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Railroad Newsline for Friday, June 01, 2007

Compiled by Larry W. Grant

In Memory of Rob Carlson, 1952 – 2006

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RAIL NEWS

TUNNEL, RAILS MARK CRICKET

Photo here:

[images.zwire.com]

Caption reads: John Parton enters the Cricket tunnel near Omaha. The tunnel was the second longest of the five tunnels on the White River Division of the Iron Mountain, later Missouri Pacific Railroad. The nearby Crest tunnel was the longest. (Daily Times Photo/David Holsted)

CRICKET, AR -- At a small depot in the secluded northern Arkansas community of Cricket, two young lovers would meet for an evening of courtship. It wasn't an elaborate or expensive date, usually consisting of just walking up and down the railroad tracks.

As the young people strolled along the tracks, the sun probably glinted off the steel rails and the wind rustled through the trees, much as it did decades later as John Parton of Harrison stood near the site.

It was Parton's parents, Elmer and Juanita, who met down by the railroad track so many years ago, to spark, as he called it. Cricket, which was located a mile or two southwest of Omaha, now exists pretty much in name only. A graffiti-covered, bullet-riddled sign and the concrete base of a track signal now marks the location of the Cricket depot. A dilapidated shack across the road where Parton's grandfather once lived and the J.B. Graves Canning Company down the road are remnants of a bustling community that had stores, boarding houses and hotels, as well as a busy railroad depot.

Traveling medicine shows and sideshows used to stop in Cricket to entertain railroad workers and local residents.

Cricket still had the railroad, though.

As Parton spoke, the sound of a train whistle came from the northwest. A few moments later, the Branson Scenic Railway train appeared. Unlike trains of even 50 years ago, the train did not stop at Cricket, but rumbled past. Through the windows of the passenger cars, the faces of tourists could be seen. Some laughed and waved and a few seconds later, they were gone. A quarter mile down the track, the train entered the Cricket tunnel.

Parton, who grew up in the Omaha area, turned and walked down the track toward the tunnel as the last of the Branson train disappeared into its opening.

A smoky mist, no doubt from the train's exhaust, could be seen rising up around the tunnel's opening. It gave the scene a movie-like effect and as Parton entered the tunnel, it was as if he were going back into time.

The railroad was part of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain and Southern Railroad, but most people knew it simply as the Iron Mountain. According to James R. Fair, Jr., in his book "The North Arkansas Line," a history of railroads in the state, the Iron Mountain went 266 miles from Newport to Carthage, Missouri, and the 97-mile center section, the part that went through Cricket, was known as the White River Division. After entering Arkansas, the line went through Cricket, Bergman and Zinc, then through Marion County before following the White River.

As early as 1882, Fair wrote, the Iron Mountain made known its intentions of building a railroad to take advantage of the rich zinc deposits discovered in northern Arkansas. It wasn't until 1901, however, that a charter was granted. The first spike on the Iron Mountain was driven on Jan. 21, 1902.

It took five years and $10 million to build the Iron Mountain railroad. The line provided much needed jobs, not only construction, but maintenance, for residents of the Ozarks. Two of those workers were Parton's grandfathers, who moved to Cricket, to work on the railroad. His father also was a railroad man.

In 1917, the Iron Mountain merged with the Missouri Pacific.

John Parton owns a collection of wonderful old photographs showing the early days of the Iron Mountain/Missouri Pacific line around Cricket. The collection belonged to his uncle Herb. One tattered photo shows a group of prisoners, many in the familiar striped uniform, as they labored during the original construction of the railroad. The barren rocky landscape shows little resemblance to the current one. Another shows construction of the Crest tunnel, located a few miles from the Cricket tunnel and the longest of the five tunnels on the White River Division.

There's a photograph showing members of the Parton family, all steel driving men, along with their boss. In the treeless distance is the Cricket tunnel. Like the most famous steel driving man, the legendary John Henry, the Partons' job was to drive eight-foot steel rods into the rocky Ozark terrain. Explosives placed into the holes would be detonated and the resulting rubble would be used as fill in the construction of trestles.

Working on the railroad was a backbreaking endeavor, according to Parton. In addition to constructing tunnels and trestles, all without the benefit of today's modern equipment, crews had to lay track, which consisted of 30-foot sections that had to be bolted down.

The work was at times dangerous. Parton recounted a story he'd been told about a railroad worker who was killed and his body buried on top of the hill above Cricket tunnel. An engineer who had the unfortunate habit of sticking his head out of the locomotive as it went through the tunnel was killed when he hit a steel beam sticking out of the wall.

Despite working 10 to 12 hours a day, however, and earning maybe $6 a week, the men who worked on the Missouri Pacific considered themselves fortunate to have such a great job. They fondly referred to the railroad as the "Mop."

