Originally Posted by p51:
I live next to a small railroad to the coast and pretty close to the BNSF/UP/Amtrak main from Portland to Seattle. I get as much train watching as I can, which is pretty easy given all the action there is around here.
I forgot to mention why I'm always so happy with all the trains where I live. I was born and raised in Tallahassee, Florida and lived there until my late 20s. The former Seaboard route through there was a single-track main, one you could hand around for the better part of a day and maybe just see one train, if at all.
Amtrak stopped going through there, I think, in 2005 after a very brief period of service with the Sunset Limited, which I think lasted less than 10 years, after a couple of years of Amtrak service when it first started. I do hope CSX eventually gets that line all the way through to Jacksonville squared away from PCT for future Amtrak service (not that it really ever helped Tallahassee, as the Sunset Limited always seemed to stop in the middle of the night, in a very bad part of town).
I try to get back there once a year to visit my folks who still live there. About 3 years ago, I found the 'main' all covered in weeds from having traffic re-routed way to the North. It looked like a abandoned branch line somewhere.
And people wonder why I moved away as soon as I could...
So now, I live in an area with multiple Amtrak trains (mostly high speed Talgo Cascades) and double-track mains. You won't sit for an hour without seeing at least 1-2 trains, sometimes as many as 4-5 in an hour. And there's also the branch line (Puget Sound and Pacific) which passes very close to my house.
Going from that to where I live now, why wouldn't I have a smile on my face? It never gets old.
