kids and trains

[jsmvmd]

Dear Tim,

Very poetic prose! Sort of like Peter Jackson.  It is a sad statement, I suppose to have lived in Altoona, PA since 1991 and not know much of Pennsy, PennCentral, or Conrail history.  However, I have several acquaintances, friends and clients who have worked for the Pennsy, PC, Conrail and NS.  Good and bad stories. I try to focus on the good stuff.  Our local Altoona Railroaders Museum is a good one, with lots of memorabilia. One should see it sometime, just to get a glimpse of how it used to was. Deep mechanical and technological roots, not to mention plain grit that fathered the westward expansion past the Allegheny Mtns to the western frontier that was western Pennsylvania!

Best Wishes,

Jack

[Yampa Bob]

Jack
When Horace Greeley said (earlier John Soule wrote) "Go West Young Man", I believe he was thinking a little ways past "western Pennsylvania". 

Couldn't resist it. LOL

Bob

[jsmvmd]

Dear Bob,

"Much more furder, lak fo' or tree mo' stats, HAH?"

For me it is now a long hike to get to the loo!   

Best Wishes!

Jack

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

On a related note, I've heard 'supper' is (or was) used pretty widely in Ireland (but not in Britain, of course).

Timothy

Of course. In Britain they have "high tea," which an Anglophilic professor once told me really stands for "high time we got something to eat"! 

[Conrail Quality]

Dear Tim,

Very poetic prose! Sort of like Peter Jackson.  It is a sad statement, I suppose to have lived in Altoona, PA since 1991 and not know much of Pennsy, PennCentral, or Conrail history.  However, I have several acquaintances, friends and clients who have worked for the Pennsy, PC, Conrail and NS.  Good and bad stories. I try to focus on the good stuff.  Our local Altoona Railroaders Museum is a good one, with lots of memorabilia. One should see it sometime, just to get a glimpse of how it used to was. Deep mechanical and technological roots, not to mention plain grit that fathered the westward expansion past the Allegheny Mtns to the western frontier that was western Pennsylvania!

Best Wishes,

Jack

Dear Jack,

I suppose I'm in the same boat. I lived my childhood in a town outside of Pittsburgh on the old Pennsy mainline, yet I was born too late to see anything but big blue GE Dash-8's. Now, living in Virginia, whenever I see the rusting catenary posts on the old Pennsy line to Potomac Yard, I wish I had been there to be able to see P5's, E44's, and GG-1's hauling long freights under the wires...
But then, I suppose that's the effect of technological advancement. I'm sure many who saw the GG-1's racing down the corridor wished for the days when Atlantics were the big new thing, and many who saw those remembered when the 4-4-0 was cutting-dege. Well, I'm rambling, but my point is that we'll always yearn for an idealized past without realing knowing much about it. Not that there weren't great things in the past, but there are great things in the present too, if we just look for them.

Timothy