuff we worry about today.
My grandfather on my dad’s side lived a half block from us and in the direction of that freight line. Again, when I got big enough to go down there by myself, I would go to his home and he would take me to a place where we could sit in the shade and watch the freight trains go by. I think my most memorable moment while watching trains with him was the time that two trains reached our location at the same time and passed. They were both steam locomotives. Diesels were used on the sleek passenger trains, “the Varnish” and steam was still doing most of the freight work.
Times were different. Brakemen and conductors didn’t use radios to communicate. They use hand signals and the locomotive engineer would reply with whistle signals. You could predict the weather just by listening to those steam whistles. If rain was approaching, that whistle had that lonely hollow sound and it seemed like it carried forever.
When I got big enough to ride my bike a few blocks away from home I would often notice a crew switching some cars to and from sidings for Pepsi, a local coal yard, a lumber yard, Caldwell Tanks, and several other businesses in the neighborhood. I would ride my bike from street to street to watch the crews.
When my brother and I got a little older our family started making four or five trips a year to Cincinnati, Oh. We usually went to Coney Island and/or Crosley Field to watch the Cincinnati Red play baseball. We usually road “the local,” train 4. All I know for sure is that it usually made about a dozen stops between Louisville and Cincinnati. It usually had about 10 baggage cars and one passenger coach. Checking the April 25, 1961 time tables,.train 4 left Louisville at 9:40 AM and got to Cincinnati at 1:30PM. On the return trip it was train 1, departing Cincinnati at 11:15PM and arriving in Louisville at 2:45AM. I always tried to stay awake on the train but sometimes I was just too tired to do it. Occasionally we would ride “The Hummingbird.” It was a first class train and only stopped at Baxter Station in Louisville and another stop in Covington. The Hummingbird left Louisville at 5:00AM and arrived in Cincinnati at 8:05PM. The return trip departed at 6:45PM and arrived in Louisville at 9:50PM. On one occasion we were returning home and the train (train 1) was full. (Remember, it had only one passenger coach.) Usually there were only a hand full of people leaving Cincinnati on that train. Turns out that there had been an NAACP convention in Detroit that day and this train that went to Birmingham and Montgomery Alabama was full of the convention attendees that were returning to their homes in the south. This particular night the train had a Pullman coach attached to the end of the train. As we boarded, the conductor routed everyone onto the old coach but when our family boarded, he sent us to the Pullman. The lights on the Pullman were very dim but as the train started moving, the generator that were driven by a pulley on one of the car’s axel brought the lights up to a normal level. The conductor later told us that the batteries on the Pullman coach were dead and the coach was being sent back to Louisville for repairs. We were the only white people on the train that night. This was the early 60’s and discrimination was still common.
One of the things I allways remember about the train was the drinking water. As a kid we liked to play with things and getting a paper cup and a drink of water was fun. I don't think they ever put any water into the drinking water tank. I think they only put ice in it and just let it melt because the water was truely "ice cold" all of the time.