First Train Ride

[KauaiJohn]

In 1967, 8th grade North Miami Junior High sponsored a trip to Washington D.C. for several North Dade schools. Mr. Bosco - history teacher and Miss Monday were chaperones. Each school had separate cars for boys and girls. In D.C., each school was on separate buses. It was an old SCL. Train departing from Hollywood station, been addicted to trains since.

 

[pennyk]

In 1967, 8th grade North Miami Junior High sponsored a trip to Washington D.C. for several North Dade schools. Mr. Bosco - history teacher and Miss Monday were chaperones. Each school had separate cars for boys and girls. In D.C., each school was on separate buses. It was an old SCL. Train departing from Hollywood station, been addicted to trains since.

Sounds familiar. A few years before that, 8th grade students of Palmetto Junior High School in Miami (Kendall), traveled from Miami to DC for spring break on an Atlantic Coast Line train. Been addicted to trains since then.

 

[KauaiJohn]

That would have been Seaboard Coast Line, it goes up through Opa-Locka Locks then follows State ROAD 9 then follows I95. Florida East Coast was the other railroad but the have been on strike since the 50's

 

[Rail Freak]

I beieive it was 1960, I went from Clearwater to WAS on the Safety Patrol Trip. I still remember falling in Puppy Love with a little girl on the train!!! :wub: :wub: :giggle: :hi:

 

[neroden]

Boston MTA (as was) Red Line in 1980. Central to MIT, IIRC! Hooked instantly.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

1967 family moved from Augusta, GA to Wilmington, DE. Mom, two sisters and I, with 1 dog and one cat, took the train. Don't have a lot of memories of it, but, it stuck with me. My first train trip, excluding tourist trains, was 40+ years later and lead to me finding this great forum and more trips.

 

[BCL]

Have no way of knowing if I'd been on a train as an infant, but I'm thinking it was probably the Disneyland Railroad for me.

As for non-excursion rides, once in the early 80s my dad took me on Caltrain on a Christmas Day. I think they were still operated by Southern Pacific, but they were subsidized by Caltrans. None of the stations were open that day and we bought our tickets from a conductor. That was actually quite fun, although there was nothing to do when we got to the destination other than wait for the return train.

I frankly took my first Amtrak ride a few years ago when it made for a more convenient commute.

 

[JayPea]

My first train ride was in 1963 on the late, lamented Northern Pacific's North Coast Limited from Spokane to Chicago, nothing of which I remember. I do remember, however, a round trip I took in 1965 from Spokane to Chicago on the Great Northern version of the EB. And the short roundtrip between Chicago and Bloomington on the Abraham Lincoln. Such things as riding in (and falling down the stairs of) the Vista dome, and watching the train run over a squirrel somewhere in Western Montana. Ahh, the way my mind works! :lol: I do, however, recall riding in the dome when we were making our return back to Spokane and seeing the mountains of Glacier Park first come into view. The occasion of those rides was to visit my grandparents and uncle in Illinois. Unfortunately, while the rides started for me a lifelong enjoyment of and desire to ride trains, I was unable to do so after that 1965 trip, with the exception of a few very short trips, mostly to and from Chicago and Champaign, in the 1990's and early 2000's. It wasn't until 2004 that I got to ride long-distance on another train, the CZ from Chicago to Sparks. That was the first of several trips I would take with my uncle, who developed HIS enjoyment of riding trains as a young lad when he and my grandparents would come out our way by train to visit us.

 

[Storm Tight]

Circa 1956-1958, took the Milwaukee Road "Arrow" between Chicago and Savanna, IL. Best memories were when dad would take us back to the diner car for snacks, where we all had ginger ale and ate blue cheese with crackers for the first time!

 

[alang]

My wife and I took our newborn son on the CZ from McCook to Lincoln to see his grandparents over the holidays on a cold December night in 1980. Now, as grandparents we take the CZ to California to see our grandchildren. We have loved every trip!

 

[andersone]

1958 Chicago to Glenwood Springs. It was winter. Father would jump out of the hot spring and roll in the three foot snow drifts around the pool. Vivid memories of the "Dome" car being washed in Denver and meals in the diner. 56 years later is it still the same thrill.

 

[Eric S]

I think it would have been the Rio Grande Zephyr in 1983 from Denver to Glenwood Springs, one of the last runs before Amtrak took over.

But I might have ridden one of the Colorado tourist railroads earlier.

 

[George K]

Sigh.

April 2, 1955.

New York Central Pacemaker (all coach) from New York to Chicago.

http://specialcollection.dotlibrary.dot.gov/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+3617)

 

[FriskyFL]

Peoria Rocket, circa 1964. Unfortunately I was just a baby in my mother's arms, so my recollection of that trip is nil.

 

[GregL]

Way back in the mid 60's, my church youth group took a train trip from Ft. Madison, Ia. to Chicago and the following year, went to KC. That was on the Santa Fe line.

When I was a preteen, I rode the CB&Q from Omaha to Burlington, Ia with my mother a couple of times.

Been hooked ever since!