"They pretty well worked them like animals," Parton said, "but they were still proud of being railroaders."

According to Parton, the railroad men didn't even acknowledge the highways that were sprouting up all over the country.

"To them, there was only one road. That was the railroad," he said.

Blacks brought in from St. Louis and Kansas City especially loved the Missouri Pacific. At a time when blacks earned very little and endured severe discrimination, those who worked on the railroad made good money.

Parton recalled that the railroad provided bunk cars, parked on a sidetrack in Cricket, for the black workers to stay in while they were in the area.

The blacks were not allowed to wander into the adjoining community, so they made up their own entertainment around the bunk cars. They were also a source of wonderment and entertainment to the locals, who'd had little contact with blacks. Parton said that, as a small boy, he would go with relatives to the bluff overlooking the tracks and watch the black workers. Some, Parton said, might be rolling dice, some might be singing and worshipping with upraised arms, while others might be drinking whiskey.

Following World War II, as the importance of the railroads died, so did the community of Cricket.

The last passenger train stopped in Cricket in about 1960. The death blow to the Missouri Pacific was the loss of mail service in that same year.

The Missouri and North Arkansas Railroad purchased the line in 1992. It handles local freight, as well as some coal and grain and the Branson Scenic Railway utilizes the track.

Inside the Cricket tunnel, the air was considerably cooler than outside. The acrid smell of the recently passed diesel train lingered. The high curved walls of the tunnel were covered with decades' worth of soot from countless locomotives. After a steam train would pass through the tunnel, Parton said, it would take 20 minutes for the smoke and steam to clear out.

Parton turned and made his way back toward Cricket. The new tracks of the M&NA line ran parallel to the original Iron Mountain tracks, now a seldom used sidetrack. A small turtle, moving resolutely through the broken glass, rusty tin cans and pieces of electronics that littered the tracks, was the only sign of life in Cricket. - David Holsted, The Harrison (AR) Daily Times

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GE UNVEILS FIRST HYBRID ROAD LOCOMOTIVE

Last week, General Electric (GE) unveiled its one-of-a-kind hybrid road locomotive at its Ecomagination event in Los Angeles. GE’s Evolution® Hybrid locomotive debuted in the city’s historic Union Station to demonstrate the progress that GE Transportation is making in developing a freight-hybrid locomotive capable of recycling thermal energy as stored power in onboard batteries.

This demonstration hybrid unit was one of many technologies featured at the Ecomagination event that are being developed and will be used in the rail industry to reduce smog-causing emissions, including nitrous oxide emissions, and particulate matter.

Several GE customers, including BNSF, are serving on GE’s advisory board for the development of hybrid technology.

"BNSF is committed to helping develop new technologies that benefit our operations as well as the environment," said Matt Rose, BNSF chairman, president and CEO. "We are proud to be partners with GE on the development of the hybrid locomotive, alternative fuel research and the testing of other technologies that optimize the performance of our locomotive fleets."

"This hybrid demonstration unit is another example of our commitment to invest in technology and bring new, innovative concepts to life," said John Dineen, president and CEO, GE Transportation. "We will continue to support Ecomagination by engineering product offerings that help customers improve fuel efficiency, reduce emissions and sustain a long life of reliable service."

The Evolution® Hybrid diesel-electric prototype will feature a series of innovative batteries that will capture and store energy dissipated during dynamic braking. The energy stored in the batteries will reduce fuel consumption and emissions by as much as 10 percent compared with most of the freight locomotives in use today.

Before the GE hybrid locomotive is offered commercially, the engineering team will continue work and analysis on the innovative lead-free rechargeable batteries and corresponding control systems onboard the locomotive. - BNSF Today

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ANOTHER OFF WEEK FOR RAILROAD TRAFFIC, SAYS AAR

WASHINGTON, DC -- Carload freight and intermodal traffic on United States railroads were both down for the week ending May 26 compared to the same timeframe last year, the Association of American Railroads (AAR) reported today.

The AAR said that intermodal volume totaled 235,682 trailers or containers for the week ending May 26, which was down 1.0 percent from the corresponding week in 2006. Intermodal container volume was up 1.9 percent, and intermodal trailer volume was down 10.7 percent.

And carload freight, which does not include intermodal data, came in at 335,282 cars for the week, down 4.7 percent from the same week last year. Carload loadings were down 5.3 percent in the west and 4.0 percent in the east. The AAR said total volume was estimated at 34.3 billion ton-miles, which is down 2.8 percent from 2006.

Of the 19 carload commodity groups tracked by the AAR, 15 were down from last year, with farm products down 21.0 percent and metallic ores down 27.1 percent. Food & kindred products were up 3.5 percent, and coke loadings were up 14.9 percent.

