My interest in railroading significantly pre-dated the birth of NJT... The North Jersey Coast Line was the New York and Long Branch railroad then and service was operated jointly by the Pennsylvania and Jersey Central railroads. I can vaguely remember PRR trains powered with K4 steam engines, which was replaced by E8 diesels.
My interest must have started just after I was born; my dad worked in New York and my mom would take me to pick up and drop off my dad at the station. He retired and bought a business in Brielle before I was 2, and although I was too young to recall those trips to the station, the seed must have been planted. My mom told me that I would fall asleep every evening after the train arrived. When my dad stopped taking the train, she had trouble getting me to go to sleep, so she did the only appropriate thing: she drove me to the Bay Head yard, parked by the tracks, waited for a train or two to come in and I was asleep...
When I was in 4th or 5th grade, my mom took me to see the circus in New York City. We of course took the train. I had an engineer's cap with a PRR logo on it, and insisted on taking it with me. The conductor noticed. He talked to me about railroading on the trip, showed me inside the compartments that had the car lighting and generator controls and explained about steam heating and air brakes. (axle generators, batteries and steam heat. No HEP here, unless you count the steam....)
The payoff came at South Amboy when he took me to watch the engine change to GG-1 electric power. I had never seen a GG-1 before, and was awed by it's size and power. The engineer must have been well known to the conductor, because a few words were spoken and he took me back to my mom to ask if it was okay if I rode the engine....
The engineer stuck me in his seat at Rahway and off we went. Right hand on the brake controller (...had to hold down the brake lever in lieu of the my foot on the deadman pedal, which I was too short to reach...) and left hand on the throttle. Carefully following the engineer's instructions, depressed the button on the end of the throttle and pulled back one notch at a time... I was supposed to get off in Elizabeth, because there would likely be "management" personnel at Newark who would not have take kindly to my being in the cab. But the engine just barely overshot the platform at Elizabeth and I couldn't get off. At Newark, they spotted the dreaded "management", so I just kept my head down and rode all the way to NYP... I cannot tell you a thing about the circus that day, but I sure remember that trip...
When I was in high school, we would drive out to Princeton Junction on the weekends to train watch. I befriended one of the weekend operators at Nassau tower, and spent quite a few Sunday afternoons there. That was my first introduction to "interlocking plant" operations.
In college, I again took the train to Newark College of Engineering (now New Jersey Institute of Technology) in Newark. I became friends with the conductor (...who I have reason to believe, but could not prove; was the same one who put me on the GG-1 ten years earlier). He let me read the rule books and special orders; I put the corrections in for him every Monday, and I ran for coffee at the engine change in South Amboy. A couple of times he arranged a ride in the E8 from South Amboy to Manasquan. I was dying to ride a GG-1 again, but times were changing and that now much more difficult.
My first year in college, my girlfriend suprised me with tickets on the then brand new Metroliner from Philadelphia to New York. I think I spent most of the trip through New Jersey in the cab.
I think it was in 1979 that the rebuilt and repainted GG-1 (now in Strassburg) was re-dedicated in Washington. I took the Metroliner down, and begged the conductor for 15 or 20 minutes up front (...the first car was closed). The engineer would have let me stay for the entire trip, but the conductor came up to get us after about 15 minutes.
We re-dedicated the GG-1, I met Ramond Lowey and got his autograph. I took the train headed by the G back to Metropark. After Amtrak brass got off in Baltimore, they let a couple of us ride the front vestibule of the restored PRR private car on the rear of the train. That car had dutch doors and we hung out the side and took pictures of our own train on the curves. Try that today... It was a wonderful ride; the ride in the vestibule of the old "heavyweight" car was better than the plush seat of the Amtube. People lined the tracks to watch and wave; every tower had the operators hanging out the windows waving flags, and I think most traffic was stopped until we passed by; the crews were on the tracks behind their trains waving, engine horns blaring. Seeing the G all newly painted in the original colors must have been a blast from the past for all the railroad; it was a very moving sight watching all the people wave us by.
I took my first Acela Express trip to Boston and back last summer; very impressive. The acceleration and braking capabilities are awesome. But the condition of the track still leaves something to be desired.... To the gentlemen, I will warn you NOT to try and use the Acela rest rooms standing up at speeds over 125...
...and I would give just about anything for an Acela cab ride!
I became an electrical engineer; I think probably because of the early interest in trains which led to model trains, which led to learning to wire them. I've been fortunate to have worked on a moveable bridge replacement for the New York City Subway, the traction power and control system for the Newark monorail, and a few other small rail projects. I've picked up a lot of information and learned a lot about rail signaling as a result. And it all somehow started when my mom took me to meet my dad at the train, a little over 50 years ago....