 

[PVD]

My mom used to take us to visit her sister and brother in law (my Aunt & Uncle) in Baltimore. PRR. A few years later when she was ill in the summer of 67, I would get sent down to there, or to my father's niece in D.C. every other week. I guess all the unaccompanied minor stuff wasn't as big a deal back then.

 

[Bob Dylan]

A blast from the past when Steamers ruled the rails,the Fall of 1944 when I was a babe in my mom's arms and we rode in Chair Coaches (aka The Linolium Club) on Troop Trains from Alpine Texas (via SP/Santa Fe/Burlington/UP)to McCook Nebraska to visit my dad before he went to the South Pacific with his B-29 Squadron. ( I don't remember this, family story)

It would be Christmas of 1945 before we saw him again!

The first train rides I remember were on the Overnight Mail Trains/Locals (also Steam Powered) on the Sunset Route between San Antonio and El Paso in the Late 40s.

My first Streamliner Ride was on the Sunset Ltd. ( Diesel powered) between SAS and Alpine in 1954. First meal in a Diner also.

 

[Asher]

Back in 57 my wife and her High School class went on a trip to Philly, NewYork and on to DC From Indiana. This year we are taking the CZ and CL to Washington DC in Dec for our 53rd anniversary? My first recollection on a train is wearing out a porter, by my twin brother and I placing our shoes somewhere by the door to get shined, that was in 43 while going to Bremerton Wash to visit my dad whose ship USS Nevada was being repaired after Pearl Harbor was attacked.

 

[Riverviewer]

My first was on the UP's City of Los Angeles in 1959, a one-way trip when my family moved from suburban Detroit (Birmingham) to Costa Mesa, CA. Though I don't remember the trip. I do have the family photo/slide collection, which includes it.

Two years later, we moved back to Michigan (Bloomfield Hills this time), and a couple years after that, we took the City of Los Angeles again--this time a round trip, as far as Las Vegas, where we rented a car and drove down to Sun City AZ, where my grandparents (Dad's folks) had just retired to. That trip I remember--it was fun!

During the '60s, we'd sometimes take the Grand Trunk from Birmingham to visit my other Grandma (Mom's mom), who lived & taught school in South Bend. That was how she;d travel when she'd come visit us.

Unfortunately, my next LD trip wasn't until 1998, when--after moving to northern California, I took the EB and CZ home--with a one-night layover in Chicago--from where my folks lived in Red Wing, MN to Martinez, CA (closest stop to where I lived then).

I made that EB-CZ trip a couple times a year while I lived in California...going through the Sierra Nevada in the winter, it seemed like you were inside a snow globe if you were in the SSL during a snowfall!

Since moving to Florida, I've taken the AT a couple times, the most recent one just about a month ago, to a 40th reunion of my old high school football team.

 

[jphjaxfl]

My first train trip was in late August 1948 when I was less than a month old when my parents took me from Joliet, Illinois to Council Bluffs, Iowa to visit my Grandmother on The Rocky Mountain Rocket. At the time, my Dad worked for the New York Central in Chicago. In the 1950s and 1960s we rode a lot of trains because when we traveled it was a given that it would be by train with the question being which Railroad and then which train. When Amtrak started I was in college and then in the Air Force for 4 years so I traveled on Amtrak whenever I could. I continue to take Amtrak whenever a train is going my way.

 

[iggy]

First Amtrak ride 1981 or 82 from what is now Wabash Depot Antique Center in Decatur Illinois to Champaign.

 

[NW cannonball]

First trip was probably early 50's. Slept most of the way GN road to Minneapolis, CBQ Zephyr to Chicago, Parmalee to the NYC to Rochester.

Mom was in charge, no worries.

Only memories are - the Zephyr dome -- seemed like we were flying above the Mississippi bayous - like the train was flying above the flood waters.

And remember the multicolored smokes near Gary. A few years later, driving that way, same eye-watering smokes near Gary. Gone now, the colorful smokes that made eyes water.

 

[creddick]

My first ride I remember was between LA and Phoenix. Probably SP or Santa Fe. I remember we had a flat wheel on the locomotive and sat in the desert with no air for hours.

 

[zephyr17]

1958, rode the Coast Daylight from LAUPT to San Jose. I was three years old and going through the long tunnel in Santa Susanna Pass (which I now know is Tunnel 26) frightened me. Most other childhood trips were on the Santa Fe San Diegans and the Coast Daylight. I'd sneak off as a 14 year old while my parents were at work during the summer and ride my bike to the old Anaheim station and ride the San Diegan to LA and back.

 

[west point]

Family story.. Baby was 16 months old and Pearl Harbor happened. To return home mother and child took streetcar to Atlanta Terminal station. Boarded on time SOU RR train to Chattanooga. Baby was active and pushed waiting passenger's bags around making trains. Story his antics made passengers smile at a otherwise very sad and dreary time. The soldiers already moving station assignmentss spoiled the child. Then boarded SOU RR train to Bristol, VA. 16 hours late. Total trip time 23 hours Baby hooked on trains ever since.