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Here an engineer is someone who designs or fixes things.

My grandfather, who died over 30 years before I was born, drove a train for the Big Four.

Glad to see you enjoying your time here, MG. I always enjoy reading your posts.

In the US, too. Fnord is that sort of engineer.

What do you call the person who drives the train?

... believe it or not, the traindriver.

Thanks. Which one of the big four did he drive for?

I never heard the term before. And I am an American who is old enough to have traveled in Pullman trains (the classic American passenger trains of the Twentieth Century).

Had to go to Wiki myself.

The "Big Four" apparently, was a nickname for the "Central Pacific Railroad" that served the US west of the Rockies up until recent times.

Originally it meant the four tycoons and philanthropists who got together to build a rail road that would link up with the other rail road coming west from the civilized eastern US way back in the pre Civil War frontier days (ie to create our first transcontinental railroad). Imagine if Bill Gates, Forbes, Buffet, and Branson, got together to start a new Apollo Program. It was the 1850's equivalent of that. But I digress.

I think it was originally known as the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad.

That would be a different thing from what I ran across on Wiki when I googled "Big four railroad". A more recent railroad that served the northwest part of the eastern US. Nothing to do with the Central Pacific in California.

A friend of my parents once mentioned riding the "Corn, Beef, and Cabbage Railroad". Forget now what the actual railroad that was a nickname for . I am guessing that it was "the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy" that served a big chunk of the prairie midwest (where they grow corn, beef, and cabbage).

Ah. Sorry. I missunderstood as in the UK the term "Big Four" referred to the period between an event known as "Grouping" and another event known as "Nationalization". Now grouping happened as a predecessor with nationalization in mind. Grouping took place in 1923 though it actually started in 1922. It was basically all the old private railway companies which were part if the national standard gauge system (Standard gauge was once called narrow gauge in the broad gauge days but became known as standard gauge when broad gauge was abandoned. Broad gauge was origionally 7'0" and standard gauge was origionally 4'8", but when train speeds increased above 60 mph, they had to widen both gauges slightly to allow trains to pass through curves at speed, so broad gauge had an extra quarter of an inch added and standard gauge had half an inch added).
So the standard gauge if 4ft 8 and a half inch network which consisted of a great many railway comanies who all had to have various agreements to pass over each others lines were reformed to create four big companies. Two of these companies already existed and were wealthy enough to buy out many smaller concerns in their area to do this and the other two were entirely new companies made from reforming many if the old companies in their areas. These four companies became known as "The Big Four". They were the Great Western Railway (GWR), the Southern Railway (SR), the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) and the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER).
These were all privately owned companies which ran the majority of Britains railways (Excluding most narrow gauges and the various little industrial lines built to serve private factories etc which often had their own PSA (Privats siding arrangement) with one of the big four companies).
Now after WW2 (Actually before that date as the effects of the USA depression hit the UK in the 1930's so some companies were financially struggling even before WW2) the big four had had such a hammering due to the effects of the war and lack of maintenence etc that they would probably never have recvered, so the government in its day decided to take over all Britains railaays i to one single government owned railway company known as "British Railways" in 1948. (It was later re-named British Rail around 1968 under a large modernization and rationalization plan where the double arrows symbol was adopted. Prior to this, the British Railways had a lion and wheel symbol which could be seen in four different forms over the years).
So to sum up, in Britain, the Big Four means something different to what it does in the USA. Sorry for the confusion.

MountainGoat: It is so refreshing to read positive-themed experiences of WrongPlanet. Too often, it's natural be outspoken when discussing negative experiences.

We need to share positive experiences on those quiet efforts to understand, and help with the challenges of both the Autism Spectrum, and life in general.

I had read about your interest in creative-writing workshops. Creative-writing was one of those awesome subjects I had in middle-school; and still serves me well to this day.

I've had an interest in both participating, and boosting creative writing, and arts programs in my local community.

Good-luck on the creative-writing workshop!

Creative writing workshop is not my post. I replied to someone elses post. I had "Workshop" in my mind thinking it must be some sort of shed to write in?
I am very creative, but usually in different forms. I love to see creativity though. It is something special, even if I may not be into the specific subject, I appreciate the effort and the inventiveness of what has been done. For example, when I posted on a model railway forum about creativity and being different in regards to model trains, someone made a comment "As long as it's not Steampunk. I hate Steampunk".
Well, I did not know what steampunk was, so I looked it up. I was so taken back by the creativity and individuality of it all So much so that I am greatful to the man because he mwntioned it! While what I make is not steampunk in style, the creativity aspect to my own style is just as unique.
The strange thing is, that on the one hand I am a conventional traditionalist. On the other hand I love creativity and being different.
About a year or two ago, I was looking at Youtube to hear some songs I remember from the 1970's and the 1980's. For a while I was listening to Blondie. Now Debbie Harry was friends with Cyndi Lauper as they had met on at least one occasion. Due to this, Cyndi Lauper was on a yourube suggestion. Well, I knew about "Girls Just Want To Have Fun", but most of her other songs... I started to listen and WOW! How did I miss these? Everything is so creative. The music videos. The music... Wow! The colours! Everything!
Well, I amy not like everything she did, as to be fair, she has sung songs from many different extremes and certainly no one on this earth can accuse Cyndi of taking the easy route like many pop artists have done to become famous (It still requires work though). And that's what I love about Cyndi. Even when she sings songs that have been sung before many times, she puts her own style and brings such control and feeling into it, that it is almost an entirely new song by itself!
And here is where maturity comes in. Immature people copy. We have all been there and done that. It is how we learn. It is neccessary to be immature so we can develop our skills and learn to discover what we like and what we don't like. We then start developing our own style... Now when we have reached the point of developing our own style we have become mature in whatever subject we have decided to follow. Immaturity is not a bad thing. It is part of a process. Making many mistakes is neccessary and is one of the most valueable lessons in the process of learning. Look at any expert in any given subject, and they have probably made more mistakes and errors then you have. And yet they are experts. Why? They have learnt what works and what does not through experience.
No one can be called an expert if they have no hands on experience in their specialist subject. For example, how can one be an expert welder if one has spent a life time of study about welding, but never actually tried to weld? Sadly I sometimes see so called "Experts" on TV who it is plain to see do not actually have any experience on the subjects they talk about. Knowing all there is to know is great, but unless it can be put into practical use, what use is it?
So coming back to creativity. Go for it. Give it a go. Experiment. Try things. (Try to find cheap ways to try things out so if ones attempts don't work it does not matter. Think of experimenting as a process of perfecting omes skills. Skills are generally about learning methods rather then any special ability. And these methods can vary from one person to the next as they find out what works for them... This is individual style!)

We love having you Mountain Goat. I am so glad you are here. I am so glad that we have become friends. I tell you, I have made some amazing and very dear friends on this site over the years. There is nothing like being with people who can understand and empathize and share your experiences. I am very grateful for this site as well.

Thank you Skibum. You're a gem!

Awww, thank you Mountain Goat!

I agree, MG! You're the best.