Riverwind (imported) wrote: Wed May 08, 2013 3:57 am How true, Knotts Berry Farm I think had some of those as well, it was an old west town that you walked in from many directions with gun fights in the street, stage coach rides, and great food. I remember climbing all over those old locomotives as moi says, great fun for a kid. Compartments for riding passengers like Europe, great. Moi and I agree on this one.

Knotts Berry Farm was just that back in the day, a farm. They made jams and pies and the guy who owned it started collecting stuff from the old west, it grew from there, you can still find their jams in stores.

The old stuff in Griffith park is long gone.

Moi, was due to the fire they had?

River

Knott's Berry Farm was special, one of a kind with a scale replica of Independence Hall on a green lawn surrounded by trees. Much better then the one in modern Philadelphia.

Sadly, Knott's lost its' special identity when they started adopting Magic Mountain like rides.

When people visited California I always recommended Knott's and it was a hard sell. Never heard of it.

Gone is the old Knott's Berry Farm for the corporate one.

Gone are the old steam locomotives kids could crawl over like ants because, one might hurt themselves.

Gone is a Tom Sawyers Island (Disneyland) where one could spend an hour crawling around.

Inspired by the end of "Casino", gone are the good times and now we suffer the corporations.

Met an old time Las Vegas employee who claimed in the old days, they were treated with respect.

Then they became employees of the corporations and were treated like the enemy.

Moi

Corporations are the most destructive people.

There was a dinner train here in the twin cities area several years ago, now out of business, it had 5 dinning cars, the train traveled 2 miles an hour for a 3 hour ride, the food was 5 star the ride was even better, and if you were real lucky the kids on the street would moon you as you passed.

River

I sometimes got to ride the "Sunset Limited" going to and from college.

It was a great ride.

Is there any train "mooned" with more tradition than the LA - San Diego Amtrak ?

Those of you who have Winterland time might try something we can't do in California.

Blue Moon the train.

Curiously,

My neighbor his a motorhead, a car and engine admirer...

He said that last weekend he and his wife took his Father-in-law to a steam train ride in Maryland (I think) for his 85 birthday

Now that, to me, is an interesting coincidence.

I know that last steam engine that passed through downtown Pittsburgh on business did so back in 1974 or so. I followed it with a friend and our cameras. I had a wonderful wonderful Nikkormat at the time with a bunch of lenses. It steamed from Station Square in Pittsburgh down to Brownsville PA.

After that all of the commercial traffic has been diesel and diesel/electric engines and outside of the city. What used to be the railyard in the City is now a convention center and a shopping mall... Somewhere I have pictures of that engine and if I find them, I'll post them and let everyone know.

A steam locomotive almost seems like a living thing.

The noises it makes when beginning to move from a dead stop to cruising speed are so much more animated then a diesel or electric moving off from a dead stop.

Moi

Couldn't Amtrak at least have a McDonald's / Taco Bell car.

If you like to travel with trains driven by steam engines you might like this:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6QUB4LrPew

The trains in that video run on normal duty.

Sothing special is shown here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df_xewwDYiU

This is a special kind of tramway, run as normal municipal transporting system.

As child I used this tramway quite frequently to reach school.

The only good thing about the Good Old Days is that they are gone.

Knotts family hybred the Boysen berry at that farm. Don Knotts grew up there.

Remember the tickets, House of the Future, and the monorail at Disneyland, lunch at the "Brown Derby", and Marine land of the Pacific?

Steam trains stopped every 30 to 40 miles to take on water, and Durango shuts down the steam train and uses diesel when the air pollution gets bad. gets bad.

Well, I have been back from my train trip for a few days. I had a good time. On the way up we encountered a snow fall and there was still snow in the woods on the hillside. Doing a mainline trip like this one is far more complicated than I ever imagined. The train had an Amtrak locomotive (serving as power car) behind the water tanker because officially the trip was an Amtrak Special Express. Since insurance for a mainline excursion is no longer available partnering with self-insured Amtrak is nearly the only way to do it. The train had 550 passengers plus a full train crew, an Amtrak crew and a BNSF crew. There was a sleeper car for the crew, three coaches, three full dome cars, a parlor car, a unique sky view luxury parlor car, a utility/repair car in addition to a tender, a water tanker and the diesel-electric locomotive all being pulled by a sixty-nine year old steam locomotive. Most of the trip was slow (30-40 mph)because the track conditions are mostly bad. On the return leg of the trip on Amtrak tracks we got up to over 60 mph. The locomotive is rated for 100 mph at full load and at 4500 hp (the Amtrak diesel is 2850 hp and 79 mph). There was a bearing problem 200 yards from the end of the trip so due to Amtrak rules the steam locomotive was cut out and we finished behind a diesel. As expensive as it was I would do it again. --FLO--

How was the food? How were the accommodations? Did you have a sleeping berth or a cabin? I enjoyed reading about the train but I like details. I have never enjoyed an overnight train trip but I heard how nice it was from my mother and grandmother. They would take the train to NY city to visit family.