quote:

Originally posted by Lovie

I must also offer up my congrats to the Mayor. You always have very colourful comments and put real life into this forum.

In regards to Trainspotting the movie and novel are about drugs. It is as the Mayor points out a British term for the hobby of wathcing trains but it also has another meaning in trying to spot the needle tracks on a heroine addicts body. Another sort of hobby altogether I suppose. Sorry to add such a downer to your celebratory topic Mayer. Again many felicitations!

Train…tracks…duh, it’s so obvious now I feel stupid. It reminds me…for years I lived near a liquor store called Cap ‘N Cork. Everyone always assumed it was short for Captain Cork or something. One day my boyfriend, who has an amazing grasp of the obvious, said, "Beer bottle CAP? Wine bottle CORK?" And we all laughed and laughed.

Corey,
In 1997 a couple of my students and I made a video in which we flew from Victorville to San Bernardino and back, tracing the rails and some of the old wagon roads thru the Cajon Pass. Believe it or not we sold over 200 of those videocassette’s to other crazy rail/history buffs..( There is one born every minute…[;)]?) Anyway when searching for a title of our flight we settled on[}:)]Cajones over Cajon", based on the flying ability of our 18 yr old pilot!!.
For non-bi-lingual’s Cajones is Spanish for Rocky Mountain Oysters !!( but not from bulls or sheep [:D]!!)

quote:

Originally posted by Al-The Mayor-Bowen

It is strictly honorary..there are NO voters in CAJON !!!

But plenty of cajones! [}:)]

Congrats and thanks for all your useful info!

I must also offer up my congrats to the Mayor. You always have very colourful comments and put real life into this forum.

In regards to Trainspotting the movie and novel are about drugs. It is as the Mayor points out a British term for the hobby of wathcing trains but it also has another meaning in trying to spot the needle tracks on a heroine addicts body. Another sort of hobby altogether I suppose. Sorry to add such a downer to your celebratory topic Mayer. Again many felicitations!

Mr. Mayor,
That’s about like being postmaster of Robinson, Georgia 30661. The post office, a four-hour, fourth-class operation in a closed general store, was red-lined in 1972. The building is still standing; the zip code has never been reassigned.
You’ll NEVER find Robinson on the map! It’s so obscure that I always slow to 15 m. p. h. when driving through to point out to whatever companion I have that we’re there; by the time the person notices, we’re already out of town. That’s SMALL.
Obscurely, Ort. Carlton in Fowler Junction, Georgia 30607.
P. S. That’s where the S. A. L. track (Abbeville run) joins the Gainesville Midland, about 3 miles northwest – and inside the old city limits – of Athens.

Elise and Ed,
I am not into the bookkeeping write all down group hehehe..But I know some old-timers who are. A fellow from Oxnard..he must be a gazillion years old has recorded the locomotive numbers from every train he has ever chased or watched since the late 40’s…Kind of reminds me of the detail that some of us foodies use when talking of the best ribs !!
Some of the Model Freaks are even more detail oriented, spending large sums to be sure that their model of the Summit Station buildings matches the real ones the way they were in 1938. (The buildings have been gone for over 30 years.) I am NOT that much of a hobbiest. I like to chase’em and photograph them . Doing that in the West, especially in the desert, means wide-open spaces and a lot of opportunity to see ‘all’ of a train. Here in the east the forests and urban areas make "wide-Open" shots kind of tough at times…but it is still fun. I have over 3000 color prints of various rail action I have seen…and now with the advent of the reasonable digital camera, It has become easier and much less expensive a hobby.
Ed, I understand the "waiting for a train" syndrome. We use a radio-scanner that is tuned to the correct freqs. for that area. That gives you plenty of advance warning of coming attractions. That lancaster line is pretty quiet, maybe a dozen trains a day…and fairly level, so they aren’t ‘pulling hard’. Over in Cajon, there is a stretch of 12 miles of 3% grade coming up the hill that forces trains to really labor to make it over the top, Some trains will have 6 or more engines (4400 horsepower each) straining at full power to make the hill. The train count there on a typical day is 70-80 trains, so waiting for hours just doesn’t happen much. It is ahobby that one can take as seriously or as lightly as he or she wants. I have some great friends who like to get together and swap lies about times they have seen stuff happen along the rails…sound like a Foodie thing, doesn’t it !!

