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.