Gone Railroadin!!!!!

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Well, I decided to "get sick" on Friday so I can get a morning flight from Chicago to San Francisco. Then time for some cable cars and lobster or other seafood at fisherman's wharf.

So by the time they are having the weekly department meeting where I usually get scolded, shamed, or bitched at about something, ill hopefully be cresting the top of the hill in San Francisco on a cable car and getting that panoramic view of the bay!

On Saturday, Ill board car 632 and settle into room 8 for a great weekend of railraoding. Look for the trip report next week.
 
Amtrak Watcher said:
Room 8 sounds like a good alternative to the screaming and humiliation room.
Your right! I can look for places along the UP mainline in Nevada to bury the bodies of my agravating coworkers. LOL. Would never really do that. If your in jail, you cant ride the rails.
 
Actually one of the most famous jails of all time, Sing Sing, is located along Metro North tracks and Amtrak's Empire service passes right by it. Old movies and TV shows set in New York used to refer to criminals being "sent up the river". Sing Sing is located right on the Hudson River, so when you were convicted, you were “sent up the river" to prison.
 
Between here (BNL) and Chicago, there are three, yes THREE (3) prisons along the way, hehe. One at each stop: Pontiac, Dwight, and Joliet. Don't know what the odds of that are...it's only approx 120 miles, and THREE prisons!!!
 
Joliet prison (seen in the film "The Blues Brothers") is an especially interesting sight; it looks like a castle.

Unlike riding the bus or driving a car, the train gives us a look at people's back yards rather than their front yards. The view suggests that some people have way too much stuff, and are real slobs.
 
I'm not 100% sure but I believe the NJ prison off the NEC is none other than Rahway Prison.
 
tp49 said:
I'm not 100% sure but I believe the NJ prison off the NEC is none other than Rahway Prison.
Er, not that I've been inside, but Rahway Prison was renamed East Jersey Prison several years ago. It is actually in the Avanel section of Woodbridge Township. It is not visible from the NEC, as it's about a mile east of there along U.S. 1 & 9. You can, however, see the prison from NJT's North Jersey Coast Line, just east of where it goes under U.S. 1 & 9.

Regarding the Sing Sing prison in Ossining, NY, the tracks go through the property, not by it. There are prison grounds on both sides of the tracks.

There is one prison I've seen from the NEC (Amtrak and Septa R7) -- it's right next to Septa's Holmesburg Junction station -- you can clearly see the energized fences and guard houses from the trains on the west side of the tracks.

But getting back to the original intent of this thread, Steve's trip. Hope you have, or have had, a wonderful time. San Francisco is definitely on my list of places to get to "one of these days" and ride all the various rail lines in the Bay Area (too numerous to mention here!) for about a week.
 
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