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.
Author Archives: Mark
What happened October 21, 1880
what happened on July 31, 1836
The Champlain & St. Lawrence Railway ran 24 kilometres between the St. Lawrence and Richeliew Rivers
What happened May 24, 1884
What happened May 23, 1887
The first CPR Intercontinental passenger train arrives at the west coast terminal of Vancouver.
What happened on May 8, 1906
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.

Container train from China to Germany
For your information:
Container train China to Germany. Four train engines pulling 200 containers from China to Germany. Takers a quarter of the time by land as compared to by sea. Cost less than half the price.
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
A retrospective of Winnipeg’s Union Station, and train travel