George were the shacks at the UP-Milw crossing still there when you arrived on the scene. That was a favorite spot of mine for watching trains back in the 60's and 70's. One of the shack doors had "TEX K-T" deeply carved into the wood.
Through most of the 80's I had a girlfriend that was an exercise girl at Long Acres. She would leave very early in the morning to gallop the race horses around the track. Her father raised race horses as a sideline and her sister was a jockey there during the 80's.
One time my brother and I were walking the UP tracks just south of Southcenter and the UP switch job stopped when they saw us and asked if we would prefer to ride with them. They were very nice and we enjoyed the ride with them. To be fair, earlier during the 60's, an NP switch job also picked us up at the NP depot on Burnett Ave. S, before they headed down to switch the mills where Gene Coulon Park is today. I thought it was a very nice gesture on the crews part to let young guys experience their job. I had other informal train rides, all given just to give us young guys a good experience, which we found thrilling, especially blasting the horn for the crossings.