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denmarks

denmarks

Train Travel Enthusiast
Joined
Sep 21, 2003
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676
Location
Chico, CA
I remember the first time I stepped on a train must have been when I was about 8. It was to see my Aunt leave Chicago to move to L.A. I still remember taking a cup of water on the train in one of those cone shaped cups.

My first actual train trip wasn't until I was 19 and joined the Air Force. It was from L.A. to San Antonio. Since then whenever I took a foreign trip I tried to find one that included a ride on a train. Wait until you see the train bathrooms in China. :(
 
My first time on Amtrak was when I was around 4.

My grandfather used to own some land up in Poplarville,Mississippi, and at that time, it was served by Amtrak's Crescent, on it's daily route between New York City and New Orleans. So, we took the train there, and I was hooked. It was about a 2-hour ride, and we always enjoyed having breakfast as the train started its crossing of Lake Pontchartrain. The schedule allowed for us to make a day trip out of it, as it arrived in Poplarville around 9:00am and came back at about 5:30pm or so.

After my grandafther sold his land there, we kept on riding the Crescent, doing day trips probably three times per year to Meridian.

Great, great memories that I will never forget.
 
I was five years old and we were living in New Orleans while my Dad was in grad school. My mom was a native of Mena, Arkansas, so one summer my mom and I took the KCS Southern Belle from New Orleans to Mena with a return.

I distinctly remember the shiny black cars with the red and yellow stripe, the starched tablecloths in the dining car, my berth with a window (didn't sleep much), and my dinner of ham steak.

I also remember that the train left New Orleans at night, probably about 10:00pm, which was a thrill for me to be up that late. Seeing different trains backed into Union Station was exciting for me. I remember a train with a lot of orange (probably Illionis Central) and one that was primarily yellow (no clue which line).

My first trip back (by train) to New Orleans was last year, 35 years later. Union Station looks the same, except the platforms only held my train, the Crescent. Not as colorful a memory, but still an excellent one.
 
whcg, the orange(and brown) train was definately IC. As to the yellow, I am not sure, unless it was reddish-yellow. In that case it could have been Southern Pacific equipment on the Sunset Limited. The original "pure" Sunset Limited was a silver train but in later years equipment got pretty switched around and mixed up in some cases.

A somewhat more pure yellow would be Union Pacific, but should not have been there. However, thanks to the Pullman Company a lot of equipment come be seen scattered far from home all over the country.
 
Actually my first train ride was 1978 when I was 18. The City of New orleans. I took a couple Amtrak train rides that year. I remember the old dome cars, before the superliners. The next year I was riding on loads of European trains. The German and British trains were fast and fun; the worst ride was on a Serbian train. It was a moving dump. I wrote a story about that trip :)
 
My first train trip was especially memorable, because it was on the Rock Island Rocket, from Chicago to Joliet, IL, in 1946 - immediately after my father had returned from France. My grandmother and I used to visit the station in Blue Island, IL each morning to see the trains go through and the Rocket was the fastest thing I had ever seen.

When my father returned, there were two things I wanted to do - have bacon and eggs with him at breakfast and ride that Rocket. We did both and I don't know which was more exciting.

Although I was thrilled with the short ride on the Rocket, it just didn't seem to be going as fast as I had seen, while on the ground and the other memorable thing was that the chocolate pudding on the train was not as good as my mother's.

Memories are wonderful things.
 
First trip on a train in general was when I was around 4 or 5 years old on the Strasburg Railroad.

First Amtrak trip was in college back in 1995, took one of the Empire Service Trains (Back then they still had names. If I remember correctly, it was either the Mohawk or Niagara Rainbow) from Niagara Falls to NYP. That was my mode of choice for all future trips between home and school.
 
My first Amtrak riding experience was in 1995. One thing that made me desire to ride train was when I was a college at San Luis Obispo, CA (Cal Poly). There's railroad track runs through the rural campus. Coast Starlight runs through there.

Anyways, it was two hours late at Salt Lake City (CA Zephyr) at approx. 2 am! I was almost disappointed. Highlight of the trip is riding through Donner Pass. That's made me hook-up on train, along with very relaxed trip. :wub:
 
My first ride on Amtrak was when I was three (or so I'm told since I remember nothing from the experience), my parents took me from Deland to Winter Park on the train as a birthday present. My first trip that I remember came on June 18, 2001 when I rode the Meteor from Ft. Lauderdale to Winter Park. The trips began as transportation, and slowly evolved into railfan trips that I do today. I'll never forget that first trip though, I sat in the 42 car (a Concept 2000), and was seated with a college student going to Deland. I believe at Okeechobee 89 needed to work the main, as did we, because I remember backing up, going forward, and then stopping again, and then finally moving on. Who would've thought that I would evolve into this? :lol: Not me that's for sure.
 
