National Geographic: Love Those Trains

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Sometimes is has seemed

that railroads were doomed.

The Durango-Silverton railroad

is one of the most spectacular rides

in the world.

In 1960, it was nearly shut down.

In 1883, the Orient Express ran

from Paris to Istanbul

created the ultimate in luxury travel.

It was abandoned in 1977.

In 1887, rotary snow plows first fought

the snow drifts in the High Sierras.

Looking like relics

they seem improbable holdovers

from the past.

Once this streamlined locomotive

hauled passenger trains

at 100 miles an hour.

But for 20 years,

it sat outside a museum,

its machinery rusting.

Yet today

these trains still run the rails.

Now they evoke a more remote past

when trains first

bridged the continent,

Ferried recruits to war

provided celebrities with an opportunity

to be seen and a chic way to travel,

gave a mobile campaign platform

to politicians,

and offered a refuge for hoboes.

Train tracks disfigure

the countryside

Trains assault the senses with

brutal noise and begrime the air.

How then account for the multitude

of people who love trains?

When you're actually running a train,

you just can't get enough.

I don't know.

Maybe I'm just a junkie for trains.

But that's about it.

I bought a caboose back in the '50s

because I was busy riding trains

in the '50s.

And suddenly I read in the paper one day

where trains were going to go out.

All passenger trains

would be taken off.

And I knew unless I got a piece of ride

on the train again.

So that's when I bought my caboose

and put it in my yard.

There are grown men who ride toy

steam trains at a mountain retreat.

There are train buffs

who choose to ride

through South America's Andes

on a baggage rack.

There's town in Iowa

that honors hoboes,

and there are thousands

of young people competing

for the chance to engineer a train.

There are people who harken

to the lonesome whistle blowing

and the clickety-clack

of wheels on rails.

Theirs is a worldwide fraternity

with no membership requirements

beyond sharing in the love of trains.

You've got a sheet like this

and it tells you

who's sitting in every seat,

and every seat is assigned, and...

There are many people so enamored

of trains that they take trains,

not to go anywhere,

but just for the pleasure of riding.

Each year the North Alabama

Railroad Club sponsors

an all-day excursion on a

Norfolk Southern steam train.

Seats are always sold out

and there's even competition

for a chance to work on the engine.

Bill Hayslip is a deputy sheriff,

and he loves trains so much that

he volunteers on his day off

for the dirtiest job

in railroading-apprentice fireman.

I've studied steam engines just

about all my life.

I guess I was born about

There's something about a steam

locomotive and railroad

that's just romantic.

A steam engine kind of has

its own personality.

It's like a lady.

You have to treat it just right.

Steam engines evoke

a special affection.

Though inanimate objects

of iron and steel,

they seem to breathe

with the fire of life.

This day the train will run to

Chattanooga, Tennessee,

evoking cherished memories

of a popular song.

I've often wondered

if I was maybe one of those people

that had trains

in my bolld or something.

Some people have alcohol,

I have trains.

I have spent the whole day

in Birmingham

just to see the two trains

go through town.

My wife thins that's crazy,

but, you know, it's a thrill for me.

Part way through the trip,

the train comes to a stop

in an open field.

Now begins the prized ritual

of the steam train excursion.

The train backs up,

cameras are readied,

and then a sweet symphony

for every train-buff's ear.

The train station in Chattanooga

has been transformed

into an entertainment center.

When the train returns to Huntsville,

Dr. and Mrs. Lonie Lindsey

stay on in Chattanooga for dinner

in a refurbished diner.

They remember

another train trip long ago.

We got on the train in Tuscumbia,

Alabama and we went to Chattanooga.

Went up to the courthouse

and we got married.

That was 55 years ago,

and we've had a

very lovely marriage so far.

And here 55 years later,

we do the same start-over again.

The most popular rooms at the Choo-Choo

Hilton Hotel are old train cars,

Nostalgic setting

for recapturing fond memories.

For those who love

to ride steam trains,

each trip is a journey into the past.

In the beginning, steam engines were at

the center of the Industrial Revolution

which could not even begin until

mankind learned one crucial trick

how to transform heat energy

into motion.

In the first century A.D.,

the Greek scholar, Hero of Alexandria,

invented steam-jet propulsion.

Hero's ingenious device remained

a toy until 1712

when Thomas Newcomen developed the

first successful steam engine

Newcomen's engine was used to

pump water out of coal mines.

One hundred years passed before

the first British-built steam

locomotives took to the rails.

Soon the public everywhere crossed

the threshold of a new age

as horses were replaced by the

latest locomotive invention.

Today, these early engines can

usually be seen only at museums,

where they seem

as distant as dinosaurs.

The John Bull is the oldest

operable steam engine in the world.

To mark the 150th anniversary of

its first American trial,

the Smithsonian Institution

brought it out

for a run along

the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

People who love trains dressed up

for the occasion and gathered

from miles around.

Many had never heard the hoot of a

steam whistle

or the screech of brakes.

Nostalgia for those seemingly

innocent days of American history

is very much alive today.

For some, no doubt,

steam engines are the attraction.

For others, perhaps,

it is the appeal of travel.

Or could it be that so many share

the romantic notion of growing up

to be an engineer?

These trains are called live steamers.

Seymour Johnson loves trains so much

that he donated land and equipment

for a miniature railroad at his home

in Montecito, California.

I think in my case and in the case of

a lot of people,

you kind of grew up with them as toys

and these are pretty big toys.

I started building

this particular engine in 1947

and I completed it in 1951.

And that's why I have the numbers on

the side-4751-to remind me of the time.

Johnson and the local members

of the Goleta Valley Railroad Club

spent 17 years building their line.

Today they test their engines

on more than a mile of track.

There is something nostalgic

about steam engines now,

of course, but the thing is,

a steam locomotive is live.

The engine talks to you

when you're running it.

You can feel what it's doing.

It tells you I'm working too hard

or I'm taking it easy.

You can hear it in the stack,

you can hear it in the sound of the

blower, the sound of the fire.

They've got steam engines that

are over a hundred years old

that continue to run.

Once a year, Johnson and the club

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