I was born in ‘47. My Dad worked on the New York Central Railroad, and we could ride on the train for free. We didn’t own a car, so it was a treat to be able to ride the train every so often with our parents. We lived in Rochester, New York, and the farthest west we ever went was to Niagara Falls, and then New York City on the other end of the State. My oldest son worked as a dispatcher for Conrail for about 8 years before deciding the job was just too stressful to deal with. By then, Conrail had joined with CSX and Norfolk-Southern, and the area he had to cover was far larger than before. Conrail had good benefits, but if you bid and won a job on a specific shift, anyone else with more time could bump you off of it, and then you’d end back up on the crappy shift. I worked for New York State, and we bid our jobs as well, but once you won the job, it was yours to keep until you retired, died, or bid another job.
Once upon a time, the New York Central ran a four-track main line between Albany and Buffalo. (The Roar of the Four!) Now it’s down to two tracks, and CSX is studying reducing it to one track.