Fathers And Trains

[Yampa Bob]

For Fathers with trains on their mind, timing is very important.  When Junior is young, we don't want to have expensive trains and delicate layouts, can't afford them anyway, so we buy him the wooden kind so he can go "toot toot" and drive us nuts putting wheels back on.

We are counting the days and minutes until he graduates from high school, hopefully to move out.  Nope, he hangs around and wants to go to college, so for the next four years we can't afford trains anyway.  At last he graduates and becomes an engineer, making lots of money.  Great, now he can help set up the layout and pay for his own stuff.  So for a few years we spend some quality time together.

Then Junior and Mrs Junior have a child, a boy...hehe you know what's coming.  Grandson gets old enough to notice your trains.  Grandson has ten fingers, with strawberry jam on all of them....."Papa Papa let's run trains!!"......

All in fun, we love our kids and our Grandkids...in 2 months I will be a Great Grandpa, I hope it's a boy, and I pray I will live long enough to hear him yell.  "Papa Papa let's run trains!!"...

I dedicate this post to all Fathers, Grandfathers, and Great Grandfathers everywhere.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

[Santa Fe buff]

Thanks for the father's day welcome, I'll pass it on to our neighbor. He used to work on a roundhouse in Kankakee for the Big Four, I.C.R.R, and New York Central, he climbs into the firebox to clean it our, he even knew several engineers, and crawled inside NYCs, J3rs, the 4-8-4s, IC's famous 2-6-4s, and every other steamer! You can imagine how much he knows about the people, a picture of an engineer nickname 'Sparky', he blurted out, "Yup, good old sparks..." He could ID most of the steamers and the wrecks from memory in my Kankakee history Book! I wish him happy fathers day, for now, the roundhouse is now ashfalt for a lot, the steamers are diesels, and the engineers, most of them, are dead. So he is very valuable for discovering the steam age of my home-city.
You can find wonders in every place.

[r.cprmier]

Bob;
Thank you very much for the Fathers' Day wish, and the same goes to you; and I have a funny feeling you will be around awhile (Only the good die young...)

Happy fathers Day!

Rich
(The Old Reprobate)

[Yampa Bob]

Rich
If that's the case, then you and I will live forever. 

I thought there might be other Fathers that would drop in to say what this special day means to them.  I got a very nice internet greeting card from my son today, one of my grandkids dropped me a line. She told me her expectant child will be a boy, so my gift will be a locomotive he can someday call his own. 

My Father died when I was only 22, so I never had a chance to really know him. My other son was killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 20, just a week before his 21st birthday.   

They say when a child is young, they step on your toes, when they get older they step on your heart.  I've been through it all, now I can just laugh when my son tells me the problems with his kids.     

I was supposed to put some tin on our new stable, but my wife told me to take the day off and watch my favorite western movies.  A sad day actually, as all my "kids" are 850 miles away.

[Redtail67]

Bob:

enjoyed the post! good humor and lots of truth to it! the jam as well as the peanut butter...oh man!.. the hours i have spent fixing and cleaning what my grandson has spilled dropped and smeared on the layout.

I have to admit as much as a pain in the u-know-what he is ...I have enjoyed every minute of it..well almost every minute.

Redatil67

[smcgill]

Some of us Dad's get a good ribbing!! 
The wife & daughter love to go by and say Choo Choo!!!
Please do not were the hat!!!   
My daughter say's she doesn't care -- but--- she does ask how the trains are!!   
Still wouldn't trade it!!!

[Santa Fe buff]

I told my dad happy fathers day, he says he would want to model railroad with me than work. Yet again, my layout is on his 69' Grand Prix, pullman green. And on fathers day, we caught, at the Kankakee railroad museum, a CN frieghter ran by 3 SD70Ms, followed by a Museum owner bringing in a new ALCO RS15, with mactching caboose. It was great, the light was so bright, it was like the real deal. As we were leaving we chowed at a BBQ place across the tracks, but in full veiw of the crossing just before the switchers, and the Kankakee river. After that, we left and called it a good day. I love fathers day, even with the trains!  That manifest scared the kid their so much, he almost peed~! So funny, and I and the fellow model railroaders didn't even flinch!

[grumpy]

I am not allowed to drive anymore . It is difficult to get to the hobby shops . For Father's Day my daughter bought me lunch and drove me to a hobby shop . Of course I purchased some goodies!
Don

[Ozzie21]

Ahh yes grandkids. They are wonderful aren't they. I have both a grandson and granddaughter and funnily enough they must have been born with sticky fingers that they manage to get in the most awkward of places. And they can't point , they have to point and touch . So if yours point and touch your lovingly  built Tichy 500t coaling tower and it falls over and hits the concrete floor don't yell at them in such away as to make them cry. No be nice and gentle and speak to them in hushed tones. I on the hand yelled, swore and my daughetr in law didn't speak to me for a couple of weeks. Ahh what bliss.

Charles Emerson
Queensland
Australia

[Santa Fe buff]

Ahh yes grandkids. They are wonderful aren't they. I have both a grandson and granddaughter and funnily enough they must have been born with sticky fingers that they manage to get in the most awkward of places. And they can't point , they have to point and touch . So if yours point and touch your lovingly  built Tichy 500t coaling tower and it falls over and hits the concrete floor don't yell at them in such away as to make them cry. No be nice and gentle and speak to them in hushed tones. I on the hand yelled, swore and my daughetr in law didn't speak to me for a couple of weeks. Ahh what bliss.

Charles Emerson
Queensland
Australia

Accident happen, and it is frustraiting, for my nefu broke half my plow off my Amtrak F40PH, but who could blame them, younger people are such a nice thing, but can also be trouble.