At this time of year, nearly everyone will have recollections of Christmas seasons, recent or distant, when time seemed to stop and it was almost possible to live a lifetime in that moment.
Moments like that are rare. People usually remember them with almost perfect clarity, regardless of whether the experiences are joyful or, maybe, not so joyful. For me, Christmas of 1976 was one of those experiences. Read more
My mother had fallen ill during the Christmas Season of 2011. That horrible demon known as Alzheimer’s was slowly tightening its grip on her memory and functions. It was soon obvious that she needed to be institutionalized and have round-the-clock care and treatment for her devastating illness.
The darkness of winter grew longer each day, and our holiday spirits were darkened as well. My wife Yoko and I thought it would be a good idea to brighten up her home once again with a Christmas Tree in the living room to help rekindle the flames of the Christmas season. So for the first time in more than a few years, there was once again a Christmas tree in mom’s house. Read more
On Sunday December 10th, 2017, the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train came to Lethbridge, Alberta, marking nineteen years that the Holiday Train has been going across Canada and parts of the United States raising awareness, money, and food for local food banks. Unfortunately, Lethbridge is off the main line so we only get the Holiday Train every second year, which has its drawbacks. This year would be different, as I wanted to chase the train from Lethbridge west to the mountains, and friends Simon Aperloo & Ken McCutcheon, had similar ideas so we planned out the itinerary for Monday! Read more
Railroad office buildings are not normally a subject covered so extensively as other aspects of railroading. I did not even think of them during my early years of rail-fanning, until I began my thirty year railroad career with Southern Railway in September, 1973.
The Southern Railway office complex was located on what was then Spring Street, SW in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. The concrete buildings were quite impressive. The east side of the buildings faced Spring Street, while the west side faced the Atlanta to Macon main lines of the Southern and Central of Georgia railroads. The buildings housed various departments including information technology, operations, car accounting, engineering (maintenance of way and structures) to name a few. I worked in the Bridge Department for twenty-nine years which was a part of engineering.
Trevillian was a larger wooden depot with the town post office inside the former waiting rooms. I am uncertain what may have been stored in the freight room. Local lore was that the station building was used as a hospital during the civil war, but I am uncertain whether it was the one shown above or an earlier structure.
Pendleton was a closed agency with doors wide open. My understanding is that the agent at Mineral had spent a few hours there daily until the North Anna Power Station at Frederick Hall increased traffic, so that Pendleton became a non-agency station. I retrieved a tariff case from the depot which now resides at Boyce. Read more
I was lucky to be one of the last hires on the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad, starting in June 1968, six short months before the Penn Central takeover of my railroad. What later turned out to be Amtrak was being discussed at the time. Passenger trains were being discontinued, and the ones still operating were losing money. It was obvious that many long distance trains were on the ropes; if a railroad trip across North America was to be taken, there was no time to waste.