In looking for memories of train trips in my past, I got to thinking about one that happened not in the United States but in Germany. Skip forward from the adventures of getting to Ft. Leonard Wood about nine months and I was on my way to Germany. A bit of a back story on that. My first duty station was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at a Nike missle base. I will not spend any time on being there but it was an adventure all by itself. I had hardly settled into my place in this assignment when orders came from head quarters for several of us to be sent over seas and we were given a choice, a year in Thule, Greenland or three years in Germany! One guess which one I took. So after a Christmas at home I was on a boat headed to Europe. As anyone who has been at sea in January knows, the Atlantic Ocean is not a pleasant place to be in winter, it is cold, it is rough and stormy. It was all these things and because of this it took rather than the normal five days, fourteen days. I would like to state right here and now it was not a pleasant trip. With 2600 men on board all of whom were sea-sick, we were so happy to be told that we had entered the Bremerhaven estuary and would be docking. Now we had to be told because for the last two days we had been enveloped in pea-soup fog and when the ship finally docked we could not see the land, the dock or anything but by then we were just glad to step foot on solid ground where the horizon would remain on a level orientation.
Most of us had, after passing the Ambrose light Ship in New York harbor, stopped eating solid food and had began to survive on coffee and soda crackers. We found that we could keep those in our stomachs. So by the time we got down the gang plank and off the ship we were not only happy to be on solid ground but were ravenously hungry. We walked across maybe 100 yards and got on to deep maroon Deuchebahn train cars that were lined up on the dock. Soon the cars were full of GIs who were on there way to various duty stations though out Germany. Generally, each of the cars were pretty nice with separate compartments that held six people and we soon discovered that the windows could be opened unlike the trains in the United States.
In the first couple of stops, we started to notice that there were old ladies on the station platforms selling what looked like hot dogs. Most of us had never seen this kind of thing before but some of the guys on the train had been in Germany before knew all about this and were purchasing them right from the windows. By this time we were so hungry we were starting to chew on our hands. So when we stopped again, this time in a larger city, where there were several of the ladies on the platform we all started to buy from them. And the “hot dogs” were bigger than any thing we had ever seen back in the states! Every time the train stopped in some station we would pull down the window and wave dollars at the women would gladly take our money and pass back a “bratwurst”, freshly cooked,in a monster bun with good strong German mustard on it. By the time I got to where I was to get off the train I had at least a half a dozen of the “wursts.” It was my first introduction to German food and to “platform vendors.” But it would not be my last.
billybobrailcom 
A GREAT read, Bill! Very entertaining, engaging and an easy read, too! Brought back a lot of my own rail memories…traveling on the Rocket with the folks to Boulder, CO to visit mom’s sister and her husband and two boys. Back in the late 50s. Might even have gone on to Grand Junction but don’t recall when and how but it took place during that trip.
I enjoy the little illustrations and their captions!
Next were the Dad’s Club baseball game trips to see the Cubs or White Sox play in Chicago.
All the kids from all the Moline, maybe all of the IL Quad Cities’ Dad’s Clubs, took a Saturday train trip to the Windy City to catch a major league ball game. Two maybe three times this happened. The Moline depot was a wonderful depot. I can still see it in my mind’s eye with the baggage carts, the long roof over the outside waiting area, and the bricks so carefully laid out around the station and along the tracks. (may be fantasizing that part!)
When I was sent up river my folks drove me to Savanna where I caught a CB&Q going to Prairie du Chien, WI with all the Chicago boys sent away to Campion. Those were fun trips. Trips home for the holidays were on the same route in reverse. The train always stopped behind the school to drop us off or pick us up.
In the summer of 1970 I took a train ride from Munich, DE to Oberammergau, DE. That was a train of a different sort than the trains back home. Saw a couple of older German ladies and asked them if they knew the song “Edelweiss.” Not realizing that they never, if ever heard it. I thought it was a well known folk song. At least it seemed it should be from the Sound of Music. I’m still pretty naive’ at times, I think.
In 1972, I took a leave from college and went to work until I returned to school in the fall of 1974. My primary employer for those two years was none other than the CRI&P or as you and I know it better by the Rock Island Lines. Hired on as a brakeman for the East Iowa Division in Nov of 72 with my first student trip being from Silvis to Des Moines. It was a ‘hot’ freight, which had right of way over any and all other trains. Took 8 hours to travel that bit of ground. My time as brakeman found me on a few ‘through’ trains to Des Moines or Cedar Rapids. Cedar Rapids was like the last place any brakeman, conductor or engineer wanted to go because you were always there for three or more days! Going to Des Moines you might get called back to work on 8 hours rest, most likely 10 – 12 hours which made the time away from less tedious. But, once home, you were always called out on 8 hours rest it seemed.
I soon took jobs working the Iowa City local which went from West Liberty, IA to Des Moines and back. A two day trip picking up and setting cars out along the way. Shortly after that an opening happened on the East Iowa local which went from Silvis to West Liberty and back each day, 5 days a week. Hmmm. Maybe it was six? I’ve forgotten now.
It was fun work! Got to get out and move about to throw a switch, set a car, pick up a car or cars, hook up the air hoses, ride the caboose once in a while. Had some great times and broke with good engineers, conductors and brakeman! Lots of stories I’ve got from those two years!!!
Sadly the Rock was in a steep decline in the 1970s. After realizing through freights were lucky to make it from Silvis to Des Moines in their 12 hours allotted work day, it didn’t take me long to decide to return to school at BHC to study music. A lot of the younger (older than I) employees were realizing the same fate of the Rock and talking about where they would go next to work the rails! Some went to the southwest as the rails were good there and the work strong and the companies like the SP not in the dire straits the Rock was in. Some of the men stayed on and formed the little railroad that’s now the IAIS (Iowa Interstate System) using the CRIP tracks between Chicago and Omaha in its early days back in the 1980s.
My last memory is the train ride through the Royal Gorge in Colorado Springs when on a short vacation out that way back in the late ’90s early ‘2000s. Short but it was fun with beautiful scenery to view as train rides generally have been in my life.
Great talking with on the phone and thanks for putting me on to your blog.
Joe
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