WORDS TO LIVE BY

Excerpt from Bran­don Sun,
“Sound Off” col­umn, July 2018
WORDS TO LIVE BY
In regards to the rail­way vehi­cle and pedes­tri­an col­li­sions. It remind­ed me of
some wis­dom my uncle a rail­way Engi­neer (Hog­ger) told me years ago. First,
“it’s OK to race a train to a cross­ing as long as you win or lose, but don’t end
in a tie.”……Also, “it takes the aver­age train five min­utes to go through a
cross­ing whether you’re on it or not.”….Anonymous.

What happened October 21, 1880

Octo­ber 21, 1880, Prime Min­is­ter John A. Mac­don­ald and the Cana­di­an Pacif­ic Rail­way Com­pa­ny sign a contract
For the con­struc­tion of a cross-Cana­da rail­way. The line would become com­plet­ed to the West Coast with the
Cer­e­mo­ny of the Last Spike on Novem­ber 7, 1885.

What happened May 24, 1884

Samuel Morse trans­mits the words, “What hath God wrought” from Wash­ing­ton to Baltimore
as he for­mal­ly opens the first tele­graph line in the Unit­ed States.

For all of us who still love Railroads.… remembering and admiring in amazement..

rrphotographer65
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYiCCZin0P_evnq3y1TOjzQ

SAMPLES:
4K: BUZY DAY OVER THE FEATHER RIVER (APRIL 3 2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4SLk7id7AGU

4K: TRAINS ON THE CAJON PASS (Jan­u­ary 4 2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQcccYboTAI

4K: DONNER PASS EARLY SPRING (MARCH 30 2019)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmZx3ahvpOs

Best Of The Last Year
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlNW43Gu2Hc

Top 15 Extinct Amer­i­can Steam Loco­mo­tives
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdD3LOnv1TY

4K CABVIEW Bar — Bije­lo Pol­je ‑102 tun­nels ‑96 bridges ‑1029m alti­tude change from Sea to Moun­tains
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zomZywCAPTA&t=105s

Train Snow Plow­ing Action in Min­neso­ta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXVXMdU84G4

Rotary Snow Plow Returns to Don­ner Pass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjBQ3MaBYiU

Ride The Rails Up And Over Don­ner Pass From Col­fax To Truc­k­ee, CA (Hi-def and 3‑D enabled)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1owZm3KIi3M

Koote­nay Val­ley Rail­way (Cana­di­an Pacif­ic) Cabride — Trail to Nel­son, BC on an SD40‑2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu7AYYcefUg

Cana­da: Trains through Black Canyon — British Colum­bia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87CopG9Yzjo
AND, THOUSANDS MORE FOR YOU TO PERUSE…

RAILROADS:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=RAILROADS

Extreme Rail­bik­ing Part 1, Life is Like a Moun­tain Rail­way, Rail Bikes on Aban­doned Rail­roads.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viSJsOUCGu4
Extreme Rail­bik­ing Part 2, Rail Bikes on Aban­doned Rail­roads
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfXApajOnPI

sil­ver­hawk Top 5 MOST DANGEROUS TRAINS You Won’t Believe Exist!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRl8rBGbP04

Top 10 Most Extreme RAILWAY Jour­ney, Trains on Most DANGEROUS and High­est Rail­roads in the World
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmWmxD1LVQ

Fastest Trains In The World | Lat­est Updates |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm5JGEsEWGg

About the Pocket Watch, a very interesting story


f you were in the mar­ket for a watch in 1880, would you know where to get one? You would go to a store, right? Well, of course you could do that, but if you want­ed one that was cheap­er and a bit bet­ter than most of the store watch­es, you went to the train sta­tion!
Sound a bit fun­ny? Well, for about 500 towns across the north­ern Unit­ed States , that’s where the best watch­es were found.


Why were the best watch­es found at the train sta­tion? The rail­road com­pa­ny was­n’t sell­ing the watch­es, not at all. The tele­graph oper­a­tor was. Most of the time the tele­graph oper­a­tor was locat­ed in the rail­road sta­tion because the tele­graph lines fol­lowed the rail­road tracks from town to town. It was usu­al­ly the short­est dis­tance and the right-of-way had already been secured for the rail line.


Most of the sta­tion agents were also skilled tele­graph oper­a­tors and it was the pri­ma­ry way they com­mu­ni­cat­ed with the rail­road. They would know when trains left the pre­vi­ous sta­tion and when they were due at their next sta­tion. And it was the tele­graph oper­a­tor who had the watch­es. As a mat­ter of fact, they sold more of them than almost all the stores com­bined for a peri­od of about 9 years.
This was all arranged by “Richard”, who was a tele­graph oper­a­tor him­self. He was on duty in the North Red­wood, Min­neso­ta train sta­tion one day when a load of watch­es arrived from the East. It was a huge crate of pock­et watch­es. No one ever came to claim them. So Richard sent a telegram to the man­u­fac­tur­er and asked them what they want­ed to do with the watch­es. The man­u­fac­tur­er did­n’t want to pay the freight back, so they wired Richard to see if he could sell them. So Richard did. He sent a wire to every agent in the sys­tem ask­ing them if they want­ed a cheap, but good, pock­et watch. He sold the entire case in less than two days and at a hand­some prof­it. That start­ed it all.
He ordered more watch­es from the watch com­pa­ny and encour­aged the tele­graph oper­a­tors to set up a dis­play case in the sta­tion offer­ing high qual­i­ty watch­es for a cheap price to all the trav­el­ers. It worked! It did­n’t take long for the word to spread and, before long, peo­ple oth­er than trav­el­ers came to the train sta­tion to buy watch­es. Richard became so busy that he had to hire a pro­fes­sion­al watch­mak­er to help him with the orders. That was “Alvah”.  And the rest is his­to­ry as they say. The busi­ness took off and soon expand­ed to many oth­er lines of dry goods. Richard and Alvah left the train sta­tion and moved their com­pa­ny to Chica­go — and it’s still there..


YES, IT’S A LITTLE KNOWN FACT that for a while in the 1880’s, the biggest watch retail­er in the coun­try was at the train sta­tion. It all start­ed with a tele­graph oper­a­tor:
Richard Sears and part­ner Alvah Roe­buck!
Bet You Did­n’t Know That!
OK, maybe you did;  I did­n’t!
Now that’s History.

Some interesting You-tube items

The Most Amazing Railroad Video, This is a Must See. F‑unit Crosses the Union Pacific Main Line

CP Coal Train Breaks Apart !! Goes into Emergency

Canadian Pacific’s Portal Sub

Rail­fan­ning Cana­di­an Paci­fic’s Moun­tain Subdivision

The Cana­di­an

Bran­don’s Steamy Past

A ret­ro­spec­tive of Win­nipeg’s Union Sta­tion, and train travel

THE TAY BRIDGE DISASTER

The Canadian Pacific Railway — Swift Current

TS2015 — Canadian Mountain Passes (ES44AC Canadian Pacific)