Re: PC: [PRR] MO tower is gone (fwd)

["Christopher J. May" <csa4ever@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> At this point, lets all just hope there are railfans in 50 years.  From > the way things are going, it seems there is less and less about trains > that can fascinate little kids.  What makes railfans aren't only the > trains, but the mystique.  In that mystique are rural depots, towers, > big shops, big terminals, powerful engines, and proud train crews.

	I'm sure there will be railfans. As you pointed out, who would have
thought that steam would be gone by the 60's. In the 40's and 50's, I'm
sure that there were railfans predicting the demise of of their pastime
because steam was on the way out. As an 18 year-old I can show you
plenty of my friends who are under 25, who are railfans. I was
personally not very interested in this thread, because I never really
lived in the age of towers. It's an interesting topic, but I'm not
predicting the simultaneous demise of railfanning because there are no
more towers.
	I have grown up in the era of big diesels pulling big trains. As a
generator technician, the tremendous advances in horsepower have
fascinated me to no end. I went to the EMD openhouse, and looking at the
big brute of ther SD90MAC there, I couldn't helped but be impressed! And
there were kids there. Sure they couldn't blow the steam whistle, but
kids are impressed with size, and the SD90MAC is big! 
	Speaking of big. Look at some o the centralized operations of these
mammoth railroads, that have taken away from all the little local things
that made a railroad (e.g. stations, towers, shops, etc.) The UP
building in Omaha is something I stopped to see once in that town. Wow!
And though I have not seen it in person, the BNSF building in Ft. Worth,
looks in pictures to be a fortress, standing up and saying that the BNSF
is proud to be in the business...proud to be a railroad. 
	This is not to say that I don't enjoy items of past railroading. For
example, I am on this list. I never knew the Penn-Central, never saw a
locomotive in PC attire. I don't remember Conrail before 1987 or so.
However, in reading and pictures, the PC is a railroad that fascinated
me, and so I have read more about it, and joined this group. Towers may
not be the be all and end all of railroading for me, but they're still
interesting.
	Some day there may only be trains on rails, but that doesn't mean there
won't be railfans. As long as there are big freights being twoed behind
locomotives of higher and higher horsepower, there will be railfans.
There will be kids, taken out by their parents, who stare in complete
awe at these creatures millions of times bigger than them. And there
will be groups, like this one, who study and converse about how those
trains on those rails got there...

Please excuse my rambling and return to your normally scheduled
programing...

Christopher J. May
Aurora, IL
csa4ever -AT- ameritech.net