"My Model Subway"

As a New Yorker a hardened citizen of the Emerald City I have a love hate relationship with our subways. It gets us all where we need to go, and gets us there mostly alive. 

No so during the bad times in the 1970's through the early 90's when you had good odds to be robbed or outright killed in the tunnels. However these daze so far so good.

Btw that was the 'only' time In my life I voted Republican. Rudy Giuliani saved our collective butts back then. Yeah sure I loved Dinkins, and voted for him the first time, but hey.  The City was dying, and we needed a Tough Guy to save our asses,...and old Rudy did.

Dinkins was a Peace-Time Mayor, but we were at War, and losing. So I voted Republican, and Giuliani.   ...I'd do it again too. It was 'that' bad back then.

'But to trains!

Back in the day when I was a kid they didn't make subway electric trains sets...yeah you could have one made, and rich kids did, but that wasn't us. My Dad was a train fan, and filled our basement from one end to the other with a giant Lionel layout.

It was seriously cool.  

We weren't well off just regular working class folks which back then meant we had a good life. 

We could afford the things that made life worth while. That btw included electric train layouts all over the basement with drove my Mom nuts...but that's another story I'll tell sometime.

Don't get me started on what became of that former class. The backbone of the country..."The Working Class". They went from working class to working poor to underclass.

There needs to be a fucking Revolution in this sad country.

Still...about the trains. My dad made a kind of subway for me. He constructed a lower subway level to the layout. For subway cars he used regular Lionel passenger cars with a diesel engine pushing them. He even made little subway stations with the names of our local stops on them.

Whadda Guy!

Dad loved trains because of my Grandpa whom I never knew...he died before I was born. He worked on the railroad. We had a farm, but my Grand-uncles ran that, and  Grandpa did trains.

So Dad did Lionel's, and I do HO Subways. Dad would've really dug them...I miss him.

Listen to the clicks of the wheels on the rails on the video below. This is the music we all grew up with. It put us to sleep on long runs. 

It's actually one of the tourista attractions of this town. That, and all the damned steam that's always shooting out of our streets, and sidewalks.