Cumulative volume for the first 21 weeks of 2007 totaled 6,767,487 carloads, which was down 4.5 percent from the same week in 2006, said the AAR. Trailers or containers -- at 4,785, 303 -- was off 1.2 percent and total volume of an estimated 688.7 billion ton-miles was down 3.1 percent year-over-year. - Logistics Management

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RAILROAD YARNS

BIGFORK, MT -- Sometime in the long long ago in this column, we told a wonderful story about a historic baseball game played beside the railroad tracks near Snowslip, this side of the Continental Divide. The fine laid-back attitude of our pioneers was clearly illustrated by the tale Bob Gatiss related.

Bob, the man who created the beautiful Gatiss Gardens at Creston, lived to be near a hundred and was a good friend to hundreds of Flathead citizens. Bob recalled going east on the Great Northern passenger train with his parents around 1910. This side of the Divide the train encountered a rock slide that had blocked the tracks, and the conductor came through the cars to tell people there would be a delay while the tracks were cleared.

Bob said there was a fairly flat meadow near where they were stopped and some of the passengers rounded up a bat and ball ... even a few mitts. There were enough interested people to make two teams, so they started a baseball game. It was a closely fought, tie game at the end of four innings and in the middle of fifth the train engineer blew the whistle to get the passengers back on board. Bob remembered that just about everyone, including the spectators, was upset and wanted to stay there until the game was finished.


Here we are a hundred years later, zooming frantically along a double lane highway at 70 miles per hour, in a terrible rush for no defensible reason.

Recalled Bob’s baseball story this week while reading some old-timer recollections from a book compiled by local historians in 1956. The idea of that ‘56 program was to find and interview still-living pioneers who had settled the Flathead in the 1800s. Many many recollections were gathered and the one I’m repeating here was written down by a man named G.M. Houtz in 1937.

Naturally, neither I nor anyone else can verify these two tales to be solid facts; however, I love these stories and want to believe them with all my heart:

“There was a time some 15 years after the Great Northern was completed to the coast when the rails and roadbed had gotten in such a state that the traffic was too much for them. Derailments and more serious accidents were of almost daily occurrence; in one month there was a record of 42 such mishaps, fortunately most of them were without fatalities. In a number of cases these mischances were not without their laughable features. Two are recalled.

“Once when Charles Buckley was at the throttle, his engine and a car or two were derailed a short distance east of Belton (Now West Glacier). The locomotive rolled down the bank and landed in the Middle Fork river. Rescuers found ail the other train men but could not locate Buckley. Finally, after all other possibilities had been canvassed, they clamored down the high bank to investigate the half-submerged locomotive. There they found the missing engineer sitting on the pilot of the machine and ... calmly fishing.

“During this same period Silas Schutts locomotive was derailed at a time when there were heavy snowdrifts, and the river was frozen overt Schutt’s machine left the rails near Essex and rolled down to the river, turning over several times as it went. Schutt went with it, and was found almost unhurt in the cab. His rescuers asked him why he did not blow the whistle?

“I did. “ he said, “Every time the top was up.”

- The End-

Wouldn’t it be great if some eager young history scholar rounded up all these old time Great Northern Railroad yarns and put ‘em in a book? Maybe I’ll do that… after I retire. - George Ostrom, The Bigfork Eagle

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PENINSULA DRIVERS CITED FOR IGNORING RAILROAD CROSSING RULES

SANTA CLARA, CA -- Police officers handed out more than 100 traffic citations up and down the Peninsula to motorists who officers say tried to pass the railroad tracks illegally.

KCBS reporter Matt Bigler in the Silicon Valley noted that most of the time when drivers try to sneak around an approaching train, they get away with it. But not yesterday.

Working with Cal train, officers from San Francisco to Gilroy took six hours to stake out railroad crossings to watch drivers who cross the tracks illegally.

"We had one example of one young lady who had just gotten her drivers license and she attempted to go through a crossing as the lights began to flash and the gates began to come down and it wasn't because she was being careless, it was because she was not aware that when the lights begin to flash, you should stop," said Christine Dunn of Cal train.

That is the law.

The enforcement is part of an effort to cut down on the rising number of deaths at railroad tracks. - KCBS, Radio 740 AM, San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose, CA

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ALL ABOARD!

NORTHERN COLORADO State Fair patrons will have a chance to ride a historic train to the Fair this year, thanks to the efforts of Rep. John Salazar; Pueblo lawyers Joe and Jim Koncilja; their sister, Denver lawyer Frances Koncilja; and the Union Pacific Railroad.

UP will be supplying the steam engine Challenger No. 3985 as well as the vintage passenger cars Columbine, Portland Rose, Sherman Hill, Colorado Eagle, City of LA, Katy Flyer, City of San Francisco and Idaho.