My first Amtrak trip was in 1974, on the Montrealer, from New York to Montreal. My family wanted to experience the still-new Amtrak service and we had two deluxe compartments, with the divider opened. I already loved trains, but I was hooked even more from that point.

The following year we rode from San Francisco (OK, Oakland) to Los Angeles, with the same set-up.

My father made a point of telling my sister and me repeatedly that these accomodations were not the norm for all train travelers, and that we should realize as much. (To his credit, he was always concerned that we might end up spoiled.) A few years later, I learned this in an even more concrete way, when I rode alone overnight from New York to Savannah in coach. :blink:
 
My first trip was at age 3, (1947)overnight from Chattanooga to Daytona Beach, Fla., on the Dixie Flagler, a streamliner. I am told that I was elated over the whole thing. My sister, age 12 at the time, said she walked me back and forth from one end of the train to another several times. She said we had name tags so people started talking to us and calling us by name and telling us how glad they were to see us for the umpteenth time. That would make it clear that I felt I was being rewarded for this brand new behavior, the behavior of incessantly walking thu a train. I am not sure if I really remember any of it but I think I do.

The next trip that I remember for sure was in the first grade. I rode from Chattanooga to Tullahoma, TN, about 75 miles, with my grandmother. I had to behave and sit still with her, and the train was a heavyweight(the Dixie Flyer)so about the only fun on that trip was discovering the drinking fountain, as the first writer on this post mentioned in his experiences.

Trips after that were with my mother(much different from Granny) and on streamliners so I pretty much took control from then on and still do, of course.
 
My first trip was on a Northeast Direct train back in 1993 when I was 7. My dad and I went from Providence to New York. I remember standing at the giant departure board in Penn Station with a sworm of other passengers waiting for the announcement of their train. As for the train ride itself, I just remember the engine change in New Haven.

My first overnight train ride was when I was 9 in 1996. My family took the Auto Train from Sanford to Lorton in Coach. I remember the Full Dome Lounge, the Buffet Diner, and the Table Car. I also remember being on the lower-level of the lounge and me and my sister being yelled at by the crew for just having socks on when walking throughout the train. Today of course I know that is very dangerous as you could easily hurt your foot on something sharp.

Then that same year we again took the Auto Train back south. This time we were in the Sleepers on the brand new Superliner II equipment. My mom, sister (who was 5 at the time), and me all squeezed into one Standard Bedroom. Don't ask me how the hell we did it either. This was my first time eating in a ture Amtrak Dining Car. I had the BBQ Chicken. I also remember riding in the Sightseer Lounge and the Lounge attendant handed out candy to all the kids who visited him at the snack bar. I think it was this trip that really got me interested into the whole concept of trains.
 
I barely remember my first trips by train, but I know that they were on the Illinois Central between Champaign, IL and Chicago. My favorite memories were of eating breakfast in the diner as the train stopped in Rantoul to pick up passengers. Invariably, the diner always stopped on the grade crossing. I thought it was great fun to sit there and eat my pancakes as the cars waited for the train to move.

My first overnight trip was from Chillicofee, IL to Oklahoma city. This was right before Amtrak. My parents thought that trains were about to go, so they wanted my sister and I to experience a train ride. We had two bedrooms, and I remember riding in the observation car as we crossed the Mississippi. I vaguely remember walking through the train with my dad, trying to get to the engines. I noticed that we had to climb up and down stairs to get through the coaches. Later, I knew that these were Santa Fe hi-level coaches from the El Capitan.

After Amtrak, there was a family trip to the West coast where we rode on the San Francisco Zephyr, the San Joaquins, the San Diegans, and the Southwest Limited. We started and finished in Galesburg,, IL. This trip was in the early 70's, and all trains had conventional, steam heated equipment. Highlights-riding in the dome car at night watching signals change, riding in a fulll length dome in Wyoming as we saw a tornado far off in the distance, and a ride over donner pass. I did not know the place names then, but I had pretty solid visual memories. ON the return trip from LA, Amtrak botched the reservations somehow, and each member of my family was assigned to a roomette. My older sister, who had been telling me the hole trip that she was more mature than me, cried at the thought that sshe would be in this room by herself. Me, I was happy. Stayed up most of the night loooking out the window. These were what caused me to be interested in trains.

My first solo trip: Champaign to Chicago on the Illini. This was the first time that I saw amfleet equipment too. I was eight years old.

My first overnight solo trip: Harrisburg to Chicago on the Broadway Limited in coach. On the Chicago to Harrisburg part, 40 was over six hours late due to a freight derailment. So that was my first time on a detour. I was about 10 on this trip.

