Whistle Music Tracks Ahead Brought to you by Kalmbach Publishing Company producers of an online source for rail-related information, where you can discover model trains, toy trains, garden trains and even real trains.

(Horn) Kato Manufacturer of precision railroad models and the UniTrack System Music Hi, I'm Spencer Christian.

On this episode of Tracks Ahead we'll visit a Lionel collector and operator in Atlanta, check out the history and current status of the St. Louis Terminal Railroad in Union Station and go for a ride on a steam train in North Carolina.

Now no trip to Australia would be complete without a visit to one of the oldest steam locomotives preservation societies on the Australian continent.

Let's go visit Puffing Billy.

Ancr: If you were looking for a glimpse of what Australia looked like and sounded like at the beginning of the 20th century, look no further.

This is Puffing Billy, a steam train that's been running these rails for along time, and an area, thanks to this old train, that is locked in time.

Originally built as a narrow gauge railway between Fern Tree Gully and Gembrook, the line opened in December of 1900.

The reason for the two foot, six inch narrow gauge was to save construction costs due to the depression of the late 19th century.

The line was built to serve the scattered people and isolated settlements in the southern end of Victoria's Dandenong mountain range.

The railroad also served to open up the area to development over its 50 plus year life.

Construction was started in 1899 with all labor done by hand, ties were hand sawn, horse and oxen were used to clear and develop the roadbed.

Roads in the area were often impassable because of bullock and horse teams, so the train was the way to enjoy long summer and Christmas holidays in the coolness of the higher elevations away from the heat and smell of the city.

Through the years the railroad hauled agricultural products as well as gold from the fields around Gembrook.

Later years saw the growth of timber and fruit industries in the area and the little train served both with equal ease.

At same time the line hauled tons of supplies in for the settlers.

The first engine for the line were Victorian Railways 2-6-2 Prairie Style Tank Locos; these were initially built by the US Baldwin Locomotive Works but eventually the engines were all Australian built.

Through the years the engines were called Hissing Ginny's, Puffing Jenny's, The Little Train, and finally, Puffing Billy.

The 1920's saw the start of roads and automobiles but the trains still carried people to Emerald Park.

The line officially closed in April of 1954.

During it's 54 years of operation it never made a profit.

But the little train was a part of the area and several last runs were made after the closing date.

Eventually the line ended up under the auspices of the Puffing Billy Preservation Society and the Emerald Tourist Railway Board.

Tourist operations opened in 1962, thus making the little narrow gauge line Australia's first restored railway; and the best loved.

David: Because of the railway line, the areas been protected from housing development so any hazards to build along the line within what we call, visual car rule, if it's visual from the railway it's kept very much in keeping with what we call "era of significance", which was about the 1920's.

Ancr: Steam trains embody the idea of nostalgia even in South Australia.

This line runs along a lovely rural route about an hour outside the bustling city of Melbourne.

That modern metropolis brims with more modern versions of rail, taking people swiftly from point A to point B.

It's a town that still relies on the track prodigy of antique ancestors like Puffing Billy.

This old steam train line is more about experiencing an older way of life than of getting from point to point.

It's more about birds than business, more about eucalyptus than euro dollars and that's what keeps people coming back century after century.

David: Obviously it's the steam train itself, and there's a real sense of nostalgia with that we use the original style cardboard tickets that were used for years and years, in fact we're one of the last railways in the world that actually produce those tickets and we also produce tickets for railways in UK and New Zealand as well.

So you've got that sense of nostalgia.

I think the bush itself in Dandenongs, which is a world famous area, environmentally it's just sensational, it's very much a part of natural bush land that you won't find anywhere else.

You can see areas from the train that you won't see from the road, from the car.

Passenger: I'm from here originally and have been on here as a kid I wanted to bring Paul to share the memories and appreciate the experience.

Paul: For six years she's been promising me that she'd take me here to show off the Dandenongs and how lovely it is up here and it's been worth it.

Ancr: People come here for the Dandenongs there an increasingly rare spots on the map loaded with trees, ferns and colorful parrots.

The rolling scenery is the perfect setting for a rail adventure.

Acre after acre of rolling daffodil fields fall gently upon your eyes, they were planted by early Dutch settlers who wanted to lay down roots and gaze upon familiar flowers.

