A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day....03-07,08-06....All Aboard!

Billie

[Billie]

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day

Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free Republic, and the forum is read daily by tens of thousands of concerned citizens and patriots from all around the country and the world.

A Few of FR's Finest....Every Day was introduced on June 24, 2002. It's only a small room in JimRob's house where we can get to know one another a little better; salute and support our military and our leaders; pray for those in need; and congratulate those deserving. We strive to keep our threads entertaining, fun, and pleasing to look at, and often have guest writers contribute an essay, or a profile of another FReeper.

On Mondays please visit us to see photos of A FEW OF FR'S VETERANS AND ACTIVE MILITARY

If you have a suggestion, or an idea, or if there's a FReeper you would like to see featured, please drop one of us a note in FR mail.

We're having fun and hope you are!
~ Billie, Dutchess, DollyCali, Mama_Bear, GodBlessUSA ~

CLICK

In September, 1825, the Stockton & Darlington Railroad Company began as the first railroad to carry both goods and passengers on regular schedules using locomotives designed by English inventor, George Stephenson. Stephenson's locomotive pulled six loaded coal cars and 21 passenger cars with 450 passengers over 9 miles in about one hour.

I am fascinated by trains. I love to ride on them. When I was a little girl, my teacher took our whole class on a short ride (about 20 miles) on the train that came through our small town every day. Ever notice, especially in small towns, how the engineer always waves at the cars waiting for the train to pass at a railroad crossing? :)

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Songs are written about trains. Movies have been made about them. The first western to tell a complete story in film was "The Great Train Robbery" filmed in 1903 in New Jersey. That movie started a great relationship between trains and movies that still survives 100 years later.

"The General" (1927), a comedy starring Buster Keaton, was regarded as one of the greatest of all silent comedies - and possibly the best train film ever made. It was a Civil War adventure-epic classic made toward the end of the silent era. Posters described the slapstick film as: "Love, Locomotives and Laughs."

Trains were a big factor in several of the James Bond movies, most notably: "From Russia With Love", and "Live and Let Die."

Here are a few more movies either written *about* trains or, as noted above, were a big factor in the storyline. The list is by no means complete, and most of them I've neither seen nor heard of, but for what it's worth, here they are....in no particular order:

• Silver Streak ~ 1934
• Union Pacific ~ 1939
• Murder on the Orient Express
• Von Ryan's Express
• Strangers on a Train
• The Lady Vanishes
• Son of Frankenstein
• Sherlock Holmes in Washington
• Terror by Night
• Ticket to Tomahawk
• The Great Locomotive Chase
• The Narrow Margin
• North by Northwest
• The Train
• Orphan Train
• Terror Train
• Chattanooga Choo Choo
• Back to the Future Part III
• Runaway Train
• Planes, Trains and Automobiles ~ 1987
• Throw Momma from the Train

These are but a few songs I found about trains. I'm sure you can all add many, many more to the list. I've listed only those I could link to music - mostly midis, but the last one is an mp3 - and still a favorite of mine: "Midnight Train to Georgia" by Gladys Knight and the Pips.

"Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe"
"Casey Jones"
"Chattanooga Choo Choo"
"City of New Orleans"
"Freight Train"
"Honky Tonk Train Blues"
"King of the Road"
"Last Steam Engine Ride"
"Night Train"
"Orange Blossom Special"
"Wabash Cannonball"




~ Gladys Knight and the Pips ~

Finally, let me close with a link to an inspirational album by Country & Western Singer, Randy Travis. You should be able to view the titles of the songs in the album; and hear clips of those you might be interested in.

"Glory Train, Songs of Faith, worship & praise" ~ Randy Travis

12-28-05 ~ Hall of Fame #14

THIS WEEK'S THREADS 03-06-06 Military Monday

Opinions by our own 'King of Ping' Every Thursday at the Finest The guy's good, folks!

[freema]

It happens.

Hubby & several Marines rode one cross country on leave once. Lord, they had a blast! I've always wanted to take a long trip on a train.

(((hugs)))

[MEG33]

Fun story and then a sad story..Thanks for sharing it, Lady.

[Just mythoughts]

What a great story. Your grandfather had his priorities in order, and I bet he always remember to keep his mouth closed when he stuck his head out the window.

I barley remember my grandfather, although I was born on his birthday and was named after him. His father was born in 1814, fought in the Civil War, and fled Kentucky after the war when his home was attacked by 'bushwhackers' and killed two of his children.

