Trains, Trains, and more Trains...

As far back as I can remember, my Dad worked for Union Pacific Railroad, in Provo Utah. Mom and I would drive Dad to work in the mornings. Down to the railroad yard, across two sets of huge groups of tracks, with trains moving on them all the time. (Today there is a viadok,or bridge, over the main tracks.)
I remember how huge, and fast the trains were, and how careful we had to watch out for them. My favorite were the steam engines. especially one called #4. He was a small engine and well liked by everybody. They kept him mostly in the yard for help. You could always hear his bell ringing, and I always looked for him. At this time the Diesel trains were becoming very popular, and slowly the steam trains were being cut up and scraped. It was a very sad day when #4 life was ended to.
My brother Ivan also worked for a short time at the railroad. He worked the turntable. I had the privilege of being with him in the cab of a steam engine, as he move the huge train on to the turntable, and the turntable turned the train to the line in which it was to go. I also got to see the roundhouse, and saw some on the trains being disassembled there.
Because Dad worked for the railroad he got to ride the trains free. Mom and I were half price. I remember Mom, Dad and I, riding passenger trains to California. Dad and I would go up to the dome cars (train cars that had upstairs, with seats, covered with a glass dome.) So you could see everywhere. We would sit up there and Dad would teach me the light signs that the engineers would read. No Computers back then. I could tell what was happening on the track, and why our train was doing different things. Trains are big, heavy, fast, and takes a long time to stop. They were put in areas where alot of people were not, because of accidents, involving careless folks. When you ride, You get to see beautiful scenery, that is mostly away from roads, and sometimes you saw into peoples backyards and how they were kept. We even skirted a forstfire as it was burning the mountain that the train track was on,and the ground still smoking where the track was, and raced along the ocean side at high speeds, in California. It was fun to walk through the train and see the different types of cars. Sleepers, Dinner, Passengers, and Dome. I also love observing those who worked on the trains. And the conductor, who seemed to be always present.
My brothers had alot of Lionel Trains sets, I wanted one so bad... but they were "boy toys" I never got a train set, until I was older, married. I did find a small Lionel engine in Mom, and Dads house that had belonged to one of my brothers. I kept it, they no longer cared about them. I wish I had more.
Last year Pauli took me to a model train convention, with displays, I bought my first "N" gage train set there. I just love it. I had the tiny train running around the bottom of my Christmas tree in December. I now have the one Lionel train, "G" scale, that was my brothers, I bought cars to go with it. I have 2, "HO" scale, trains, one diesel, and one steam. and one "N" scale, which is a steam model.

Sometime before I was born, Dad worked for Daleabout Bakery in Provo, where he learned the art of fine, good things to eat, and we, and the neighborhood, were blessed by his baking, most all of his life. It was not unusual for him to bake the pies for the whole neighborhood at holiday times. My Aunt Bernice Hartley was a wonderful baker, when I once asked her to teach me something she had made, she told me that everything she had learned, was from my Dad.

Dad had worked at a radio station in SLC. He had showen me the building, but I was to young to remember it. During the depression, Dad worked his horses helping folks dig the dirt out from under their houses so they could have basements. I know he did alot of other things to but these stick out in my mind.

When Dad was laid off from the railroad, he was close to retairment age and had Parkinson, his left hand, and arm shook. No one would hire him for work. So my mother had to find work for us to live. I believe I was in the seventh, or eighth grade when Mom went to work. Mom worked as a nurse for the Utah State Hospital, in Provo, until at the time she passed away from cancer in 1968.