Waves of Nostalgia

You never know what you're going to get from me here sometimes...
Today, a friend at work emailed me a link to the failed NBC TV series Supertrain.
I knew of this show though being English I had never seen anything of it because I don't believe it ever made its way to UK television screens.
What it prompted me to remember though was this. Casey Jones*. Starring Alan Hale Jnr.
"Casey Jones, Steamin' and a rollin'
Case Jones you never have to guess
When you hear the tootin' of the whistle
It's Casey at the throttle of the Cannonball Express"
The show was made in 1957-58 in good old black and white. No HDTV then. No colour either. The show must have been a good 10 years old when I saw it on the BBC during the school summer holidays along with shows like The Virginian and Branded. I remember Alan Hale Jnr. as a rather large, chubby, gentleman with his hat and big old engineers gloves on. Quite unlike the pictures of the real Casey Jones and he never met the same fate that I recall. But that is by the by.
It was one of my earliest exposures to railways and railroads the undoubted first is mentioned over there to the right in the about me section and in greater detail here.
Is it why I'm keen on US railroads? I doubt it. Casey never drove an SD70ACe or even an F-7. But it's there lurking in the back of my mind waiting to jump out at me...

*However when most Minnesotans think of "Casey Jones" they recall the lunchtime TV show "Lunch with Casey" that ran from 1954-1972 with Roger Awsumb as Casey Jones.