What were you doing on A-Day?

[CHamilton]

42: the answer to life, the universe and Amtrak. Happy 42nd birthday to Amtrak!

What were you doing on May 1, 1971?

I was living in Burlington, VT, so I didn't get to participate in the festivities. There hadn't been any passenger train service there for several years, and Amtrak would not re-start the Montrealer until 1972. I took the Montrealer on December 21-22, 1973, and despite ancient equipment, huge overcrowding, and major delays, I enjoyed the trip immensely, and have been taking Amtrak ever since.

 

[John Bobinyec]

That was a Saturday. I was finishing up my last semester at RPI. By that time the station in Albany, NY, was closed. The station in Rensselaer, NY, was a poor substitute.

I know I wasn't taking any train trips at the time, because I was married and living off campus. Any traveling between there and NJ was via automobile and the NY State Thruway.

jb

 

[fillyjonk]

Honestly? Probably being potty trained. (I would have been about 2)

 

[roadman3313]

Can't say I was even a thought then... Was just over -15 at the time...

 

[the_traveler]

I was finishing up my last semester at RPI. By that time the station in Albany, NY, was closed. The station in Rensselaer, NY, was a poor substitute.

Small world, I was living just "up the rails" in Glens Falls at the time. I know RPI well!

And I agree about that first station! :wacko: It was so small that after they built the 2nd ALB station, that 1st station was turned into the commissary, when ALB still had one! :help: The 2nd station was so much better, but the 3rd one (used now) is by far the best yet!

Back to the original question, same as I'm doing now - nothing. It was a few more years before the Adirondack began service to FED. But at that time it had ex D&H Budd dome cars on every run! But surprisingly most of the time I was the only one up there!

 

[Ryan]

My Dad was a junior in High School.

I wouldn't appear on the scene for another 8.5 years.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

I was finishing my sophomore year in HS. Rode a train from GA to DE in '67. The only trains I rode after that, until 2011, were a local steam train & trains at amusement parks/carnivals.

 

[the_traveler]

Just like most of the rolling stock now in use by Amtrak.

 

[CHamilton]

I was finishing my sophomore year in HS.

Well, at least you and I are younger than Ryan's dad!

 

[Linda T]

I was, no doubt, watching Canonero II win the Kentucky Derby! Three more days till Derby time again! Four more days till Amtrak season 2013 kicks off for me!

 

[pennyk]

I was in my first year in college in Gainesville, FL, which at that time, was served by the train station in Waldo, FL, a few miles away. I arrived at college in September 1970 by train (pre-Amtrak) from Miami, where I grew up. During college, I took many trips to and from Waldo. Thank you Charlie for bring back fond college memories.

....and Ryan, how can we be twins, if I am older than your father??

 

[Lakeshore]

I didn't make my grand entrance until 7 1/2 months later. :blush:

 

[Railroad Bill]

Finishing my freshman year at Ohio State and making arrangements for a summer job shoveling asphalt for a construction company.

No money to ride trains back then.

Would go down to the fantastic union depot in downtown Columbus and watch some freight traffic, but the National Ltd came through very early in the morning so never saw the train when downtown.

 

[zephyr17]

On April 30, 1971, I rode the last southbound San Diegan ever to depart from the Anaheim Santa Fe station to Santa Ana. I bought an extra ticket, which I still have, which has an "AT&SF Coast Lines April 30,1971" validation stamp on it. The current Anaheim Amtrak station is in an entirely different location from where the Santa Fe station was, and was built some years afterwards.

On May 1, I rode a San Diegan from LAUPT to Fullerton. LAUPT was plastered with "Pointless Arrow" signs on what looked like every flat surface. I also seem to recall some bunches of red, white and blue balloons. They put up "Pointless Arrow" signs on the end walls of the coaches onboard, too. And they announced the train at LAUPT as "NRPC Train ..." instead of "Santa Fe Train..." (or, interestingly, "Amtrak Train..." They had decided on the "Amtrak" marketing name only a couple of weeks before, until then it was "Railpax", so "Amtrak" hadn't really stuck yet, I guess) Otherwise the train was the same as it had been.

All those cardboard signs plastered up everywhere didn't last.

I was 15 years old, and my parents put up with schlepping me around to ride a train on the last day of private RR service and the first day Amtrak, even though the experience was identical, except for all the signs. Amtrak didn't have an immediate effect on the trains that survived Amday.

I wish I could have convinced my folks to take me to ride on a train being killed, like the City of Los Angeles, but Fullerton and Anaheim were close.