The train trip is scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 25. It will leave Denver’s Union Station at 07:30 hours and arrive at Pueblo’s Union Depot by 11:30 hours. Visitors will be greeted by local and state dignitaries, the Pride City Band, strolling mariachi singers, and State Fair Parade floats.
Challenger 3985 is one of the world’s largest operating steam engine locomotives. It is part of the Union Pacific Heritage Collection.

The last time No. 3985 was in Pueblo was on June 6, 1997, when it came from Tennessee Pass through Pueblo and then on south. This will be its first trip ever between Denver and Pueblo.

Dick Hartman, a UP government affairs representative, said recently, ”We look forward to bringing a piece of living history to this part of our rail network. We are extremely proud of our collection of historical railroad equipment, especially our steam locomotives. Our Heritage Collection is the largest of any U.S. railroad.”

In making the announcement that the trip plans had been finalized, Rep. Salazar, D-Manassa, said, “I hope this will be an annual event promoting the State Fair and our great city” of Pueblo. “I guarantee this will be a weekend excursion northern Colorado visitors won’t want to miss.”

We commend Rep. Salazar, the Koncilja family and the Union Pacific for making this trip a reality, one which we have championed for years. We join Rep. Salazar in his hope that this train trip indeed will become an annual event, helping to showcase Pueblo and the state’s end-of-summer celebration, the Colorado State Fair. - Editorial Opinion, The Pueblo Chieftain

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WOMAN CRUSADES FOR 'QUITE ZONE' TO DERAIL TRAIN NOISE

SECURITY, CO -- For more than a decade, Fran Smith lived in peace and relative quiet in a neighborhood a block from the railroad tracks.

Sure she heard the trains -- they blow their horns whenever they approach two nearby crossings -- but it wasn’t an issue.

Until now. In the past few years, something has changed. So much so that Smith is leading an effort to silence the trains that cross Main Street in Security and Fontaine Boulevard in Widefield -- two unincorporated suburbs in El Paso County.

She said many of her neighbors have rallied around her.

“I’ve lived here since 1991, and they weren’t as bad as they are now,” Smith said.

She blames a combination of factors. The trains are more frequent -- as many as 37 a day between the BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad. Their horns are louder and more obnoxious, and sometimes it’s whoever has their hand on the horn.

“Sometimes a train goes through and honks once,” she said. “The next train will honk five or six times. There is no standard.”

She said federal rules dictating a precise series of short and long blasts as trains approach crossings generally are ignored.

It’s gotten so bad Smith can’t sleep at night.

She was inspired to seek a federally designated “quiet zone” after reading news of a similar effort in Colorado Springs to take advantage of new federal rules that allow trains to run silently through towns if crossings are upgraded with gates, medians, flashing lights and sensors to tell engineers the safety devices are in operation.

Smith wrote the railroads, contacted officials in the Springs and appealed to the county to intervene. She found an ally in Dennis Hisey, El Paso County commissioner.

“We’ve got 10,000 people living within a half-mile of those two crossings,” Hisey said. “A lot of people are having trouble sleeping.”

He should know because he lives about a mile from the tracks and hears them coming and going.

Hisey said he’s gotten many calls and complaints about the trains since a Side Streets story in January about efforts in Colorado Springs to muffle the trains rolling past the Mill Street neighborhood.

Hisey said he conducted a listening tour of neighborhoods near the tracks and was shocked at just how loud the trains can be.

“If you are inside a house in winter, with the windows closed and you are watching TV, you absolutely lose whatever they are saying until the train passes,” Hisey said.

Luckily for Security-Widefield residents, the state upgraded the two crossings when U.S. 85-87 was improved a couple years ago. Hisey thinks the county needs only a few more sensors installed to complete the upgrades.

He’ll find out for sure in a couple weeks when officials of the BNSF Railway arrive to inspect the crossings. Union Pacific officials also must inspect the crossings to assure compliance with federal regulations. Then, possibly, a quiet zone can be enacted.

“If it takes an act of Congress, then let’s do it,” Smith said. “I love my home and my neighborhood. I don’t want to move. And I won’t, until I’m told they can’t solve it.” - Bill Vogrin, The Colorado Springs Gazette

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LET'S NOT WAIT UNTIL HAZARDS ROLL OFF TRACKS

JANESVILLE, WI -- We understand that the state budget is tight. But the adage about being penny wise and pound foolish is appropriate when railing about the Wisconsin & Southern Railroad tracks in Fulton Township.

When 14 train cars derailed Feb. 16, it cost the company $1.2 million. It marked the worst derailment that railroad President Bill Gardner has seen in nearly two decades on the job. Seven more cars rolled off the tracks April 21.

Gardner says the tracks need replacing to prevent another derailment. Yet state and federal officials say the accidents don't alarm them.

