Build a model train

My father-in-law spent his life in the engineering department of the Union Pacific Railroad.  He was based in Pocatello, Idaho and was involved in the design of crossing guards, signaling, and rail safely throughout the northwest.

I remember a story he told me of a situation where a flood had washed the track off of a roadbed by several hundred feet.  The track had to be returned to the roadbed for the line to be opened again.

Three D-9 Catterpillar tractors were brought in and chained to the track in an effort to restore it.  As mightily as these Cats pulled, they could not budge the track.

The engineering department decided on an alternative plan.  A turnout was installed near the location of the displaced track.  Track was then laid at a 90 degree angle to the displaced track and an engine (I do not recall which model) was driven onto this new spur and hooked up where the D-9s had made their attempt.  When the engine was driven forward, the errant track was easily dragged back onto the roadbed without further problems.

D-9 cats are big machines, but this story attests to the tremendous pulling power of the engines which haul trains on the nations rails.

When I went to USC back in the early 1980s, the Associate Dean at the Marshall School of Business was a train enthusiast.  We had several conversations about trains and the train memorabilia he had around his office.  He told me the following story.

He had been born and had grown up on a farm in Idaho.  He disliked the farm life, having to rise early in the morning and work until nightfall.  There was a train track which crossed the bottom of the farm.  When he had the chance, he would sit on the hillside and watch the trains as they would cross the property and leave for parts unknown.  It became an obsession with him that one day he would get on one of those trains and never look back.  A train would be his pass to freedom!

Many years later, he became a professor and a dean at the prestigious University of Southern California Marshall School of Business, but he never forgot the train which allowed him to escape the farm life.  Trains became a symbol of freedom and change for the better.  Perhaps they represent that same feeling for many others.