I was born December 31st, 1957 at 3:08 PM to Nancy and Donald Guenzler, with 8 hours and 52 minutes in the year to make me a tax deduction for that year. After my birth, my father returned to his night job at Disneyland.
I was the third of the five future Guenzler children, which made me the middle child and may explain quite a bit. I was raised in Garden Grove then in summer 1959, the family moved to a larger house in Santa Ana where an orange grove was situated across the street until 1967, at which time a housing tract was put in. My mother would stroll me daily down Catalina Street to Lincoln Avenue where the Santa Fe's Surf Line to San Diego was across the street to watch a northbound Santa Fe passenger train pass on its way from San Diego to Los Angeles.
She saw that I was fascinated by the trains but also noticed that I was not hearing many things in my surroundings. One fateful day, she took me to the Santa Fe station in Santa Ana and when the northbound San Diegan arrived, she placed me by the engine and waited for the train to depart for Los Angeles.
When the engineer blew his horn and I did not flinch, she knew then that her son had a hearing problem. Tubes were placed in both ears but because of ear infections, tubes were placed a second time, which then restored my hearing. Of course, my speech was affected and years of speech pathology finally corrected most of those problems. Unfortunately, I was an easy target at Hoover Elementary School as I was picked on as the children did not understand my problems.
I joined Cub Scouts, then Webolos and on into Boy Scouts years later. I played Little League in 1967, winning a championship on the Phillies.
When I was eight, Coco, a recreation leader, taught me to pitch and when the 12-14 year olds did not have a pitcher, Coco decided to use the little eight-year-old oddly-talking child to pitch. The older children did not care if I could talk as long as I could pitch, which I did as we won a championship and I pitched a no-hitter at eight. I enjoyed playing flag football and basketball became my love. I went to Willard Junior High School, playing flag football and winning another title in eighth grade.
By this time, Amtrak was born on May 1, 1971, and the Turbo Train tour came through Santa Ana one afternoon.
Now let's get to my love of travelling and how that came about. My father rented a camper in 1968 and we all went on a two-week trip up the Pacific Coast. In 1969, our family bought a camper and started the traditional month-long trip. In 1971, we drove across America and into eastern Canada. This was an eye-opening experience as I saw the effects of race riots in Cairo, Illinois and Detroit, Michigan. Our family drove the Blue Ridge Parkway and saw more riot affects in Richmond, Virginia then explored Williamsburg and Washington, DC, seeing all the national monuments.
In Harrisburg I saw my first Amtrak locomotive, a former Penn Central unit with the pointless arrow. Next, it was to New York City where I saw the Twin Towers, Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building. We stayed out in Port Jefferson, Long Island with my Aunt Linda.
A Long Island Rail Road RS-1 in Port Jefferson. We went to Cape Cod then up into Maine before crossing into Quebec and had an introduction to French television. Niagara Falls was visited before we cut across Ontario into Detroit, with a tour of the Ford Car Plant. We went around the south side of Lake Michigan through Chicago into Wisconsin then made our way to the Badlands and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. We proceeded home via Cheyenne, Wyoming, where I met Union Pacific 4-8-48-4 3985 outside in a storage line with gas turbine locomotives.
The family's favourite location to visit was Glacier National Park and for the next three years, we ended up there at Many Glaciers. This led to trips into Western Canada and the Canadian Rockies.
We visited Edmonton once and this is from that visit. These journeys led me to discovering Canadian passenger trains.
Canadian National's Super Continental at Jasper.
The Canadian at Field, British Columbia. Other favourite places were the Oregon Coast and Graves Creek in Olympic National Park. These travelling experiences all led me to become the train rider I blossomed into.
I ended up going to Santa Ana High School and playing basketball my sophomore year. That year was also when I was jumped 60 on 1 at lunch; my only crime was being white. That taught me an important lesson - to accept everyone for who they are and never judge anyone by race, creed or colour. I became the phantom student after that attending school on a new limited class-on-campus schedule.
That summer, we went to Spokane for Expo '74 where I met Union Pacific 4-8-4 8444.
Power for our San Diegan trains also changed in 1974 with the SDP40F's taking over. Our Boy Scout Troop broke up with me one merit badge short of my Eagle Scout Award. In January, the American Freedom Train visited Anaheim Stadium and my friend Jeff Hartmann, my brother Bruce and I took off school on our bicycles to see it.
That night we went back over for a night shot of former Southern Pacific 4-8-4 4449. I graduated high school in June 1976, our nation's bicentennial.
Santa Fe painted five of its SD45s in a very attractive paint scheme. I started attending Santa Ana Junior Collage, taking a geography class and falling in love with that subject. Bicycle trips became my hobby for a while and Bruce, Jeff and I rode from Santa Ana to Cajon Pass on the hottest day of 1976.
In Riverside, we caught this Union Pacific train.
In San Bernardino, found another Santa Fe bicentennial unit on the Super C. This year was also the change of power to F40PHs and Amfleet Cars.
My brother Bruce working baggage. I started drinking off and on in rare occasions and worked at the Learning Center at the College for the next ten years as I finished college in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts degree before moving on to Cal State Fullerton, where achived my Bachelor of Arts in Geography. I graduated in 1981 and found a job with Santa Ana Unified School District at MacArthur Fundamental Junior High as the Physical Education aide. By 1980, my train riding had started, but those travelogues are itemized elsewhere on this site.
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