He move to MO. and remarried after his first wife died and had three more children after he achieved the age of 70. I get the strangest looks when I tell people that my ggrandfather was born in 1814.

[.30Carbine]

Great story, LadyX. I am glad you shared it, because I had not read it before, and it is a perfect addition to today's thread!

[Diver Dave]

Amazing co-inkie-dink...

Just received an email with a 2.5M Powerpoint attachment.

The title: Amazing Railroad Routes.

Beautiful scenic railroad photos including plowing through mega-deep snow, rail line on the side of a mountain, etc. Ave Maria music playing in the background. Trying to find a link to post.

[freema]

I love your stories!

[tuliptree76]

Beautiful thread, Billie! I love trains. I found one of my favorite train songs online - not a midi file.

Click!

City of New Orleans

Riding on the City of New Orleans,
Illinois Central Monday morning rail
Fifteen cars and fifteen restless riders,
Three conductors and twenty-five sacks of mail.

All along the southbound odyssey
The train pulls out at Kankakee
Rolls along past houses, farms and fields.
Passin' trains that have no names,
Freight yards full of old black men
And the graveyards of the rusted automobiles.

Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Dealin' card games with the old men in the club car.
Penny a point ain't no one keepin' score.
Pass the paper bag that holds the bottle
Feel the wheels rumblin' 'neath the floor.

And the sons of pullman porters
And the sons of engineers
Ride their father's magic carpets made of steel.
Mothers with their babes asleep,
Are rockin' to the gentle beat
And the rhythm of the rails is all they feel.

Good morning America how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

Nighttime on The City of New Orleans,
Changing cars in Memphis, Tennessee.
Half way home, we'll be there by morning
Through the Mississippi darkness
Rolling down to the sea.

And all the towns and people seem
To fade into a bad dream
And the steel rails still ain't heard the news.
The conductor sings his song again,
The passengers will please refrain
This train's got the disappearing railroad blues.

Good night, America, how are you?
Don't you know me I'm your native son,
I'm the train they call The City of New Orleans,
I'll be gone five hundred miles when the day is done.

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Good song!!

[LadyX]

Thank you for letting us know your father-in-law's situation, freema.
I pray for his complete detachment from pain and discomfort, and that he is feeling the peace and joy only The Holy Spirit can bring...
I pray as well for that Spirit to surround you and all those involved.

It never is easy to lose one's parents.
Mine put me on a plane to join B. in South Dakota when I was 27, and I never saw nor heard my mother's voice again. When we had been sent from South Dakota to Fairbanks, a year later she was in the hospital in Orlando where they found a blockage in her carotid artery on a Friday; scheduled her for surgery on Monday morning, but Saturday the clot traveled up to behind her right eye and did tremendous damage.
She was left for a year and a half blind, deaf, unable to speak, and paralyzed except for faint movement of her left hand.
I of course could not go from Alaska to Orlando to see her with 2 little boys in school and a baby under 2. She died on my second son's 10th birthday in July of 1965. I was just 31 years old.

After we left the service and moved back to Florida, we enjoyed my father's company now and then, until he succumbed to hardening of the arteries that caused mental confusion. He became my legal ward, placed in a nursing home in Melbourne, but we soon moved from there to Ft. Pierce, and then North Carolina, my husband transferred to manage department stores.

In July 1975, the home called me in NC and my 2 sisters in SC to go down there, Daddy dying from congestive heart failure. We left immediately, driving through the night, but he did not regain consciousness in the 2 days before he passed away.
I do hope he felt me hold his hand; speak softly to him.

For those reading this with living parents, count yourself blessed for whatever days you have left with them...and make the most of them.

[Majie Purple]

Thanks for posing your train memory...As one of "the newer ones" i did "find it interesting! Sorry you never got to meet nor to know your GrandDadad. Sorry too am I to read of his being cruched between 2 trains...Tis a miracle he survived something like that...I'm sure you realize that too... Take care,

[Majie Purple]

found at railfan.net (Whew! Real tini pic this time...LOL!{:O)}re: those OVERSIZED hearts from yesterday that I found.)

[LadyX]

I surely identify with your memories of traveling on trains with little ones in the 50's!
Mine go back farther than that, though, living on the East Coast of Florida with its railway going up North.
When I was small, my sisters and I went by train from Miami to South Carolina in the summer to visit her parents and siblings...side trips by car to Myrtle Beach with them.

