{"id":12670,"date":"2015-12-27T14:27:04","date_gmt":"2015-12-27T19:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monocoque-metalworks.com\/main\/?p=12670"},"modified":"2015-12-27T15:36:01","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T20:36:01","slug":"holiday-fun-in-the-family-e-type","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monocoque-metalworks.com\/main\/2015\/12\/holiday-fun-in-the-family-e-type\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Fun in the Family E-Type!"},"content":{"rendered":"

When I was a kid (I start off alot of stories like that…), in addition to driving my E-Type and working at the Jag shop, my father and I got into 1920’s antique cars pretty heavy for a while.\u00a0 We were both very interested in Pre-16 cars, but really just couldn’t afford the ones we really wanted\u00a0 – Lozier, Stearns-Knight, etc.<\/p>\n

What we COULD afford – and what seemed ridiculously cheap to us – were “orphan” cars of the 20’s.\u00a0 It seemed like anything POST-1916 was unwanted by anyone.\u00a0 In keeping with the holiday theme of this post, cars from 1917 to about 1927 were most likely to be found on the island of misfit toys…<\/p>\n

And so in about 1991, we had a 1927 Paige-Detroit 2-door sedan that we cut down and restored as a 2-man board-track racer, and then my father bought and restored – and heavily improved – a 1923 American LaFrance speedster.<\/p>\n

We drove these cars around quite a bit, and one of our favorite adventures was “chasing the train…”<\/p>\n

The Wilmington & Western railroad is an excursion railroad in Delaware that runs a steam train on the weekends along the Red Clay Creek.\u00a0 In it’s short stretch of remaining track (10 miles?…), the railroad tracks, creek, and nearby roads criss-cross each other about a dozen times, and so you can wait for the train at a crossing, and then “race” it to the next crossing.\u00a0 Which of course sounds exciting, but since the train goes about 10 miles an hour – if that – it’s not much of a race and you ALWAYS win!<\/p>\n

A couple of weekends ago, I was looking for something to do with the kids and I decided to take them out for their first “train-racing” adventure to race the Santa train.\u00a0 The steam train is always a MUCH bigger deal during the holidays.<\/p>\n

To set the mood, I drove down to the station and showed the kids the train while they were loading up.\u00a0 Unfortunately, the steam engine was not running today for some problem or another, although the DID have it out and fired up – to pump steam into the cars for the heating system!\u00a0 Instead, they were pulling the train with a small diesel yard switcher engine – which is all you need for this train, really…<\/p>\n

But I knew they would still love it, and to get them juiced up, I then drove out along the route, and we “practiced” racing from crossing to crossing.\u00a0 The practice session was VERY exciting – much more so than the real thing – as I blasted along in the Jag as fast as I dared with the kids in the car, all the time yelling about how we are not going to beat the imaginary train, and bellowing out “chugga-chugga” sound effects!\u00a0 They were loving it and laughing hysterically at my antics – as usual…<\/p>\n

Then we went back to the first crossing out in the country, and laid in wait while we set up the perfect camera shot.\u00a0 Enjoy!<\/p>\n