One thing always perked me and my brother up, though. For a long distance, the Southern Pacific right of way ran parallel to the highway. Occasionally we would see a train up ahead, and Dad would step on the accelerator to bring us up to its head end. As often as not, there would be a big black steam locomotive grandly racing along. For awhile we would pace the train, our children's eyes wide with fascination. These were the final days of the GS class in steam, with their distinctive black skyline casing and conical nose painted silver in the Southern Pacific fashion. They were magnificent to watch, the very image of effortless power, and gracefulness too, I should add. When the Espee designers created those engines, they got everything absolutely right!

Although I do not have any photographs taken from our car during such events, I have found evidence that my father played the same game when he was young. In amongst a batch of old family photographs, I found one single view of an Espee Pacific type running at speed beside the highway. My father has had a lifelong love of photography, and this seems like just the kind of camera experiment he would have been likely to try. Perhaps children today also enjoy pacing diesel engines, but somehow I doubt it. Nothing could compare with the sight of a powerful steamer putting out maximum effort at the head of a crack passenger train!

A dramatic but sadder memory comes to me now. Probably around 1955 or '56, my mother took me and my brothers (by now there was a third child, John) by train to Fresno. Dad was unable to get away from work that time and, as I mentioned before, my mother didn't drive then. I don't remember much about that trip except for one brief moment. We were on the return journey, headed south. We had just departed from the Bakersfield station and I was idly gazing out the window. Suddenly, on the tracks next to our train, there were dozens of rusting steam locomotives, drawn up coupler to coupler. I instantly recognized the unique nose cone of the GS engines, but there were many other types too. All of this faded magnificence flashed past me in about one minute's time, and then we were past the sight forever. I wished I could leap from the train and spend hours with those doomed locomotives. To confirm my memory's accuracy, many years later I sent a question to an Espee enthusiasts' Internet website and received the information that, indeed, the railroad's dead line was on the outskirts of Bakersfield. Who knows' Perhaps the now-famous No. 4449 was amongst those machines that day!

At this same time in my young life, the summer of 1956, my family made the long air trip to England to visit my mother's family. She had grown up there and had married my father as war bride, departing England in 1946 for her new life in California. This was her first trip back since that time. As readers from Great Britain will know, steam was still very much alive and breathing there in the mid-50's.

On one memorable day, we went into downtown London to the Southern Railway station. We were booked on a train to Folkestone return that day. Before we departed, I had a chance to explore the motive power and, yes, it was a 'Merchant Navy' class locomotive, affectionately known as 'Spam Cans' by rail buffs [Illustration, page 24]. Since I was, thankfully, fairly ignorant of Spam and its containers, I failed to see the resemblance. What struck me was that, because the platform was raised in the English manner and hid most of the running gear and the engine's round boiler was hidden by its bulky shrouding, to my young American eyes it didn't look like a 'real' steam locomotive. Perhaps it didn't look like one very much to me, but it sounded and smelled convincing, and I was thrilled to travel in a train behind it.

Even more wonderful sights were to come that day. When we arrived on the southeast coast, my parents took us, by one conveyance or another (I don't remember) to the little town of Hythe, about four miles west of Folkestone. There, at a tidy little railroad terminal, we first saw the 15" gauge Romney, Hythe, and Dymchurch Railway. Here were real locomotives, but at a child's scale! Even better, we were booking a trip over the entire fourteen miles' length of the line!

Our family found seats in one of the coaches, perfect miniatures of their bigger brethren. Because traditional British passenger coaches had direct door access from each private compartment to the platform, these coaches were convincing, with each 'compartment' being a seat that could hold two children or one adult and a child comfortably. There were many curves along the route, enabling us to look ahead and see the little engine puffing along mightily, whistling for grade crossings, and generally exciting all the passions of which a young boy's mind was capable. I had forgotten until I recently watched again one of Dad's home movies; a flock of geese waddled along the line for awhile, reducing the train's speed to that of the slowest, fattest goose. Well, full size trains have cows to block the track, while little trains have geese!

On arrival at the end of line at Dungeness, we had time to walk around and inspect the famous lighthouse and, of course, the train and its miniature engine. Soon it was time to re-embark and travel back to Hythe. The rest of that day is a blur of faint impressions to me, but the train (of course) stands out from them in bold relief.

As our six-week stay in England neared its end, my folks took me to a toy store and there we ordered a Triang OO scale engine and two coaches. We couldn't take them with us on the airplane, so we ordered them shipped. For weeks afterward back home, I would dream of that little green 'Princess Elizabeth' locomotive with its front buffers coming to rest precisely at the buffer stop in the terminal as I had seen in the London stations. When the train finally arrived two months later, it was a big day around our household! Among my first efforts at photography were views of the engine, complete with cotton 'smoke'. Fortunately, I have saved that engine and the two cars all these years and have recently re-motored the locomotive and am generally sprucing it up, a tangible reminder of a magical childhood visit to the homeland of my mother.

I will conclude this account by returning 'home' to Los Angeles. In 1955, Disneyland opened its doors for business, and thereafter, for several years, our family visited it as often as time and budget would allow. As is generally known, Walt Disney was an avid railroad fan. He had a grand live steam railroad on the grounds of his home. When he envisioned Disneyland, from the start he wanted a railroad to encircle it, for he understood the central place in the hearts of earlier generations that the railroad had held. He ordered two locomotives to be built to 5/8 full size, believing that the smaller size of the trains would be practical while reducing their dimensions to be more child-friendly. He was absolutely right. This child found them the friendliest thing about Disneyland, even more than Mickey Mouse!

The very first thing we would do on entering the main gate was to double back to the station above and wait for the next train. The brightly painted 1880's style engine would round a curve, blowing its whistle and ringing its bell, and would pull up just past us. Full of eagerness, we jumped up into the yellow wooden cars. Off we went on a fifteen-minute journey all around the park. By the time we returned to our starting point, we would be raring to go to our favourite features. At times throughout the day, we would prevail on our parents to take us on the train once again. The day would end with tired but happy children falling asleep in the car as my Dad drove us home.

Those childhood days in Southern California shaped me in ways I am still discovering. Most certainly railroads, full size and model, played a large role in my early life and now, as I am enjoying the return to these early interests, I frequently find myself, while at the West Coast Railway Heritage Park in Squamish or the Burnaby Central Railway in Confederation Park, inexplicably happy and content. But then, perhaps the explanation is right in front of my nose: I become again that child of long ago, the child whose ears would perk up at the sound of a steam whistle, the child who became a man who loves steam locomotives and all the mystery and wonder of the railroad. So may it be for today's children in whatever is for them the equivalent passion in their young lives.