We had a visit from my Dad and his wife and we took them sight-seeing around the area. In our local newspaper, they had an article about 'Speeders'. Little maintenance rail cars that used to speed around the rails to help make repairs on trains or tracks. Railroad companies no longer use these Speeders, but there are people who buy them and restore them and then ask permission from rail stations to travel through on the tracks. They travel all over the country and Canada, seeing the country in a way that many of us never get to see in our cars on the roads. The article said the Speeders would be in our area on Saturday, but I never thought we would have actually seen them! We quickly pulled over and watched the procession of Speeders
speed by!
This group of Speeders had about 20 cars from all different railroads and we really enjoyed watching them go by. I had no idea they existed and when we got home, I quickly dug out the newspaper to read it more thoroughly. It was a nice little history lesson for us.
They even bring along their own port-a-potty!
Check out the Hampshire Reviews' youtube video
here to learn more about Speeders
(sorry, it isn't captioned)
4 comments:
That's cool! It'd be fun just to be a train engineer for a day... imagining myself as an engineer, driving the train... Thanks for sharing it with us... I have never heard of it until you brought it up.
I've never heard of these, but darn-I'd love to have one. What a great idea! Thanks for telling us about it.
That is so cool! How brilliant, and what a fun way to see the country. I knew of the existence of such devices to service the railway, but I never have even heard of such a use for them. That is just some of the most fun I can think of having on four wheels.
Thank you for the delightful photographs! And yes, what a good history lead in for the children, you clever mom you!
Karen-- Husband's granddaddy was a train engineer. The stories he tells about him! :o) But we both never knew about the Speeders. That'd be fun to do!
Stephanie-- Isn't it fun to learn something new?! I would love to go for a ride in one of those! :o)
Lady M-- I knew they use trucks with those special wheels, but not these cool looking cars. How fun that the railroads lets them use the rails for their trips. anytime I can make learning fun-- that's what I'll do. I know I learn better when it's made fun.
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