Just one more. One of my favorite (and most amusing) memories is of a ride on an Amtrak "Cascades" Talgo from Portland to Seattle. Amtrak closed the tower at Portland Union Station and laid off the operators to save money, so our modern, "high speed" Talgo had to hand-throw its way out of the platform track onto the main.
That's right up there with my memory of a trip on the "Potomac Turbo" (aka "Harley's Hornet") when it was on the Parkersburg run. We needed to run "wrong main" on the B&O west from Georgetown Junction outside Washington (the line wasn't CTC then), so the engineer picked up orders at QN. The passengers sitting in the front dome, who could see right into the cab, actually tittered when the engineer slid open his window to pick up the orders. A bit incongruous for the United Aircraft "high speed Turboliner".
Randy Resor, aka "NellieBly" passed away on November 1, 2013. We honor his memory and his devotion to railroading at railroad.net.