This old line is well preserved, there's no yearning for to be the cutting edge or riding the tide of technology, Puffing Billy is an Australian icon as is.

David: Everything that we've done, is very much in keeping, the uniforms all the volunteers wear, they're all designed on the 1920's style of the uniforms that they wore at that time.

The carriages that we use are exactly the same style carriages that they used in the early 1900's, the engines themselves are all entirely original Ancr: It's an effort that is not lost on riders who realize they are seeing and riding something special.

Passenger: Because I grew up in a railroad family I look at the tracks and how their made and kept up and I looked at the old ties that just been replaced and they give a lot of attention to the train.

David: There's something that people just love about it, the very narrow gauge it's a bit smaller so people can relate to it, it's not the huge locomotive if you were to start comparing.

There's a tradition on the railway of kids sitting on the outside of the carriages, hanging their legs out, waving to people.

There's something when you talk to people they say, you're on Puffing Billy, that's something I went on as a kid.

That's what they remember just this sense of fun and enjoyment and I guess escaping from some of their problems that are out there.

Ancr: If you're planning a foray into Australia, here is a pocket of this vast and varied country that you could easily miss.

But if you're looking for another sort of Australian experience one offering the view of an older yet current country, riding Puffing Billy is something you want to add to your list.

Passenger: If they can work it into the itinerary.

Passenger: It's a great experience.

Ancr: And when you do head home, there are some special things you'll pack up in your bag of experiences.

David: I think fond memories of Puffing Billy and most people do that.

I think they go away having said, it's been a really neat day, it's been fun and get away from the troubles of the world and just sit back, relax and enjoy it.

Enjoy some nostalgia.

Ancr: You'll take home take home visions of yet another Australia, one that's off the beaten path but definitely on the right track If you visit don't forget to check out the flower farms and colorful wild life.

That feeling of excitement that went along with a sparkling new train on Christmas morning never really goes away.

Steve Baldwin kept the embers of his fiery love for trains alive until he could create his own dream layout.

Ancr: When you were a kid, what did you want more than anything?

Steve Baldwin wanted a layout with the coolest trains and accessories.

Steve: I remember it was Christmas Eve 1955, I was five years old, I heard the sounds of my father and one of the neighbors helping him in the garage building the first train layout and that was very exciting for me.

Sure enough there was a layout waiting for me on the floor on Christmas morning, figure eight with my first train set.

As a matter of fact, I still have some of those same trains today, but that's another story.

Ancr: Like a lot of us, Steve got interested in a lot of other stuff and the trains got mothballed.

Fortunately his parents didn't add his classic collection to any garage sales.

Steve: I remember specifically it was 1981 and I had been living out of town for a long time.

I decided to go visit my parents and went down to look for something in the basement; maybe we were getting ready to make some homemade ice cream.

I was looking for the old freezer we had when I was a little boy and there were a couple of A & P grocery boxes lying way back in the back in the basement.

I opened the tops of them and there and there was my trains that I hadn't seen in nearly 20 years.

It was quite amazing; the feeling came back holding those for the first time and smell of the smoke stacks and engines and I remembered that smell.

You could smell the oil in the trains very familiar to me; and all these mental images started coming back of what it was like to play with those trains.

Ancr: Finding his old friends added coal to the fire of his interest in trains.

What you see here is a dream come true but what also one that's still being dreamt.

Steve: I hope it's not done; it would be very depressing if it were.

Everyday I look for other items to add, whether it be more people, there's about 200 metal figures of people, cats, dogs, squirrels, crows, there's crows over there in the cornfield, that I've added to it.

I keep looking for vehicles for more billboards and of course trains and trains get changed out periodically as well.

Ancr: He decided on new Lionel trains with O gauge straight and O-72 curves and he relied on his own imagination and ingenuity.

Steve: That's one thing I'm very proud of, I didn't do it necessarily to impress someone, but just for personal satisfaction.

I perhaps learned something about myself in the process and that's a bit of a creative side that I didn't know that I had.

It started out with constructing 24 individual sawhorses which are underneath and then there are different layers of plywood on top of that, then I started building the various land forms that create the mountains, hillside, rocky cliffs and things like that.

Ancr: The key to the realism in this layout is looking at real life.

