Oh showing my age here again. My home town was a flag stop for the Santa Fe railroad. if there were passengers to pick up, the station manager had huge flags he'd fly to stop the train. If it didn't need to stop there was a hook on the station to snag the mail bad as they passed, I learned a lot of geography on train trips. and time from time tables.
By the time I was 15 I was making multiple state trips on my own.