Half the time, I couldn’t find them after the NP “Cannon Ball” smashed them while high balling thru town.
Somewhere in the tiny town of Rosalia, Wa. are some flat pennies, nickles and one quarter.
After I lost the quarter, I quit that expensive hobby.
When I was a kid, we used to walk home from elementary school using the Boston and Maine commuter line as a shortcut. We must have put at least 200 pennies on the tracks in my 6 years of walking to school. Often times, I read about the number of kids killed walking the tracks and think to myself that it was a miracle we weren’t killed (especially with commuter Bud cars making frequent trips). But, the real killer was this: We read somewhere that if you placed your ear right on the rail, you could hear the train clacking down the tracks from miles away. Of course, we used to do that along with the penny routine. Oh, to be 10 years old again! btw…when we put our ear to the track…it worked!
john papadonis said::) We did this too. Now, when I'm railfanning, I put my palm and fingers to the rail. You can feel the vibration from a train many miles away. Ralph
We read somewhere that if you placed your ear right on the rail, you could hear the train clacking down the tracks from miles away.
Ralph Berg said:The accused remains mute.Fred Mills said:Nah...........it's Steve. He won't pay for sound. It was probably Flank steak :D Ralph
....but, Ralph....there there thingy, wasn't a carrot, it was a high protein "Steak", probably grade AA or better, .......
I doubt that the pennies being minted now would flatten like that. They are no longer made of bronze. Most of the penny is some kind of white metal with some form of bronze-colored coating or plating. They would most likely just leave a dusty residue. 
I remember one time while running #65 for the W,K&S, a kid waited until the locomotive was only about eight feet away to bend down and put a penny on the rail head. Never knew until then that I could play “Nearer my God to Thee” on the whistle! Knew the kid’s father, and gave his Dad some “enlightenment” about how close his boy came to being as flat as that penny. I figured “Dear Old Dad” knew the best way to impress the severity of the danger to his son. That was the mid-1970s, when parents still did their own parenting.
Still had some penney parking meters back then,
David Meashey
As a kid I lived near a old decrepit line with maybe 1 or 2 lite freights moving through per month. I could hear the whistle and take off running through the woods and meet the train to watch it slowly go by over the disintagrating sleepers. I put lots of pennies on those tracks over the years. I had heard if you put your ear to the rail you can hear a train so one day after the train trundled by I jumped onto the tracks put my ear to the rail and promplty got stung by a couple of hornets (not on the ear) . The ties were falling apart so badly that hornets had made a nest in one and they didn’t like the train interupting their routine. Fun days none the less.
Here is a good e-bay deal. This keeps coming up on e-bay. You would think the guy would get the hint and lower the price. Check it out. Klamazoo flat car that has a cheesy christmas theme. It can be yours for 49 and change plus 12.95 in shipping. What a joke. How many time do you put this up and realise no one wants to spend that much.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Kalamazoo-Toy-Trains-Santa-fe-Christmas-Car-nicely-decorated-/160723617799?pt=Model_RR_Trains&hash=item256bdfc807
That K’zoo flat’d go nicely with your wife’s eggliner collection.
I have some nickles that was rail rolled