Rail Fan's

My dad was an engineer for Union Pacific and had the freight run from Los Angeles to Yermo, CA. He'd lay over in Yermo for the night and bring the next westbound freight back in to LA the next day.
This was a lot of years ago when LA wasn't as built up as it is today.
My dad died when I was 7 so not a lot of early memories, but one of my fondest was the time my mom drove down to the East Los Angeles station so I could wave at him as the train went by. I was about 4-5 years old and we'd done this a few times prior but this time was different - he stopped the train and I got on and rode in the cab the rest of the way in to the main yard in Los Angeles with him at the controls.
I'm sure you couldn't get away with that today...but it sure was a great memory for a young kid and it's stuck with me for a lot of years.

About 15 years ago my wife and I decided to take a long weekend train trip from Los Angeles to Seattle since my wife had never been on anything other than a couple of hours trip on a train.
We caught the local commuter train in Fullerton, CA, which is closest to our home and rode it into Union Station in Los Angeles. The Coast Starlight was on the next track over across the platform and we had about 45 minutes before it was scheduled to leave. I walked down by the engine just to see what I could see. As I was standing there, the engineer came over to the open cab door to ask what I was doing. I explained that my dad had been an engineer and I was raised around trains but it had been a lot of years since I'd last been on one. He looked up and down the station platform and then said, "Come on up and take a look". It was great being back in the cab again after so many years - an outstanding way to kick off what turned out to be a wonderful long weekend trip.