In the late 60's my brother and I were getting a little too old for "family vacations" and my dad's health was not the best. I was going to electronics school 4 hours a day, working 8 hours every evening, and on weekends I was more interested in going on a date with Frances. The years between 1968 and 1971 were years of proud service to our country as a soldier in the United States Army.
See the extended entry for more details.
After our trip to the World’s Fair our family didn’t do much traveling. My dad had mentioned taking a trip to St. Louis at one time. The logical route from Louisville would have been on the Southern Railway System. Southern’s “Western Division” went from St. Louis, through Louisville, and then to Lexington or Danville Ky. I don’t know when “The Southern,” as most people called it, discontinued passenger service to Louisville but there was no service listed in the October 30, 1960 timetable. It’s possible that we could have taken the Monon or the Pennsylvania north and then caught the New York Central going west. At one time there was a connection that could be made at Bedford Indiana but I’ll have to do some research to find out which road it was with.
I entered the U. S. Army in August of 1968. There wasn’t much time for railroading while I was a soldier. I spent 9 months at Fort Monmoth, New Jersey. I wasn’t real close to the trains in that area, however I was able to watch some of the NJT trains once in awhile. After completing my school in New Jersey I was stationed on Okinawa. Okinawa was a U. S. occupied territory at that time. The year after I left it reverted back to Japanese control. It may have been a part of Japan but it had about 300 miles of ocean between it and the mainland. After about 18 months on the island I was sent to Korea for a week. I didn’t get to do much train watching there. I didn’t know my way around the area and the guys that were with me had no interest in trains. The highlight of the trip was our rail trip from Taegu to Seoul. While waiting for our train to arrive I watched some steam locomotives doing some switching. The Korean railroad had a reputation for being on time. I usually kept my watch set pretty accurately. I remember that the train arrived within 10 seconds of the published time and departed exactly on time. The passenger equipment was pretty modern but a trip to the restroom reminded you that you weren’t in North America. If you’ve never been to the Orient, just try to imagine a porcelain bowl about 9 inches by 18 inches, mounted flush (no pun intended) with the floor.
A few months later a friend and I took some leave and went to Japan. We stayed in the Air Force barracks at Camp Drake, near Tokyo. While we were there we went to a ski resort about 2 hours north of Tokyo and we went by train. There wasn’t anything special about the train, average accommodations. I didn’t venture to the restroom so I can’t report on that but I suspect I would have found it similar to those in Korea. Later that week we left Tokyo for Hiroshima. We road the Shinkansen, or “Bullet Train” from Tokyo to Osaka. It was a very modern train, as would be expected. There was a speedometer in the lounge car. I remember it hovering around 200 to 205 K/hr most of the time. That works out to about 125M/hr. The ride was very smooth. A passing train going the opposite direction was nothing but a 3 or 4 second blur. My friend and I were the only “round eyes” on the train, or so we thought. The conductor told us to walk back about 3 or 4 cars and look in the first class section. As a couple of GI’s, we were traveling coach. All of the American and European business and vacation travelers were in the first class coaches.
We changed trains at Osaka. This train didn’t know how to spell first class. The seats were wooden and the seatbacks were made of bead board. They could best be described as resembling the booths in some restaurant, minus the padded seat cushion. There were several stops along the way and you could open your window and buy Cokes, box lunches, and other items while the train let passenger board and depart. It reminded me of something you might see on a National Geographic documentary about South America, Southeast Asia, or some place in Africa. I was expecting someone to get on with some live chickens at the next station.
We spent two days in Hiroshima before returning to Okinawa. My railroad adventures were over for awhile.
