U.S. rail traffic a mixed bag in Week 44

[cachukis]

5. In Tampa. One of the coolest places I've ever been

was at the Golden Spike in North Platte, NE. It is the largest switching station in the world. Trains get dismantled and reassembled by gravity. The cars are separated at the top of a hill and are rolled down and switched to their next destination track.
I grew up in Boston and my childhood friend's father worked for the T. Occassionally, on weekends, he would take us into the yard where they repaired the cars. They would be backed into a housing and lifted to attend to the trucks.
My friend and I put together a repair station in his basement and we would redesign our pull wagons. We would assemble 5 of them and pull them up and down my street picking up passengers and dropping them off. Right out of the Little Rascals. 1950's fun.
Have a fascination with trains and their impact on American history.