rantsRants and Musings #1:
There is a serendipitous quality to the interlocking I've ended
up modeling. To no one's surprise, I am sure, model railroading,
and particularly prototype model railroading, is a man's game.
There are women out there in the hobby, but you mostly hear
someting more like this in the hobby press... "Meet Bob and Carol. Bob
has been in the hobby for 55 years and built his four level Atlantic
and Overdone RR in his basement, with some clever devices to make sure
Carol could get to the washing machine. Carol even helps Bob out
on the railroad - she enjoys making trees." Luckily,
though, thanks to meeting some great folks in the hobby, I've had no
problem being taken seriously. Nonetheless, I get a chuckle and a
sigh out of modeling (completely by accident) the only interlocking on
the PRR whose telegraph letters are also the name of a feminine hygiene
product. Take that patrirarchy!!!
#2:
I really wish Amtrak would reinstate the old PRR instructions to
identify the Horseshoe Curve in travel. It would spice up the
trip a little bit, show some pride in the history of train travel, and
prevent inane comments at railroad Mecca like this one (overheard on
the Pennsylvanian enroute to Pittsburgh):
"The train just keeps going around in circles. Maybe that's why it takes so long to get anywhere."
AHHHHHH!!!!!
#3:
On this same trip, I got a look at how poorly Amtrak gets
treated. For whatever reason, we ended up chasing an NS trailer
train up the Mountain, which had us constantly running into 'Approach'
aspects and crawling along under speed. NS dispatchers wouldn't
get it out of our way until Johnstown, when they finally sent the
trailer train down the Sang Hollow Extension. By this time, of
course, we were a good half hour to 40 minnutes behind. If NS had
just held that trailer train for 10 minutes in Altoona we would have
had no problem keeping schedule. The PRR sometimes had weird
ideas about what constituted a 'priority' train, but they would not
have pulled anything like this. And people wonder why Amtrak
can't stay afloat...