You can't blame homeowners such as Dave Markson for shaking. His land abuts the rail line, and the only way off his property is to cross the tracks.

The Fulton Town Board wisely passed a resolution supporting the railroad's plea to the state for money to upgrade the track and another asking Gov. Jim Doyle to request a federal inspection.

Warren Flatau of the Federal Railroad Administration said a state request would bring such an inspection. But he told the Gazette he didn't think the railroad's record was cause for concern. He says the railroad's 23 reportable derailments between 2002 and 2006, including eight in Rock County, were not unusual.

Much of the publicly owned track between Milton and Madison was laid more than 80 years ago. While the railroad is responsible for maintenance, the state would pay 80 percent of upgrade costs. The proposed state budget boosts railroad spending from $5 million to $11 million, but redoing track from Milton to Madison would cost $20 million. Most state money goes for new track; railroad companies seeking repairs must jockey for what's left. The Southern & Wisconsin has requested $55 million alone from the state over the next four years to restore track between Plymouth and Sheboygan Falls and from Monroe to Mineral Point.

Sure, officials try to downplay the dangers in Fulton. Only 7 percent of Wisconsin & Southern's cargo in 2006 was chemicals, and hazardous chemicals made up just 2 percent of hauls. Flatau said railroads must meet track conditions, and stringent tanker and training standards ensure that cars won't release chemicals even if they derail.

Tell that to the folks in Weyauwega. In 1996, a derailment involving hazardous materials caused a fire that forced a 16-day evacuation of about 2,300 people, including the city's 1,700 residents.

The Wisconsin & Southern Railroad's operations continue to grow. It moved just 10,000 carloads in 1988 and 55,000 last year. Railroads boost local economies by helping to attract and keep industries that rely on trains to deliver products.

"That rail was laid in 1924 and is just not capable of handling what we're running today," Gardner said during a tour of the line May 18.

Without state assistance, "there will be more derailments," Gardner promised.

Let's hope Fulton doesn't become the next Weyauwega. - Editorial Opinion, The Janesville Gazette

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SWITCH TIES TIED TO JOBS

Photo here:

[www.wyomingnews.com]

Caption reads: Nortrack worker Anthony Cruz adjusts track during testing of a track turnout at the Nortrack facilities in Cheyenne Wednesday afternoon.
(Michael Smith/Wyoming Tribune-Eagle)

CHEYENNE, WY -- Railroad turnout manufacturer VAE Nortrak announced plans Wednesday to begin manufacturing concrete switch ties in Cheyenne, sinking millions into the local economy and adding dozens of new jobs.

The company will invest $4.7 million in its Cheyenne facility and fill two buildings it recently bought from the city of Cheyenne with up to 60 new employees.

The assembly lines at VAE Nortrak have been churning out railroad turnouts -- rail sections that split or unite tracks, also commonly, but inaccurately, called switches -- for 10 years now.

Since June 4, 1997, when the Cheyenne plant opened, the facility has expanded from simply assembling turnouts from prefabricated parts to manufacturing them from raw components like wooden ties and steel rails.

Concrete switch ties -- one part of a turnout -- last longer and are more stable than their wooden counterparts and don't come with the environmental problems associated with disposing of creosote-soaked ties. Nortrak will become the only manufacturer of turnouts in the United States to produce concrete switch ties.

To accommodate its new manufacturing line, the company has bought two buildings from the city of Cheyenne at 1801 and 1803 Pacific Ave., directly adjacent to the present facility.

The company will take possession of the buildings on June 4, just a week after the purchase, which G.S. Weatherly, vice president of sales, who works at the Cheyenne facility, credits to the efforts of Cheyenne LEADS and the Cheyenne City Council. Those two groups have been extremely helpful, Weatherly said.

"It makes people want to do business here," he said.

The additions will more than double VAE Nortrak's square footage, from about 65,000 square feet to 158,000 square feet. The company plans to start operations in its new facility in October and have it running at full capacity in a year.

The move also represents a significant investment in the Cheyenne community, Garneau said.

"We've been here for 10 years, and we will stay here for a very, very long time," he said.

When the facility opened in 1997, it was the third plant for the company, which is headquartered in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada.

"Our vision was to become the largest supplier of track work, and we knew we needed a new factory," said Sylvain Garneau, CEO of VAE Nortrak North America.

The company supplies track work like turnouts, curved track or custom layouts. Cheyenne's facility produces turnouts almost exclusively.

Inside the machine shops and out in the yard, employees and automated machines grind, weld, cut and mill steel and wood into 10 finished turnouts per week that can be shipped whole or disassembled into kits.

Cheyenne is the largest of eight plants the company owns in North America, and has swelled from about 20 employees on opening day and 70 at the end of that year to about 120 today.

