My First Train Ride

   

Do you remember the first time you rode on a train or an airplane? Maybe a voyage on a ship figures high on your memory chart. 

I grew up in a Chicago suburb so we rode commuter trains downtown and to other suburbs, but the first passenger train I traveled on left me with vivid memories. It was May of 1944 and I was about to celebrate my 5th birthday in Phoenix, Arizona--a much different Phoenix than the sprawling metropolis we know today. Our travel party consisted of my mother, my little brother who was about 18 months old, my grandmother and me. We traveled on a troop train that carried a minimum number of civilians. It was a time of war with rationing, shortages, grief and more. As a small child, I was aware of little of that. 

The four of us had a private compartment that had two sleeping berths, a wash basin and a private toilet. There were little cone-shaped paper cups in a container near the mirror over the sink. I was fascinated by them and asked for a drink of water more than I ever did at home. How my parents managed this is a mystery to me to this day. Mine was not a wealthy family, not even close to it. I imagine my dad knew someone who knew someone and so on. 

We were on the train for two days and two nights. I remember being excited about going to Phoenix to celebrate my birthday with my Aunt Jane and Uncle Paul, Aunt Pearl and Uncle John and my cousin, Yvonne. Yvonne, I had been told, had her own Playhouse behind the big house where her family lived. That Playhouse was high on my list of things to see.

During the daytime, Mother let me wander up and down the aisle of our train car, something no mother today would do. Every seat was taken by a military man. It took me a long time to get from one end of the car to the other because the soldiers and other military men all wanted to talk to me. Many of them gave me a stick of gum or a piece of chocolate. It was great entertainment for a little girl. 

We had to wait in long, long lines to use the dining car. My grandmother took me while Mother stayed with my little brother. When we came back with something for him to eat, it was Mother's turn to stand in line, moving from car to car to car until finally reaching the dining car. Standing up while the train moved at high speed (high for those days) was not always easy, nor was it nice to cross over the coupling area between cars, looking down at the ground zipping by below. I clutched Grandma's hand and jumped over that zig-zagging space each time we moved to another car. 

In the evening, the porter came to our compartment to make up the berths for us. The two bench seats that faced one another during the day, spread out to become a bed. The upper berth pulled down from a door in the upper wall. There was a ladder for me and Grandma to climb to our upper berth. Great fun for a little girl. Maybe not so much for Grandma! The motion of the train and the sound of the wheels on the tracks below us served as a fine lullaby that put me to sleep quite soon. 

In the morning, the lines for the dining car were just as long, the soldiers just as friendly and the train just as exciting to a little girl. 

Write your own story about your first time on a train, plane or ship. It's something you can put into your Family Stories Book.