My mother grew up in the northern section of Arlington , VA, two miles from DC, in the 1930s and 40s. Arlington had/has a huge station and trainyard, with commuter trains, so riding trains was a big part of her life.
When I was about 4 and my sister about 6, we lived in Springfield, VA, about 10 miles from the station. (This was in 1959). We told my mother that we had never been on a train before and wanted to take a train ride.
She seemed shocked to realize this, and put our coats and hats on us and immediately drove us down to the station.
She bought 3 tickets roundtrip to Baltimore, and we waited in the huge station for about 30 minutes.
Then we walked down a big set of steps into an area where lots of trains were coming and going.
We all got an a train, and road it to Baltimore and back. It took about 45 minutes each way. I got to feeling sick, because I was sitting in a seat facing the rear of the train, and everything was going backward. So, she made my sister change places with me.
When we got back to the Arlington station, she took us to a lunch counter, and we sat on tall stools and we each had a grilled cheese sandwich and a Coke.
(That was the first time I was ever on a train, and I was not back on a train again until 1976, when I took a train from the same station to Philadelphia.)
Those were in the days when Mom's had enough time to do stuff like that for their kids. ' :-)
Mannyrock
