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Just saw the Spring 2012 edition of Classic Trains which contains a well written article about a 1973 trip aboard the Panama Limited which had a sleeper with faulty a/c. The article contains a photo of some of the intrepid travelers including a Gil Norman from Illinois. Is this one and the same from this forum?
Posts: 561 | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
He'll chime in tomorrow morning----he posts early in the morning (I think around 3 to 4 AM California time).
Posts: 2355 | From: Pleasanton, CA | Registered: Apr 2007
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I acknowledge around here that "once upon a time" I was far more the active railfan than I am today. I also will acknowledge that i was employed within the industry when that was taken. Now that the photo has surfazced almost forty years after the fact, I'm not too concerned whether my employment is in jeopardy.
Although Classic Trains is a fine publication containing original material (as distinct from resurrecting pervious TRAINS articles), I don't get it; it would just be more thing piling up unread (Mr. Presley, during his recent visit, saw "the pile"). The same applies to another quality publication, namely Mike Schaffer's Passenger Train Journal. Since I've personally known Mike for well over forty years, I wish I had the time to do PTJ justice.
Posts: 9979 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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I saw the pile indeed and though I read the Classic Trains article cited, I did not pay close attention to the photos.... I'll review tomorrow..... today is one of those which started before dawn and will end well beyond dusk I'm afraid.
Mr. Norman's onetime railfan credentials are firmly established by, among other things, his interest in consists operated during the decling years of privately operated passenger trains....
and his interest in things modern such as the Cross-Country Cafe experiment.
Here's a thought - why not use those CCC's as first class lounges on the Southwest Chief, California Zephyr, and Capitol Limited?
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Gil, I do get PTJ and, in fact, I recently exchanged e-mails with Mike Schaffer regarding an error I caught in one of their photo captions.
Incidentally, Mike tells me they're thinking of doing an article on Amtrak's Silver Service, warts included, in the near future. He also sent me some history of Amtrak diner #8502, ex "Silver Cuisine" which was quite interesting.
-------------------- Ocala Mike Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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I receive PTJ, Trains, and Classic Trains and am also a member of the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina Historical Society..... an interesting appalachian narrow guage pike which operated near where I live until October 1950.
I've flirted off and on with other magazines and historical societies (Southern, L&N, etc.) but these are the ones which continue to hold my interest month in and month out.
I'll add that I was a long-time subscriber to the original Passenger Train Journal and found myself missing that content when it was..... shall we say.... discontinued in 1996. When I learned that it was to be ressurrected, I picked up the telephone and re-upped immediately. I didn't abandon PTJ, it abandoned me for a decade or so!
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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Though I've never met GBN, in my mind's eye he seems to be “a little like Samuel Johnson and a lot like a conductor with his eye on a small boy dangerously close to the emergency cord.” (That's how someone once described E. M. Frimbo.)
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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While I haven't seen the picture in question, I have seen the real GBN up close. What is remarkable to me is that the erudition he exhibits on these pages is very much in evidence in person. He also has a very good, wry sense of humor.
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I have a weird ability of being able to picture almost exactly what someone will look like. I've got a mental image of GBN--love to know if I've nailed it or not. Post the photo!
Posts: 2355 | From: Pleasanton, CA | Registered: Apr 2007
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I too have met the legendary GBN in person, and would also like to see the Classic Trains photo from "back in the day"
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
I finally got out my Spring issue of Classic Trains. Yes, I did find the nice picture of Mr. Norman and three other gentlemen at the New Orleans Union passenger terminal.
The spring issue of Classic Trains also has an interesting article on the Central of Georgia's "Nancy Hanks II". The Nancy Hanks II (or just "Nancy") passenger train ran from Atlanta to Savannah, with its gray and blue paint scheme. The emblem on each car was a horse's head inside a horseshoe. There is also a picture of the Nancy Hanks "Sunliner" coach car.
I wondered why a passenger train, in a rebel state, would be named after a yankee woman. Nancy Hanks was the mother of Abraham Lincoln. There was another Nancy Hanks, a famous horse that had a world record in trotting competition. The article says that the train was named after the horse and the horse was named after Abraham Lincoln's mother.
I will have to give a pitch for another magazine not yet mentioned, Carston's "Railfan and Railroad". I find that, sometimes, I can get good information from the R/R publication that I can't always find in "Trains" and other Kalmbach publications.