 

[stntylr]

I was 5 years old then. I didn't ride a train that day but a month later my dad took my brother and me on a train trip from Houston to Fort Worth so he could check out that new Amtrak.

 

[Anderson]

I wouldn't make my grand entrance until almost 20 years later (well, 18: 1987). However, in reading this thread, I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who's gotten a "souvenir" ticket validated for a train run.

 

[Trainmans daughter]

I was living in Honolulu and raising 2 little boys (ages 1 and 2 1/2). My dad told me about the new rail service, but I was too busy to pay much attention. Sure wish I had listened more!

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Where's Johnny? Still calculating how old Amtrak was when he made his grand entrance?

 

[looshi]

As a 23-year old, it blows my mind to think that there are still a good number of people around who could have rode a private passenger train. It feels like ancient history to me, or at least something from another era.

 

[greatcats]

I was a sophomore at Westminster Choir College in Princeton, NJ. I was watching all this and I used to ride the Dinky Shuttle out to Princeton Juncttion and watch the trains. The first Amtrak train I recall taking was in the fall of 1974, a round trip from New York to Montreal, going up on the Adirondack with its dome cars and D&H locomotives and returning on the Montrealer, I believe in coach.

 

[rusty spike]

Yes, I am old enough to have ridden the "Streamliners, "Domeliners" and "Chiefs" of the private railroads. but on May 1, 1971, I was a young newlywed and didn't give a hoot about passenger trains. In the very late 1960's. I had pretty much given the passenger train up for dead. I remember GM&O's Ann Rutledge headed north toward Chicago from St. Louis, as we passed it on adjacent I-55 and laughing at it beause it was down to a locomotive, baggage and maybe 1 or 2 coaches. Then I heard President Nixon announce one morning that he had signed a bill authorizing the NRPC and "Railpax", but I had no interest. Didn't care. The rumor was that the government made a deal with RR boys to take over the pax trains, then kill them all off. It was more "politcally expedient" that way.

It wasn't unitl 7 or 8 years later I took an early morning Amtrak "rainbow" train from STL to CHI on the rickety GM&O rails and remarking how awful Amtrak was. But then, on the return trip we rode the then brand new Amfleet and I thought to myself that someone thinks Amtrak is going to be around for awhile. And now, at 42 years old, I am happy it is alive and well an hope for another 42 years or more. Happy Birthday Amtrak. :hi:

 

[Ryan]

....and Ryan, how can we be twins, if I am older than your father??

MAGIC!!!

 

[JayPea]

I was a fifth grade student, happily, along with most of the rest of our class, making my teacher's life miserable in the tiny town of St. John, WA. My last train trip had been a year prior when I went with a friend and his dad, the local UP depot agent, roundtrip from Spokane to Hinkle, OR, on the City of Hinkle (or the Spokane; I've seen that particular train referred to as both). I had also taken a couple of Spokane-Chicago roundtrips earlier, on the North Coast Limited in 1963 and the Empire Builder in 1965. My maiden voyage on Amtrak didn't take place until 1990, while I was visiting my aunt and uncle who live near Champaign-Urbana. My uncle and I went roundtrip from Champaign/Chicago and back to Champaign to see the Cubs play. It wasn't until 2004 that I took my first long-distance Amtrak trip, Chicago-Sparks on the CZ, and I've been trying to make up for lost time traveling on Amtrak ever since!

 

[Blackwolf]

A-Day was a touch more than 13 years before I entered the picture, but my first Amtrak trip was from the old Oakland station to Sacramento in 1988 as a birthday wish (go up to Sacramento and check out the (relatively brand-new) California State Railroad Museum for the first time.) I remember we had to spend the night because there were only two trains a day on what is now the Capitol Corridor route then, both of them LD (Zephyr and Starlight,) and both made their west-bound trips in the AM. Went to SAC on the Starlight, went back to OAK on the Zephyr.

Did the trip again on the brand-new Capitol Corridor in 1992, and took my first overnight trip to Seattle and back with family in 1994 (it was done in coach, and we traveled in the old decrepit ATSF Hi-Levels both ways which were on their last legs.) My first sleeper trip was in 2008; been going sleeper ever since!

 

[PRR 60]

I was preparing for my wedding one week later (5/8/71), and a 28-day cross-country drive in a two-seat Triumph TR6 roadster that would start 5/9/71. Despite, or maybe because of those 28 days in a TR6 (and motel stops at such romantic locales as York, Nebraska), my bride of that day and I will celebrate our 42nd wedding anniversary in one week.