Steve: I did a lot of driving around and I looked at actual train yards, classification yards and places where trains were stored, switched and assembled, and things like that.

Looked at how the spacing of the tracks and how they switched from one place to another and kinds of structures that were there, and that gave me a lot of ideas.

I even took photographs and brought them back.

A lot of the things that you see are really modeled after real life.

Ancr: The trains running along this track are a combination of new and Steve's old models from when he was a kid.

The trains run through towns filled with prized Plasticville structures including more than 20,000 scale square feet of building space.

Steve: As I started going to train shows, I found that I could get some of the original Plasticville pieces.

The one that I found the first time, was the factory with smoke stacks and a loading dock and that is exactly like one I had.

I thought I could just marry this together.

I'd seen some photographs in some of the collector magazines of Plasticville and Lionel together and I said that's very consistent of the look in mid 1950's.

That's what I was trying to do.

Amcr: None of us can ever be a kid again, but like Steve, some of us are lucky enough to have a place like this where we can come, sit and remember a time when these trains were all we wanted and everything seemed possible.

Steve reminds people that if you want to build a train layout, you should start modestly; you can get quite carried away on your first layout.

North Carolina is an absolutely beautiful state and it's also one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country.

If you're going to be in the neighborhood anytime soon, we have an excellent suggestion for you, we'll swing over to Spencer, which is about 40 miles north of Charlotte.

Once there you'll find one of the most fascinating transportation museums in America.

St. Louis is a town steeped in the history of railroads.

While thundering trains are a rarity in some cities, the gateway to the west is still home to some of the hardest working lines in America.

Ancr: In their hey-day, the railroad shops in Spencer were the Southern Railway Company's largest steam locomotive servicing facility.

Over two and half thousand people worked here providing nearly all of the local employment.

Begun in 1896 at a point roughly halfway between Washington and Atlanta, the Spencer shops and the town of Spencer were named for Samuel Spencer, the first President of the Southern Railway.

With the decline of steam power and the growing popularity of diesel, the Spencer Steam Shop struggled.

By the 1970's there was no longer a need for the facility and it was closed, but today Spencer Shops is a state run historic facility and home to the North Carolina Transportation Museum.

It's a renovated and revitalized masterpiece where rail power is center stage.

It's home to millions of dollars worth of historic artifacts and priceless remnants from a by gone era.

Restored steam and diesel locomotives give visitors an overview of the size and complexity of the former operations spread out over nearly 60 acres.

Larry: We have two operating steam locomotives, the first one is what we call, Spencer 604 which was originally built as Buffalo Creek and Gauly number 4.

It ran in West Virginia.

It ran until 1960's when it was sold to a Short Line in Virginia.

We also have a Shay Locomotive number 1925.

It's a seventy-ton, three-truck Shay, which operated on the Graham County Railroad in Western North Carolina.

The locomotive was acquired by the museum in 1988 and it was restored back into operating condition in 1997.

These two locomotives can be found on the weekends from April 1st through the end of October, pulling our passenger trains.

Ancr: The turntable is still in operation and is used to move equipment and give visitors a ride.

Millions of dollars were spent renovating the massive 37-stall, 12,000 square foot roundhouse.

Inside you'll also find an active restoration shop where you can watch history being preserved, piece-by-piece and nut by bolt.

Larry: The main thing about this roundhouse is 37-stalls and it is one of the largest remaining roundhouses in North America.

I believe the only one larger is a 52-stall roundhouse in Toronto, Canada.

We restored this roundhouse for the public and it's displays in 1996, it's part of an eight million-campaign project.

We have about 30 pieces of restored equipment inside the roundhouse and we have that active restoration shop which we continue to do maintenance and up keep on our equipment.

The first 16 stalls of the roundhouse are dedicated to our static displays.

We have steam, diesel- electric locomotives, several cabooses that people can walk through.

We have representative passenger equipment, one of the main ones we have is an army hospital car used right at the end of World War II and into the Korean War as a way of moving wounded troops from transport ships or other ambulances to field or regular hospitals.

We have the Loretta which was built for Charles Schwab, by the Pullman Company, in 1902 and we had the Doris built for James Duke in 1917 also by Pullman.

