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SPUCK · 04-08-2017, 02:48 AM

Yeah Bruce those are called "whistle stops" and they're really cool. Without them many many people could not live in AK. The train is often the only way to get to people's homes. You can even call the bottled gas people and they'll load x bottles on the train and the train will stop and dump them off the side and continue.

I work on private rail cars and often snag rides on them. I know what you mean Snake about cameras. I usually only ride the ones with vestibules because I prefer standing "out on the back porch" as it connects you more with the entire event. You get the smells and sounds.

One time I took a bunch of pictures of meets and the train and it was snowing. Got home and not a single picture came out because the snow reflected the flashes and all I had was picture after picture of snow flakes on a black background.

I used to do the car 'technical contact' gig on the Hialeah that was NASA's escort car for transporting Space Shuttle Booster Segments from Orem, UT to Cape Canaveral. We'd be directly hooked to the engines followed by several flat cars for distance and a 'buffer car' there to collide with anything first before actual booster carriers did. The Hialeah would have several NASA engineers, a security guy, a car technical contact (me) and a cook.

If anything went wrong the NASA guys had a thick binder that had what to do and who to contact along every foot of track we traveled over. If something went really wrong we were to try to disconnect from the train directly behind us and flee with the engines. We never thought we'd actually be able to pull that off because the motor segments pointed up and down the train and would likely slag everything in both directions in seconds with one segment lighting off all the rest serially. Since they were just segments with no ends they likely wouldn't go anywhere as the fire would spew from both ends.

Once we reached the Cape everyone would bail out into cabs and leave me alone with just the gators and turtles at the gate into the facility. The next day they'd pick up the Hialeah and I'd be the only person on it all the way back to Los Angeles. That was kinda fun as we'd stop at lots of places like New Orleans and I could get off and wander around for hours. It was pretty cool having my own 100 foot long classy rail car with a back porch to cross the entire country on.

04-08-2017, 02:48 AM	#7
SPUCK Professor Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 1,911	Yeah Bruce those are called "whistle stops" and they're really cool. Without them many many people could not live in AK. The train is often the only way to get to people's homes. You can even call the bottled gas people and they'll load x bottles on the train and the train will stop and dump them off the side and continue. I work on private rail cars and often snag rides on them. I know what you mean Snake about cameras. I usually only ride the ones with vestibules because I prefer standing "out on the back porch" as it connects you more with the entire event. You get the smells and sounds. One time I took a bunch of pictures of meets and the train and it was snowing. Got home and not a single picture came out because the snow reflected the flashes and all I had was picture after picture of snow flakes on a black background. I used to do the car 'technical contact' gig on the Hialeah that was NASA's escort car for transporting Space Shuttle Booster Segments from Orem, UT to Cape Canaveral. We'd be directly hooked to the engines followed by several flat cars for distance and a 'buffer car' there to collide with anything first before actual booster carriers did. The Hialeah would have several NASA engineers, a security guy, a car technical contact (me) and a cook. If anything went wrong the NASA guys had a thick binder that had what to do and who to contact along every foot of track we traveled over. If something went really wrong we were to try to disconnect from the train directly behind us and flee with the engines. We never thought we'd actually be able to pull that off because the motor segments pointed up and down the train and would likely slag everything in both directions in seconds with one segment lighting off all the rest serially. Since they were just segments with no ends they likely wouldn't go anywhere as the fire would spew from both ends. Once we reached the Cape everyone would bail out into cabs and leave me alone with just the gators and turtles at the gate into the facility. The next day they'd pick up the Hialeah and I'd be the only person on it all the way back to Los Angeles. That was kinda fun as we'd stop at lots of places like New Orleans and I could get off and wander around for hours. It was pretty cool having my own 100 foot long classy rail car with a back porch to cross the entire country on.