TRAINS!!!! (The topic) (Calling @PooltoyWolf)
11@PooltoyWolf I blame you for not enough train talk.
I love the diesel of the day thing even tho I have yet to read them. I intend to.
But how about trains in general? History? Lore? Culture?
(Disclosure: one of my grandfathers was a Santa Fe engineer, roundhouse foreman, and derailment specialist. He was already quite elderly when I was born, and I now completely regret that I was a typical modern child, fascinated by the new, and that I did not get how much I would regret not having demanded and cherished more stories from him about his life and times.)
Trains can be really awesome. Even tho I hate being stuck on the road when one is crossing.
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What about great train movies?
@therealjrn
Buster Keaton.
The General
Under 2 minutes
Trying to remember some Western I saw during my childhood I think?
An engineer has to take a train across an unstable/unfinished/dangerous bridge? trying to remember the name of the film.
How The West Was Won?
Around The World In Eighty Days?
I forget.
@f00l I don’t know but I adore Murder on the Orient Express.
@therealjrn
More from The General
@f00l - Your movie with an engineer taking a train over a shaky bridge sounds familiar - maybe Union Pacific or The Train Robbers?
I too love The General and Murder on the Orient Express (not the Depp version so much.) Here are a couple personal favorite train movies:
The Silver Streak
The Darjeeling Limited
Unstoppable
Flame Over India
The (Original) Taking of Pelham 1-2-3
Polar Express
and although technically not a train movie, there are some great train sequences in North By Northwest (and many others).
/giphy train
@f00l Ah, a gif of so many uses!
I tend to be a walking encyclopedia on American diesel locomotives, with excerpts and appendixes dealing with signaling systems and other US stuff, but outside of that I’m relatively ignorant. :B
Question… So when on the Amtrak, I am obsessed with wanting to listen to the automated radio stuff. Is there a way to eavesdrop?
We already figured out the sign that tells the engineer to blow the whistle for crossings, we have not figured out the rest of them.
@Pamtha Absolutely! A handheld radio scanner will allow you to (legally) listen to radio communications between the train and dispatch, other trains on the line, etc. A good one costs about $200 but you can find them cheaper, especially used. You can find the radio frequencies for the different railroads online. Off the top of my head, CSX in my area uses 160.590 and 161.100 MHz.
@Pamtha @PooltoyWolf
What are some decent brand of scanner, if one is looking for a used one?
@f00l @Pamtha Uniden tends to be consistently good, the RadioShack ones also arent bad. You can also go the full-blown transceiver (radio) route and get a new Baofeng unit for around $50, but be careful - those can transmit back if you press the talk button, and that’s a big no-no!
Hootenanny!
Always wanted to do this or the Zeyphr.
@cranky1950 I rode the California Zephyr from Denver to Sacramento. The ascent into and ride through the Rockies is beautiful. It was neat to see the buildings of Denver get farther and farther away as the train zig zagged up the mountains.
/image California zephyr mountains
My youngest son is a bit of a train nut. Reads/collects books, youth member of local model railroad club, etc. Bit of a snob about it, too: Steam trains only; no diesels (sorry @PooltoyWolf).
@compunaut I blame Thomas for all the hate on the ‘diseasels’.
/youtube midnight train to Georgia live
Joan Baez ~ 500 Miles
Opening scenes
Once Upon A Time In The West
@f00l
Finale
Once Upon a Time in the West - End Train scene - “Finale”
Of course, all desert Western towns had Claudia Cardinale on call for water delivery.
@f00l
PS of you have never heard Ennio Morricone’s exquisite and haunting soundtrack for this film, it is here.
About an hour.
Here are the supposed “best tracks”. About 26 min.
I prefer steam engines to diesel. Sorry.
/giphy steam engine train
anyone hear that train a-coming?
Arlo Guthrie and Willie Nelson versions