Charles Schwab used that car until 1917 when he went back to Pullman and asked for a new car and James Duke used his car up until his death in 1925 when it was sold to the Western Pacific Railroad and used for 50 years as an office car on that railway.

We also have a Russian Decapod Locomotive was built by The American Locomotive Works in 1917 originally for the Russian Government but because of the revolution, was not shipped.

Instead it was sent first to the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railroad and eventually ended up on the Seaboard Air Line operating out of Hamlet, North Carolina.

Ancr: The museum is more than a place to simply "ooh" and "ah" at giant pieces of historic machinery, it's a living testament to the efforts of the countless men and women who worked behind the scenes to make sure that the trains were in top shape as they rolled across America.

When you leave, you'll leave with memories of an era long gone and you'll leave with a new appreciation for all the workers who gave the steam era the life it once had, a life it enjoys again, in Spencer, North Carolina.

Music Ancr: People come to St. Louis to ride to the top ofhe arch and enjoy the fine views.

They head into town and enjoy a Cardinals game at Busch Stadium.

But no trip to this town with a familiar skyline is complete without a moment to reflect on the history and the present of railroads.

The Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis was once the largest terminal operation in the world.

St. Louis Union Station boasted 42 tracks and more than 8,000 employees It was considered a masterpiece of train station design.

The TRRA itself was formed from six Terminal Companies.

Dennis: The Terminal Railroad Association was formed in July of 1889.

It's jointly owned company and its purpose in life was to provide a transportation service, yard service and service over the river.

In it's earliest stages the terminal was owned by 16 of the different railroads that came to St. Louis from the east and west.

Over time the operations have changed and we used to operation Union Station where there used to be up to 100 train moves a day in and out of Union Station.

In the late 1950's into 1960's that operation began to diminish as it did other places in the country.

Ancr: Grand old Union Station which once bustled with trains was abandoned by Amtrak and sold off by the TRRA.

But it is now again a vibrant center of activity in St. Louis.

The place that was once home to classic trains from yesteryear is not home to restaurants and stores.

Travelers stepping aboard to distance destinations are now only an echo in these majestic spaces.

But the stunning building has managed to maintain the flavor of its proud railroad heritage.

Dennis: Today it stands as a really fine example of a redeveloped older facility that has status of it's own and a major attraction is in St. Louis.

Ancr: The Terminal Railroad Association is a living link to the vital history of rail in and around St. Louis.

It maintains more than 200 miles of track, which breaks down to 50 in mainline, 150 in yard and hump yard.

Roughly 2,600 cars roll through each day.

Ownership is condensed and today this is the heart of a streamlined operation that keeps the freight moving.

Dennis: Over time as class-one railroads merged we now come down to the point that we're owned by five class-one railroads, Union Pacific, Norfolk Southern, The BM Santa Fe, CSX and Canadian National/Illinois Central.

Our business has changed.

We own two river bridges now, about 1,800,000 cars a year move over our property and trackage rights.

Our trains are run by our connections with their crews and their power; we also do intermediate switching for about 350,000 cars in our Venice yard, primarily for the BNSF, NS, and the CSX.

Ancr: For this hard working rail operation the future looks bright, customers rely on them day in and day out and show no signs of going elsewhere.

The steady pounding of freight cars and locomotives are at once the sound of tradition and success as we move into a new century where rail is still a key component of transportation.

Dennis: We do expect to be here for the long run, we learned over the last several years that the industry needs switching yard capacity.

That has become most obvious in the aftermath of UP, SP, merger a couple of years ago and then the NS, CSX split in Conrail in 1999.

Ancr: While things have changed, a historic part of rail is still beating strong here in St. Louis.

It is a living testament to the fact that rail works.

That trains are not extinct and that steel rails are still critical arteries of our country.

Museum hours change with the seasons so make sure to give them a call before you go.

Thanks for being with us and please join us next time for more Tracks Ahead.

Music Tracks Ahead Brought to you by Kalmbach Publishing Company Bringing you Model Railroader Magazine every month for over 65 years.

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Kato Manufacturer of precision railroad models and the Unitrack system Walthers Manufacturer and supplier of model railroading products serving the hobby since 1932 The Model Railroad Industry Association A not for profit trade group for professionals in manufacturing, importing, packaging, or publishing model railroad merchandise.

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