Foreword

By Marcia Pilgeram

Terry Gainer loves to talk about trains. After a 20-year-long friendship, I’m not surprised that we met over train talk when he simply cold-called me to do just that. At the time, I was the CEO of a small private rail company, and Terry – curious as always – wanted to talk about trains, specifically the one I was operating from Sandpoint, Idaho, to Livingston, Montana. He wanted to know exactly where we went, what kind of equipment we operated and all the other details. When you run a company, you take a lot of phone calls, but that call stuck out in my mind, and, after a while, I found myself looking forward to his increasingly frequent (and inquisitive) calls.

It wouldn’t be long before he was working with me. We collaborated over new tour routes, equipment and industry markets. Terry is a quintessential salesman: he’s talkative, friendly and extremely knowledgeable. While a business venture originally brought us together, it’s a deeply rooted friendship that has kept us together over the course of many years. We both were single parents with daughters of similar age (and the fact we both have Irish blood and the gift of gab weaved into our DNA didn’t hurt either). We both love to share a story or two, over a drink or two. But what we really had in common was our lifelong love of trains. I’ve yet to meet another individual who remembers more about a train – its route and schedule, the exact cars in the consist (and their layout) and, undoubtedly, the name of the conductor he’d met 40 years ago – than my pal, Terry. His extraordinary memory and recall is evident throughout every chapter of this book. His memory is like an old file cabinet, brimming with fascinating details of every train he’s ever encountered and every person he’s ever met.

I have never tired of his stories and had myriad opportunities to hear them as we often criss-crossed the country by plane, train and automobile to meet and collaborate with other train operators, cruise lines, travel agents and the occasional recruits for our growing team. Once, we had a chance to deadhead (reposition) a railcar recently purchased by our company from Chicago to Seattle, and we were positioned as the last car on Amtrak’s Westbound Empire Builder. For whatever reason, we thought it would be a grand idea to bring along a potential sales hire, ensuring we’d have some real quality time for a final interview with this promising candidate. We met at Union Station in Chicago and boarded the newly purchased crew sleeper/baggage car to begin our westward trip.

I’d brought along two days of supplies to nourish us along the route, but it turned out that the train line power had not been connected to our car. Thus, there would be no cooking and no lights, and worse, no air conditioning for our August journey. We left the baggage door ajar and sat on makeshift seats of metal crates and wooden boxes. Though I’d heard many of the train tales of Banff more than once, he told them so well that I always looked forward to hearing them again and again on that trip. We spent two captive days, regaled to the point of tears, with yet more tales of his youthful (mis)adventures. On the rare occasion when the train station stop was long enough, I’d hop off for some real food to share on our baggage-car adventure. And, in the cool of the dark evenings, long after our potential job candidate found his way to his sleeping berth, Terry and I passed many an hour in the baggage compartment, below the starlit sky, pondering the sad demise of real passenger rail service. I will long remember that trip (and the candidate, who not surprisingly, declined our job offer).

Terry has covered thousands of miles by train, and, besides our infamous baggage-car journey, I was lucky enough to have shared many other rail miles with him, perched high in a vintage streamliner dome car, taking in the panoramic views of the Rocky Mountains, where he’d arguably win the debate of whose range of the Rockies was more spectacular. I had to concede: we’ll always agree that nothing compares to his Canadian Rockies (though there’s a lot we still argue over to this day). Even now, I can almost hear the thundering roar of the crowd at the Banff station, and the awe of young Terry, as the sleek Canadian glided into the Banff station for the first time. Terry’s stories transport me to the halcyon days of Banff and the great trains filled with tourists, eager to explore the grand Canadian Rockies.

Over the course of 20 years, I’ve had the good fortune to visit his childhood land of legends and lore and anecdotes, and I’ve even walked a bit of the trail that leads deep into the woods and the den of the notorious Station Bush Gang. It’s not far from the Banff train station, where Terry came of age, in the streamliner age of rail travel. Over the course of his lifetime, he watched first-hand as the old workhorse steam engines were replaced with sleek new diesel locomotives, and dozens of trains rolled through Banff and her iconic mountains, providing unlimited opportunities for Terry and his band of buddies. I’ve met some of these boys and girls from Banff, and I marvel at how the bonds of friendship, cultivated a half-century ago, are still strong to this day.

From a small boy in a polished suit, travelling by train alongside his parents, to the young man who stood overhead the Banff train station to watch the arrival of the future queen of England on her Royal Train, Terry’s stories will fascinate you. You’ll be entertained by the escapades of this self-assured young man who donned the infamous redcap to manhood and then, with a pocketful of summer savings, headed halfway around the world. More than 50 years later, his wanderlust continues, and I frequently bid him farewell as he heads off on yet another adventure. But his heart is deeply rooted in his beloved “Banff the Beautiful,” and he’s never forgotten about his lifelong friends, “The Boys and Girls from Banff.” And after you’ve read the recollections of this adventurous young man, from a simple mountain village, I suspect you won’t either.