So lots of firsts for me, and I'm gonna keep on railroadin. :D :D
 
It's funny, for my first real train trip I rode by myself, it wasn't til about a year and a half after I started riding that my Mom came with me on a trip.
 
My first train ride was on the LIRR when I was 3, my first Amtrak ride was on a Clocker between NYP and Philadelphia back when I was 8 in 1984. I can only remember being unhappy that I didn't have a seat on the return because that train originated in Washington, DC and all the window's were taken. I also remember that at that time my mom was nervous because Amtrak was having nearly a derailment a week on the NEC.

I didn't ride Amtrak again until 1995 when I took a round trip one weekend on regional trains between NYP and DC to visit some friends while on Spring Break. After that my next Amtrak experience was on the Capitol Corridor in January, 2001.
 
My first train ride was when I was about 6, on the Pennsy from NY to Phila. My grandmother was taking me back to my house after a visit. I don't remember much, except having a rather dry cheese sandwich. After that, no intercity trains for 20 years, when I rode the Missouri Mule from St. Louis to KC and back one day with a friend.
 
My first train trip was in 1993 when I went to northern Virginia for the Boy Scouts' National Jamboree. We rode the Empire Builder from Williston, ND, to Chicago. At Chicago we took the Broadway Limited to Philadelpha. I've got a picture of a couple of F40s leading the train through Horseshoe Curve in Pennsylvania, but it must have been at the end of the roll because it didn't turn out very well. On the return trip, we took the Capitol Limited from Washington, DC, back to Chicago and the Builder back to Williston.

I didn't start riding the train on a regular basis until 1999 when I needed to get home for vacation and was broke. Amtrak came to the rescue and got me home. After that, I was hooked on train travel.
 
My First Train trip, at least that I can remember was when I was 3 or 4 years old (around 1991 or 1992) on a NJ Transit train on the Northeast Corridor Line from Elizabeth to New York on what I remember as an Arrow III, I seem to remember an Amtrak Train on the Express Tracks (2 and 3) passing while waiting, it might have had a PV or two on the rear. My memory might be a little distorted on that, as a result of the time since.

My First Amtrak (and overnight trip) was in 1999 at age 10 on the Silver Meteor #97, in one Deluxe Room with my mother and two younger brothers (like Jon, I don't remember how the hell we did it, I think at least going down, the attendant forgot to ask us when we needed our beds made, because we did it, and incorrectly, I may add. I think it involved the middle brother sleeping in the chair) We travelled from Newark to West Palm Beach. I remember boarding the train and it had a bright, heavenly glow to it. Just before we left, I heard a knock on the Window, looking out, it was my Dad, who couldn't go with us, and got a ride home with a co-worker, who parks his car in Newark. We were in B/9711, the Car #62036 "Skyline View", the 9710 car was #62003 Bay View. We also did a return trip about a week later.

First Solo Trip, yet to occur on Amtrak, but did take an NJ Transit MidTOWN Direct train to NYP, where I met my dad to go to a Springsteen Concert, I think September or October 2003.
 
The first trip I recall was from Chicago to either Nashville or Jacksonville sometime during WWII. I have verbal and visual memory. Thus, I was probably five or six yrs. old. I remember walking down the platform passing huge beautiful stainless steel cars, many trains arriving and leaving at the same time, and Red Caps everywhere with carts and baggage. The noise and smells were wonderful and powerful to a little boy. Trains were part of the culture growing up in Chicago and we had a kind of affection for them. Anyway, we traveled in a Pullman coach. I had the upper and my mother the lower. I didn't sleep much at night because it was so cool lying there looking out the window, listening to the wheel's rhythmic clickety/clack, and the whistle. Especially the whistle, that haunting whistle which to this day I love to hear at night. The train was full of soldiers who were all well behaved and rather subdued (understandably). They were really nice to me because I had a bunch of comic books and they all wanted to read them. I distinctly remember somewhere in Kentucky or Tennessee getting an upset stomach while speeding through a cut with red clay walls close to the train and the sun wildly flashing through trees on to those red clay walls. Yuch! I still get queasy from that while driving. I went to the bathroom which at that time had a small lounge room adjacent and also was full of soldiers. One of the them gave me take a "Tums for the tummy". The taste of that thing really made me sick. I remember the dining car from that and many other trips with great affection. I and other kids liked to make designs in the linen table cloth. They didn't change the table cloth, they piled one on top of the other so after a few seatings you could make indentations in the table cloth. The big heavy Anchor Hocking water glasses sat firmly in their own indentations. The food was exquisite as was the service. Meal selections were marked on a menu like today's sushsi menus and the waiter would review it with you when he came for your order ("he" no women). Everything on the table was heavy - salt and pepper shakers, everything. I don't ever remember being rushed to make room for the next seating in those days as is done today on Amtrak. Folks "cleaned up for dinner" and many changed from riding clothes to dining car attire. Mr. Haithcoat can help me with this one. We often traveled to Florida and Nashville in subsequent years and I don't remember if the trains were Dixie Flyer or Dixie Flagler or both. Those earlier train adventures make Amtrak tolerable because I can somewhat recapture the old feelings and still make an adventure out of it. Also, very early when I was six I stated taking the Milwaukee Road's "Camper Special" from Union Station to Minoqua, Wisc. and on to Camp Northern Pines on Big St. Germaine Lake near Sayner, Wisc. The entire train was full of kids going to summer camp. What a hoot! The return trip back to the city and school wasn't nearly as much fun, but it too was a train riding adventure. That's enough. Happy trails! I'm not going to proof this so good luck. Bradkansas
 
