Train under the Christmas tree

RaniDart70 said
thanks ...im happy to find some more ppl to talk about railroading with ....i had a friend who worked for U.P. but unfortunately he passed away last year......so that kinda left me drifting bcoz i dont know anyone else who knows about this stuff.
i remember giving you a hard time in another thread about the availability of bucket seats in a 69 swinger 340 LM23P9 LOL.....but i would have never guessed you would be a fellow rail fanner LOL

i dont actually know much about steam other than the last generation was kinda cool IMO when they tried to make them more aerodynamic which was pretty much a vain attempt.
i know of one historical photo in a book i have that shows the zepher ....all silver set ....had mechanical problems and was towed home by a steam and that seemed symbolic of steam's struggle for survival.
its awesome, sooooo exciting......but the tragedy of it is, the railroad is a business just like chrysler and as much as we would like preservation of days long dead ....they wont unless its profitable.

i have a thread going about concept cars and it makes me wonder if there were concept Locomotives that didnt make production ....that can shed light on the thoughts of the times regarding innovation and general purpose of the industy....i know they had "demonstrators" in which a factory rep. would ride around with a road crew to test a new design/product. but whats the follow up on that......anyone know :toothy9::toothy9:

The jury is still out on the availability of bucket seats in a 69 340 Swinger lol... and I always wondered if there were more train buffs (toy or real) on this site, and am pleased to find there are. Steam has always been my thing.. and I thought it was pretty wild when railroads attempted to streamline them.. The New York Central and Pennsy both had some neat streamliners.. The Blue Streak set I am running this Christmas, Lionel loosely based the engine for that set, of off the New York Centrals, Streamlined Hudson named 'The Commodore Vanderbilt' ... They streamlined J1E Hudson 5344, in 1934... it was the first streamlined locomotive.. It wound up with the nickname of 'bathtub'.. it was assigned to the 20th Century Limited between Toledo and Chicago...

And even though railroads are a business, and profit dictates everything.. I believe that trains make up too large a segment of our history as a nation, so there will alway be preservation.. whether in museums, special excursion trips, etc.. And I believe frieght trains will always be around (or at least for the rest of my lifetime) its passenger rail that has really changed dramatically... I love passenger trains.. I used to read all about them when I was a kid, a great deal of my toy train collection are passenger trains.. I wish I would've been alive back when steam passenger trains was THE way to travel.. Today all thats left in big passenger rail serivice is Amtrak .. and even that is just a small piece of what was... but as you said, thats because people traveling by rail became a process that just wasnt profitable.. (or even efficient)