Congrats from SoCal for you, Mayor. I must say—–one of the most interesting things I did when I was in the movie biz was going over to Lancaster——-finding a deserted road far from anything—–and waiting by the tracks to record a train going by for sound effects. It was really something—–waiting for the train—-sometimes chasing it to beat it to the spot—–other times just sitting for hours waiting until the first faint sound so I could start my equipment going. I did that several times—-going out for regular trains and passenger trains to different locations. Yes, trains do hold a big attraction!Again, congrats on your trek up the food-chain ladder!

OC: Ugh, that reminds me of that movie, Emperor of the North!

Mayor: Thanks for the illumination…I swear, in the back of my head a voice kept saying, "Mayor McCheese?" but I didn’t want to be disrespectful. So there was a movie out called TRAINSPOTTING, and I rented it to see what the heck that was. It turned out to be a movie about drug addicts. So, what is trainspotting…same as trainwatching? And do you keep track of which trains you see, or have contests, like who counted the most from Union Pacific within the last 3 hours or something?

Mr Mayor

While I don’t count Trains among my main interests I do have more than a passing interest. There are even a few old RR men in my family – The brother of my Grt Grt Grt Grt grandfather on my fathers side was killed in an accident in the B&O yards in DC during the Civil War, he was caught in a coupling, ugh!! A Grt Grt grand father on My mothers side was an engineer on the MA & PA at the end of the 19th through the beginning of the 20th centuries. Then there is the big Baltimore tradition of train gardens, my dad used to put up a wonderful one when we were kids.

Thanks to all for the good wishes. It is fun to share thoughts, even when we may disagree, about a common theme. Although we are a widely diverse group in many ways, the common bond seems to help bring us together here on the boards. When I first came onto AOL a decade back there were message boards there that fostered this type of communication. Somehow a small group of about a dozen to twenty folks kinda gravitated together and shared thoughts about a lot of things. Over the years that group has faded out entirely, but I have great memories of visiting with some folks in Atlanta(Fat Matt’s Rib Shack), and being visited in SoCal by others.
OC- We had planned to attend the B & O Show in the Museum this Spring, and were disappointed then the weather destroyed so much of our rail heritage with that storm. There are literally thousands of "Train Freaks" in the country, enjoying that hobby in many forms- Photography, Model RR, Roadtrips, etc. We met folks from most of the European Countries, Japan, Australia and New Zealand all of whom came to the USA to photograph the historic rail spots Like Cajon and Tehachapi. There is a "Rail-cam" set up at Tehachapi now that puts a foto of every passing train onto the net, so folks can watch them even if they can’t journey to SoCal. Several towns have Train-Viewing Parks overlooking rail-lines.(Rochelle, Illinois comes to mind) It is a fun ‘sport’

Amen. And if perchance you happen through the Nashville area on your way to Knoxville, let me know and we can hit a few spots…

Mr Mayor,
Reading of your interest in trains, I realized you must be very familiar with my part of the country. I live not far from the Thomas viaduct & the Ellicott City Train station. When I lay in bed on a nice spring or fall night (open window weather) I can hear the trains running along what is one of the oldest stretches of track in the country. Like most Baltimoreons my heart broke this winter when the B&O roundhouse roof caved under the snow. [:D]

quote:

Originally posted by stanpnepa

Paul and Al,

May you always be an extra patty ahead of me! [:)] Thanks for making this a great board.

Stan

Well said, Stan. Ditto, and congrats to Mr. Mayor and belated "public" congrats to Sundance.

Elise,
While living in SoCal for years, one of my hobbies has been rail history and ‘train-chasing. Two of the world’s greatest locations for watching, chasing, and photographing trains in action are Cajon Pass and Tehachapi, both within easy reach of anyone living in SoCal. I team-taught a field trip class on the History of Cajon and the rails there for San Bernardino State for several years. We, some of my friends and I, hosted visitors from all over the world (originating thru Internet communication)on tours of the high spots (no pun) for this type of activity. One of the rail stations in the Pass area was CAJON (Kay-Hone)a small community near where the truck-scales are currently on I-15 The town had about 15 buildings, including a school for the children of railworkers living there in the 1920’s. The town is gone now, with only a couple of cement foundations showing where some of the buildings were. My friends began referring to me as the MAYOR of this place about 12 years ago. The term – meant as a ‘dig’ for the amount of time I spent with some great visitors, showing off the area, has stuck…even after I retired from teaching and moved out of the area.
It is strictly honorary..there are NO voters in CAJON !!!

While we’re on the subject, what are you mayor of?