Cheyenne was chosen because it was one of Union Pacific's preferred sites for the plant and because of the proximity of the Powder River Basin coal mines, which ship their product by rail.

More than 90 percent of the work Nortrak now does is for Union Pacific Railroad. The company has gone from providing only about 5 percent of Union Pacific's specialty track work in 1997 to 75 percent today.

Demand grew so much that though Nortrak had originally planned only to be an assembly plant for prefabricated parts, it switched to manufacturing and assembling the turnouts here. As a result, the company spent more than three times as much in Cheyenne as it had originally planned.

What fueled that demand, said Brian Abbott, chief technical officer, was the massive tonnages of coal leaving the Powder River Basin. The railroads there needed a higher-tech product to handle the loads. Nortrak was able to provide it. - Jennifer Frazer, The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle

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KANSAS WHEAT QUALITY VARIES BUT HARVEST IS LATE STATEWIDE

When the calendar turns to June, thoughts in Kansas turn to wheat harvest.

What kind of harvest it will be depends on where you live in the state.

"We've got the best wheat I've seen in years," said Kevin Wineinger at Farmco in Tribune, in Greeley County on the Colorado border. "We've been able to avoid hail, and we've been getting rains now and then. It's looking very promising."

But in central and south-central Kansas, three days of freeze in late April did significant damage. More recently, drenching rains have brought widespread flooding to ripening wheatfields.

"We've had two 100-year floods in a span of two weeks," said Jeff Comfort, manager of the Farmers Co-op in Salina.

The one constant across the state seems to be that because of cool, wet weather, the harvest will start later than normal.

Wineinger said harvest in western Kansas will be delayed probably by as much as a week because of the weather. But that same weather promotes big, full heads of grain.

He said the Kansas and Oklahoma railroad has already started positioning rail cars in anticipation of western Kansas' first really good wheat harvest in almost a decade.

The Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service's weekly report of crop conditions reports that only 11 percent of the state's wheat is rated excellent. Another 26 percent is good, while 31 percent is rated fair, 20 percent poor and 12 percent very poor.

Kiowa, near the Oklahoma border in Barber County, is often where the harvest begins in Kansas, usually in the first week of June. This year it will be closer to mid-June, said Dennis Carroll with the OK Co-op Grain.

It won't be a pretty harvest, he said.

"We've had frost, endless rain, rust and army worms," Carroll said. "We haven't had locusts yet, but I'm prepared."

Southern Sumner County also normally harvests early in June. This year, it will be at least another week and maybe longer, said Martin Schmidt at Farmers Co-op Grain in Caldwell.

How much the freeze hurt is still uncertain, he said. Sedgwick, Reno, Harvey, McPherson, Marion, Rice and Dickinson counties also reported heavy losses from freeze and the recent floods.

At Andale Farmers Co-op, Greg Patry said he's still not able to figure out the freeze damage.

"I look at it one week and I'm pretty optimistic, and then I drive by it again and I'm not so sure," he said.

Harvest usually begins around the beginning of the second week of June in Sedgwick County. This year will be late, Patry said.

"If it stops raining and we get some warmer weather, it could be ready in 10 days or so," he said. "If it keeps raining, we'll go later." - Phyllis Jacobs Griekspoor, The Wichita Eagle

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MUSEUM HONORS RAIL LINE BETWEEN BALTIMORE, YORK

BALTIMORE, MD -- The Old Line Museum in Delta, Pa., is once again paying homage to a railroad line that changed the face of many towns along its 77-mile route from Baltimore to York, Pennsylvania.

Each Sunday afternoon in June is devoted to the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad, affectionately called the "Ma & Pa." The first two Sundays will be devoted to Maryland's 44 miles. The following two Sundays will focus on the 33 miles that ran in Pennsylvania.

The Ma & Pa formed in 1901. It had 27 station stops between Baltimore and York, including Towson, Baldwin, Long Green, Glen Arm, Bel Air and Forest Hill. The train also stopped on an as-needed basis at 31 "flag stops."

It earned another nickname -- the Milky Way -- when it began transporting milk from North County into Baltimore. At its peak, the line had 16 locomotives, 160 rail cars and a crew of more than 100 workers to maintain the track.

The line also moved the U.S. mail in both directions until 1954, when both passenger service and mail deliveries were discontinued. Four years later, the Maryland section was closed. The Pennsylvania portion of the line operated until the 1980s.

"People love to come to the museum during Ma & Pa days," said Jerome Murphy, 83, a Baldwin resident who began organizing the annual displays of railroad memorabilia back in 1976. "You hear people say, 'I remember when' or 'I went to school on that train,' or 'My father worked for the railroad.' A lot of people have great memories of the Ma & Pa."

Murphy's own memories go back to the early 1930s, when he spent summers with his uncle, Henry Crilley, Long Green's stationmaster, postmaster and general store owner.

