Trains
12Around 3:30 in the morning I got stuck at the train crossing as soon as the gate started going down. That meant I got to count all 210 cars as I tried not to pass out from being exhausted. Luckily it was moving pretty swiftly, so it didn’t take too long. I’ve been stuck by some trains that were at a crawl before.
I enjoy watching the trains go by as long as I’m not in a rush. How about you?
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I like to count them too
When I was very young- less than 3, because it was before I have any memories, I apparently used to introduce myself as “Thomas, like the tank engine” (not even close to my real name)
I spend over 3.5 hrs on a train every day. We share rail with CSX freight. For the most part, this works out well, but occasionally… even when you’re on a train, you have to wait as several hundred freight cars pass by you…
As kids we put coins on the tracks to squish the coins into thin discs.
@RedOak I did that too, using pennies. Sometimes, the coin stuck to the train wheel & I had to search to find it down the tracks. If you spit on it, it wouldn’t stick as often… I also squished nails. I loved playing on the train tracks.
@RedOak I used to do that too- it was fun
@RedOak We did that too. Also seed pods.
In the NE US I like trains.
I’m ok with the ones that are rolling. Not so crazy about the ones that stop and sit there.
@f00l Or when you see the train stop, then start going back the way it came.
we had a csx coal train that came through Hialeah every Thursday afternoon about the time I started work often I’d be racing the train to the next crossing so I wouldn’t be late for work.
/youtube I like trains
I live less than a mile from a small CSX yard in the historic downtown of my little suburb, on one of CSX’s main lines between Florida and the northeast. I don’t even hear the trains anymore. A lot of people have moved into new neighborhoods built even closer to downtown (one actually built in between the mainline and a spur that runs to a nearby town), though, and they complain about the trains. They complain about the noise from switching operations, horns at railroad crossings, and in cold weather the diesel engines in the locomotives stay on even when parked so they won’t freeze up. These newcomers are trying to convince the town to buy the yard from the railroad and have them move their operations outside the town, and they’ve succeeded in silencing the horns at a couple railroad crossings, even on main roads. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for these residents, though. That railroad has been here for well over a century, and is literally the reason the town exists. There’s no way they didn’t know it was there; they almost certainly had to drive across or alongside it to reach the house they ultimately bought, and they liked how inexpensive it was. There’s a reason it was that cheap! The biggest shocker to me, though, was getting the horns silenced even at railroad crossings on main roads. If anyone ever dies at those crossings, to my mind the victim’s blood will be on their hands for silencing a safety warning because it was too loud at a house they bought next to a railroad.
@jqubed The two non-distant shooting ranges here were harassed out of existence by latecomer assholes like that. Both had been in business for many decades but development encroached, newcomer turds bitched and filed complaint after complaint and nuisance suits (with willing accomplices in the local munis and the county who wanted the ranges’ land for more taxable development).
It really sucks how people like that get away with things.
Seems I manage to get stuck by a freight train every year at Comic Con. The tracks run right between the San Diego Convention Center and the Gas Lamp District, and the train goes soooo slow.
I like to count the cars too. We also had a game we used to play when my father was alive and driving the family around - train poker. We would each pick a train car and use the registration numbers on the side to make a poker hand - full house, four of a kind, etc. Helped to pass the time with a little friendly competition. Good memories.
Anybody here know what a FRED is?
@cranky1950
FRED is where the caboose used to be.
@justbuyit Yeah but it’s really a RED
/youtube blippi train song
Listen to this song … at least once if not twice every single day taking/returning the oppobuy to pre-school.
This may be hard to believe for those who find it boring to watch a train for the few minutes it takes to clear the crossing… but I sell train videos. We stock over 2,000 titles. It helped put my kids through college.
@TimWalter Did you shoot them all yourself? How are there that many videos to sell? What do they show? Is the money still good, or are there free versions on YouTube that meet people’s needs?
I love the trains on the Island of Sodor…
We live about a mile from tracks of smaller operation. The kids think it’s the coolest thing to get in the car and race to the crossing to catch the train. I grew up infatuated with trains so it’s exciting to me that they think it’s cool.