Saturday, March 28, 2009

Zee Train! Zee Train!


If you ever watched "Fantasy Island" in the 70's or in reruns, you may remember Tattoo announcing the arrival of guests to the island. He would alert Mr. Rourke to arriving planes.
That doesn't have anything to do with this video. It is just a cool video of a fantastic miniature train display in a Hamburg, Germany.
My husband's first job was on the Great Northern Railway. He was sixteen and got the job as 4th cook (aka dishwasher) by lying about his age. These days you a birth certificate to get a job and he wouldn't make the cut. This summer job involved five day runs from St. Paul to Chicago with an overnight in a railroad hotel. Then they went from Chicago to Seattle with another hotel stopover and a return trip to St. Paul.
Would you let your sixteen year old do that for a summer job? The late 50's / early 60's must have seemed safer to parents. Maybe there was a biblical reference that comforted them: "Train up a child in the ways...."
Jon worked the Great Northern and Northern Pacific trains summers for several years and was promoted to 3rd cook. He continues to be nostalgic about choo choos. Yesterday we pulled over to watch a freight train go through Lake Elmo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PN_oDdGmKyA

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