Murphy will be at the museum each Sunday afternoon to answer questions and display his extensive collection of Ma & Pa memorabilia. Visitors are urged to bring any photos or other Ma & Pat materials they have.

There is no charge to visit the museum, but donations are welcome. The Old Line Museum is at 640 Main St. off Maryland Route 165 and Pennsylvania Route 74. For information or directions, call Murphy at 410-592-7491 or the museum at 717-456-7124. - Pat van den Beemt, The Baltimore Messenger

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TRANSIT NEWS

READERS SPREAD BLAME IN METORAIL'S CLOSE CALL

HOUSTON, TX -- Unfortunate events sometimes are blamed on "human error" when the real cause was a fallible human in an unfamiliar and high-risk situation, readers remind us today.

"When you put a mousetrap or a land mine in the middle of your den floor, in plain sight, and you step on it, that's human error," writes Larry Carreker. "Metro has put train tracks in the middle of our living room, where there is no margin for error, human or otherwise."

Carreker was referring to a May 9 incident in which two MetroRail trains came within about a half-mile of ramming each other.

An operator just out of training was waved onto the opposite-direction track by a maintenance worker and entered it without calling controllers for permission as Metropolitan Transit Authority policy requires. She did call controllers for advice after reaching the next station, alerting them to the danger.

Noting her punishment, which included a week suspension without pay, Carreker did not spare the agency a share of blame.

"A worker on the job for three weeks causing this is either a training issue or a 'hiring the right person' issue," he said. "I would think some credit should go to the operator for calling in at the next station."

David Fuller comments that when humans operate complex systems, "human error" often is linked to "organizational factors that have been in place for years before the right combination of events occurs to create a mishap."

Fuller says he wonders why the operator thought it was OK to go through the switch. "Because the maintenance worker waved her through? She'd probably never encountered that situation.

"Maybe she'd been criticized for calling the controller too much, and she was hesitant to question someone who was more senior. Maybe she thought that the worker who waved her through had the authority. Maybe her training failed to cover that type of situation adequately."

Rather than punish mistakes, Fuller writes, agencies should examine their policies and procedures.

The report noted that Metro said it had brought in four independent experts in street-level light rail to examine what changes in operations and training may be needed.

Their report is expected soon. - Rad Sallee, The Houston Chronicle

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END OF THE LINE, 130 MILES NORTH

IN THE NORTH Cascade foothills, just outside the town of Darrington, Washington -- where tourists stop to fuel SUV's, and grizzled men with long beards steer Harley Davidson motorcycles northeast toward Winthrop -- a stretch of Washington State Route 530 exists where something almost unnoticeable happens: the speed limit loosens and roadside Douglas Firs reach toward a sooty glaze of clouds to form a column that seems to pull drivers east toward the small town of Rockport.

On this stretch of highway, ghosts of timbermen live. Wearing sore backs like belts, clutching lunch pails and hard hats, and fixed with stoic gazes appropriate for the work ahead, loggers once traveled along a "speeder route" -- a railway line that existed for the sole purpose of chartering workers back and forth between Darrington and logging camps buried deep in hillside forest folds.

Today, speeder tracks have been replaced by two lanes of asphalt -- namely, State Route 530. And though the logging industry is mostly gone, its connection to the railroad continues. On a 40-acre spread of land just off the highway lies a strange collection of, well, stuff. Drive onto the property, and the first thing you will likely notice is the massive shell of a former carnival rocket, tipped like a tornado-struck grain silo. Scattered throughout the property are shells of old Ford pickup trucks, each in some late stage of decay, each suffering some fatal flaw: a gutted engine, one or more missing tires, overgrown grass that has crawled into their undersides. Further, a portable saw mill sits between massive log piles. Keeping sentry over this strange rural setting is a double-wide trailer that serves as the property owner's home.

The reason someone from Tacoma might want to travel 130 miles to this open field is simple. Two vintage streetcars rest on a bluff overlooking a small pond: a 1919, 27-foot Birney model, and a 1908, 49-foot Turtleback model.

The latter operated on Tacoma's streets nearly a century ago.

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Caption reads: A late-morning gray light creeps through the arched and pockmarked roof of a 1908 Turtleback streetcar that once operated in Tacoma. Today, it sits on a 40-acre field in Rockport, Wash., and is owned by Historic Railway Restoration. (Photo by Todd Matthews)

The streetcars belong to Tom and Vince Mendenhall, a father-and-son team of history buffs and entrepreneurs who own Historic Railway Restoration -- the Arlington-based company that has restored heritage locomotives, streetcars, and speeder trains for U.S. and Canadian cities since the late-1980s.