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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I;m reading "Railfan & Railroad" on my iPad. It's text-heavy (very small print, too) but crisply edited, and the Carstens app displays it beautifully.
I still read "Trains" in print, though. And "Model Railroader" when I can find it in barbershops and the like.
Posts: 2236 | From: Evanston, Ill. and Ontonagon, Mich. | Registered: Feb 2007
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Barbershops - a reward for having relocated back to the town where I grew up is always knowing who will cut my hair.
I would like to say that my barber is the same man who has been cutting my hair since 1965 but that would not be true. His son however, a classmate of mine in elementary school, has been my barber since we returned in 1998!
Might suggest to Tim that he add 'Model Railroader' to his collection of hunting and fishing magazines!
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Well, I have now seen a pic of GBN. I was spot-on with my guess as to what he looks like. SPOT ON! I don't know how I do it, but my guesses are almost always accurate or very close to it.
I wish it was easy to post pics on here, then we could all put up a photo of our mugs so that we know who we're talking to. Or, I could just describe to everyone what I think the others look like. Posts: 2355 | From: Pleasanton, CA | Registered: Apr 2007
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I wondered why a passenger train, in a rebel state, would be named after a yankee woman. Nancy Hanks was the mother of Abraham Lincoln.
Central of Georgia had a thing about naming their trains after famous racehorses, i.e., "Nancy Hanks" (harness horse) and "Man O'War" (thoroughbred). They also had a thing about "state's rights" or something as they maintained segregation on board their trains well into the 60's as they were an intrastate carrier.
Posts: 1530 | From: Ocala, FL | Registered: Dec 2006
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quote:Originally posted by notelvis: Barbershops - a reward for having relocated back to the town where I grew up is always knowing who will cut my hair.
I would like to say that my barber is the same man who has been cutting my hair since 1965 but that would not be true. His son however, a classmate of mine in elementary school, has been my barber since we returned in 1998!
Might suggest to Tim that he add 'Model Railroader' to his collection of hunting and fishing magazines!
*************************************
David...is the actual barber shop the same as when you grew up, or is it a different barber shop at a different location? I think it would be somewhat unusual if the shop is the same.
I would like to have the same experience..I live, here in Santa Rosa, about 8 miles away from the little town that I grew up in, back in the late 1940's and 1950's. I would like to go back to the same barber shop that my dad introduced me to in the early 1950's, but it isn't there, anymore. Many changes in the town over 50 years. Our little town (about 4,000 people) was one of the last towns, in Calif, to have railroad tracks down main street (Northwestern Pacific RR). They tore up the tracks, however, about 30 years ago.
My old barber, back in the 1950's, was a huge hunting and fishing enthusiast..especially fishing. His barber shop was chock-full of just about every hunting and fishing magazine that existed, back then. What I remember, most, was that the magazines were practically 1 inch thick and cost about 25 cents. Contrast that with today's magazines, about 30-40 pages with half of them advertising and considerably higher in cost. I don't think, however, that my old barber subscribed to any train magazines.
Richard
Posts: 1909 | From: Santa Rosa | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
OK, for anyone interested, I have a photo avatar at TripAdvisor, where I am known as Gilbie_9.
Posts: 9979 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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The barbershop in question is on Main Street on Mars Hill, NC and has been in the exact same location since it opened in the 1950's. Not sure when exactly - but I do know that the original barber, also named David, was a Korean War veteran who opened the shop shortly after being discharged from the Army.
Now things in small towns sometimes change slowly and such is the case when Tim, the son, replaced the chairs in the waiting area last year. The 'new' chairs are very 1960's looking steel things with a touch of padding and I asked where he got them.
Turns out that there had been a Doctor in town (one of three) with a stand alone clinic near his home. When the doctor passed away unexpectedly in the early 1970's his wife just closed the door on the clinic and things simply stayed as they were for another 35 years. With the wife's passing in 2009, the kids now living in a distant city held an estate sale......
Totally off topic yes, but I am fascinated by how my barbershop in place for nearly 60 years came by a set of like new 50 year old chairs.
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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posted
Miss Vickie, just enter that handle into the search field.
Posts: 9979 | From: Clarendon Hills, IL USA (BNSF Chicago Sub MP 18.71) | Registered: Apr 2002
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It worked for me. Then just right-click and "View Image" to make it larger. Nice sweater. But I would still like to see the one from 1973.
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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