Most memorable was the trip from Miami to Seneca, SC to stay 8 weeks at Camp Jocassee in the mountains.
It was 1943 and wartime, and of course military personnel were given the seats, and civilians sat wherever they could; usually in the aisle on a suitcase or the floor.
Our party of 8 little girls and 2 adults, however, made the whole trip in the Ladies' Room!
Never thought to complain or feel deprived!
WAR EFFORT RULED!!

We took food in brown bags with us to save having to go to the (expensive, crowded) dining room, and losing our precious perch..:))

Several other times I went by train to Miami to visit my older married sister in the 40's, before her husbamnd died - up to SC in the 50's/60's to visit both sisters, who'd married (Anne, again) and lived there.

The problem was in those days one *HAD* to dress like a lady -
hose, heels, HAT, gloves, etc.!! A real pain..:))
That went for Greyhound bus trips, too...and of course there was no air conditioning on either to make travel 'pleasant!'
LOL

[LadyX]

Another story many have heard is when I entered the U.S.Marine Corps at the Naval Base in Jacksonville, Florida, 25 June 1952.
Going from the hotel to the base for the paperwork and physicals, I had made an unthinking error, using the bathroom before we left, never having had a real physical before!
We all were finished, with my exception...yep..I had to drink from the water fountain, pace, drink again - repeat - everyone glaring at me for the holdup, until FINALLY I could 'produce'..:)

They nonetheless entrusted the other 7 women to my care, giving me the train and meal tickets for the train ride from Jax to Yemassee, SC - the Florida East Coast Railway station nearest to Parris Island.

There we transferred to a "Super Deluxe Conveyance" - a steam engine with four WIDE OPEN cars and bench seats, to take us the 23 miles to Port Royal, near Parris Island!
You cannot imagine how hot and noisy it was; how loud the clacking wheels - the steam and grit blowing back on us - and of course, no a/c in SC's humid June heat...(

Debarking at Port Royal, we were met by our DIs and buses to take us to the base.
It was at that moment I first heard the um...term of endearment... from male recruits, waiting also...
HOORAY! BAMS!!

Which, freema, I hastily concluded *MUST* be interpreted as BeautifulAmerican Marines..:))

[MEG33]

Zac's Mom just posted this prayer /music tribute to our troops on the Canteen. She just finished it..It takes a moment to start and you scroll down.. Turn up the speakers..This is so moving to me.
May It Be An Evening Star

[LadyX]

A different topic here - email I just received from
Senator Bill Frist, since I'm on his mailing list:

==========================================

"Just a quick note to let you know that the Senate will debate the “Flag Protection Amendment” in the end of June. If it passes -- and I will do everything in my power to see that it does -- this constitutional amendment will give one of our Nation's proudest and most treasured symbols the protection it deserves.

Polls have shown that roughly 80% of the American people want to vote on the right to protect the flag. In addition, all 50 state legislatures have passed resolutions asking Congress to pass an amendment -- to be sent back to the states for debate and ratification.

Clearly, the American people have spoken. It’s time for the Senate to listen.

Battles have culminated in the raising of that flag. Countless U.S. soldiers have – using their last breaths – labored on the battlefield to hoist that flag. And desecrating it is an insult to their memory, and their sacrifice.

That flag represents all that we are -- all that we stand for. Freedom. Liberty. It represents so much to so many. And I believe we have a moral obligation to rise as a body and declare that it is wrong to burn the flag of the United States of America.

If you'd like to comment on my blog on the need to protect our flag:

- - Click Here - -

[ or else go directly to: http://www.volpac.org/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=201 ]

Bill Frist, M.D.

VOLPAC
Post Office Box 158552
Nashville, TN 37215
Office: (615) 386-0045

[Victoria Delsoul]

Evening everybody. I enjoyed the thread, Billie, thanks much.

There's one more song... Mystery Train by Elvis. (hope it works)

click on it

[luvie]

Thanks for that great information to help keep our flag safe from disrespect.

[Majie Purple]

Very Moving song and pictorial!

[Majie Purple]

Awesome purple train pic! That hue is my exact fave!
The link to said Elvis song didn't work for me. Drat...I wanted to hear it! Thanks anyway.

[LadyX]

Thank you for posting that here, MEG.
We know well the humanitarian side of most of our military personnel...
the caring they exhibit, and good things they do.