I am not sure if this counts, but my first train trip was in 1988 on the NYC subway, probably the B or C lines(A slant R40 if it was the B or a redbird R30 if it was a C). I can remember some cars(unrebuilt R32s) that were last used in 1990, so i would have been 2 at the time.

My first Amtrak trip was on a north east direct train, and dont remember it too much, but i remember my frist long disatnce amtrak trip on the LSL in 1998. I was in Spring View I think. Ever since I have been a big viewliner fan. the next year i took the same trip, but then continued on to Minnesota, where i rode my first superliner. I spent the whole trip in the lounge. My first trip alone was the next year, at age 11, from portland to newyork. Now whenever i go anywhere, I go by AMtrak. :)
 
The first train trip that I could rember was riding the San Francisco Chief between Pittsburg, CA and Richmond CA. Even though these were the final years of passenger service, the stations and equipment were quite clean and even though the train originated in Chicago you could set your watch to it. What I remember most was the nice lash-up of war-bonnet F-units.
 
Steve4031, tell us more about that tornado. Did you feel threatened by it? Did the train have to stop or anything? Or was it so far off in the distance the train just kept going and ignored it? I remember your post from before and I have always wandered about this. Let us know.
 
bradkansas, guess maybe your first train to ride was my first one also. As it was stainless steel that would have been the Dixie Flagler, a streamliner. It went Chicago to Evansville, Ind., on the Chicago and Eastern Illinois R.R.; from Evansville to Nashville on the Louisville & Nashville: from Nashville to Atlanta (via Chattanooga) on the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis; from Atlanta to Jax via Atlantic Coast line and Jax to Miami via FEC.

You mention the Dixie Flyer, it went the same route also, though was not a streamliner(though in later years some streamlined cars showed up in it, but not during the time frame you speak of. It only went straight through to Jax though at times there were through pullman cars to points east coast or west coast.

Your own trips, of course may have been on either. About the only incentive to ride the Dixie Flyer, a much slower train, was that the Dixie Flagler operated only every third day.

But if you were going to Jacksonville you could have ridden either the South Wind or the City of Miami, each of which three streamliners, with the Flagler, operated every third day in rotation, but with different intermediate stop routes. And there were other non-streamlined trains.

If you were going to Nashville, either the South Wind(later to become the Floridian under Amtrak) or the Dixie Flagler could have taken you there. (two days out of three) If not the streamliners, you had either the Dixie Flyer or also the Dixie Limited.
 
bradkansas, I need to rethink my answer to you. If your first trip was during WW11 and you were in pullman, than you might have been on the Dixie Flyer after all, as the Dixie Flagler did not get pullmans until 1949.Perhaps the stainless steel you remember belonged to a train on an adjacent track. The Dixie flyer had a stainless steel car or two but not until the late 50's.

Here is an approximate schedule from way back then which might help fine tune your memory.

Dixie Flagler, s.b., lv. CHI, about 9 a.m. ar Nash 5 p.m. ar Jax. next morning 9 a.m.

Dixie Flyer, s.b., lv. CHI 10 p.m. ar Nash 10 .m. ar.JAX second morning 6 a.m.

Dixie Flagler, n.b. lv. JAX 8 p.m. ar Nash 9 a.m. ar Chi 6 p.m.

Dixie Flyer, n.b. lv. JAK 9 p.m. ar. Nash 4 p.m. ar Chi 4 a.m. second morning.

As you can see the Dixie Flyer was hours slower, but that was not at all unusual back then when there were so many trains to have such differences amongst them. Also, the ungodly arrival times in JAK and CHI for the Flyer were logical since it was a very heavy mail carrier. Persons could occupy sleepers until a reasonable hour, of course.
 
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