Sorry Tom--I know that you wanted this to be a serious thread, but for some reason, Pasco, WA popped into my head. In this part of the U.S., it is as if you were vacationing in another country--the sounds of the music blaring from passing cars, the smells wafting in from nearby dining establishments, some of the local signage--you would swear that you were someplace exotic. But, that's just me.
I was thrilled to spend a night in a caboose in the depths of the Feather River Canyon in 1985 (It was the silver WP M.O.W. caboose). The Highway was officially closed, but us UP employees had access due to having to get in to put our tracks back together. We had reopened the Tobin quarry as a sourse of riprap and boulders. As the on-site Engineering Department rep., I had the 7PM to 7AM shift at the pit. M.K. would do a blast at about 8PM, and I would walk the mainline looking for "flyrock" and clean things up. The rest of the night would be spent with loaders piling up rock for the next day's work trains. One night, the train came in to get loaded after the blast. (It got held at Camp Rodgers until I checked the track). The train's M.O.W. flagman was out of hours, so I handled the radio as we loaded it up and put it away in the spur. I usually would spend the night in the cab of a truck or piece of equipment that wasn't being used (and no--I didn't get to sleep while on-duty). That particular night, I had the work train caboose to use--with its working stove and lights. It was really easy to get my daily report and other paperwork done--getting out only to roll trains past and go to the dispatcher phone to check for trains when the contractor needed to get something across the tracks. It was the highlight of an otherwiae miserable 10-day assignment.