We have been up and down US 60 between Wickenburg and the Phoenix Metro area a lot since the new house project started. Earlier this month, we passed the first train we have seen on the BNSF rails that parallel the road. This one was hauling rolls of sheet metal and some other big metal products. I sure like the paint job on the locomotives. Photo credit Damsel – click to enlarge.
Yeah, when I was working down on the Navy Mole on Terminal Island, I used to have to cross the tracks leading to the “new” Pier 400 in the POLA. Used to get stopped quite a bit for the trains, and I watched a lot of BNSF engines going back and forth.
I can remember when my Grandpa would smuggle us kids on a Pacific Electric train yard tender in the Port of Long Beach to give us a ride along his route. He would admonish us, me and my two brothers, to get down so the boss doesn’t see us as we pass the yard tower. Very nostalgic. That was 1949 or so.
Now you know why I love trains.
One of my Uncle’s (Dad’s side) was a railroad guy back in Illinois. He worked for the Elgin, Joliet, and Eastern RR (“EJ&E”) as a fireman. Not sure what a “fireman” did on diesels, and my Dad always called him a “GD Union Featherbedder!”, but he always brought us various different colored fusees for 4th of July.
We were the only kids that not only had red flares for the 4th, but green ones, blue ones, yellow ones, and orange ones! One year he brought some “white” ones, but they were magnesium flares, and lit the whole neighborhood up so bright the cops came to see what was going on!