"There they are," says Vince Mendenhall. He shifts his maroon GMC Jimmy into park, turns off the engine, and climbs out. Vince, 37, is a big man with a thick bush of red hair, and a goatee flecked gray. Earlier, as he was leaving Arlington, he warned that the streetcars were in bad shape.

"Are you ready to look at two pieces of junk?" he asked.

Vince's father, Tom, quickly followed up with a clarification: "Two pieces of junk with a lot of history and potential."

An hour later, Vince's critique was realized.

Natural elements have gnawed the two streetcars: steady rains; sharp winds; seasonal freezing and thawing that has occurred like a slow pulse since the cars were hauled here nearly two years ago. Both cars lack wheels and windows. The Birney car is buried beneath layers of tarps, an effort to protect it from more damage. The Turtleback, however, sits exposed. It's holey and shelled. Your first thought: it's either been car-bombed or is in the process of trying to disappear itself.

Still, it holds eerie beauty. Climb inside, and a late-morning gray light creeps through an arched roof pockmarked by holes and gashes. And a coral green steel siding runs both lengths of the car: though missing in some patches, it's the old car's only color.

"Structurally, it's a very sound car," says Tom, 66, who sports blue jeans, faded T-shirt, and large glasses that front a friendly, wrinkled face with a silver moustache and thinning hair. He circles the Turtleback while navigating land mines of patties left by cows known to roam the area. The cars are here thanks to a friendly, loose agreement between the property owner and the Mendenhalls (the property owner also happens to store a rail car in Concrete, which Tom and Vince are restoring). "It's not bending or bowing. Rebuilding them is not a problem. You're probably looking at about $650,000 on the Turtleback, and $400,000 on the Birney. And that would include brand-new trucks, propulsion, air system, glass windows, and electrical wiring."

He estimates it would take 16 months to restore the Turtleback, and nine months to a year for the Birney.

A visit to these streetcars is timely. Last week, the City of Tacoma's environment and public works committee approved the findings of a six-month study, directed by Tacoma City Council, which examined whether it's viable to restore Tacoma's heritage streetcar system. A team of City staff, representatives from Pierce Transit and Sound Transit, and a grassroots group of residents and historians looked at other cities that restored heritage streetcars and determined these systems spur economic development, bolster transit use, and contribute to a city's character.

Will Tacoma build a streetcar system?

That remains to be seen, as City staff will continue to study the idea.

But if it does, the City could look to the Mendenhalls and their Tacoma car as part of a solution.

HOW DID THESE streetcars wind up in Rockport, 130 miles north of Tacoma?

The answer traces back to the late Walter Mendenhall -- Tom’s father, Vince’s grandfather. A train enthusiast his entire life, Walter collected books for decades, and donated most of them to museums around the country. "He was really a train nut," recalls Vince, whose grandfather passed away in 1965.

In 1978, the Mendenhalls were on a road trip to the Oregon Coast when they stopped in at the Oregon Electric Railway Historical Society's trolley museum in Brooks, Ore. Tom introduced himself, and staff were very familiar with the Mendenhall name: 'We knew your father. We still have his books.'

Over the next five years, the family kept contact with museum staff. In 1983, the museum was organizing a trolley festival and wanted to lease some cars from San Francisco. Tom had a Class A tractor-trailer license, and offered to transport the cars. That led to an opportunity to rebuild some of the streetcars. Tom had experience restoring hot rods and tackling carpentry tasks. He was also an amateur historian. "I love reading books, and I'm mechanically inclined," he explains. "The only difference between a streetcar and a hot rod is one has 600 volts DC, and one has a gas engine."

When the project was finished, Tom and Vince were hooked on streetcar restoration.

In 1989, Tom retired from the City of Seattle, where he worked for 30 years as a meter reader, and Vince graduated high school. "My dad decided to go and do streetcar restoration as a sole proprietor, and I just took off after high school," Vince explains.

It was a short hiatus.

South Carolina Electric & Gas called offering a job restoring an old Birney safety car. Tom and Vince moved to South Carolina to work on the project full-time. "They were just really happy with the work," says Vince. "We started doing little jobs here and there."

Between 1989 and 1995, the pair roamed the U.S. and Canada working on a variety of streetcar restoration projects. They stayed at more motels and ate at more fast-food restaurants than they can (or care to) recall.

There was a 345-ton steam locomotive in Ottumwa, Iowa; three streetcars for the City of Detroit; a streetcar in Minnesota for a private collector; a streetcar in Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory of Canada; and a handful of local projects – cabooses in Kingston, Lynnwood, and Kent, and work on the Monorail at Seattle Center.

DURING THAT PERIOD, the Mendenhalls started to notice something unusual. Streetcars were consistently popping up in the same locations: residential backyards.

How does someone wind up with a backyard streetcar?

In the 1930s, according to Tom, cities moved away from streetcars and toward automobiles. Many municipalities were saddled with unwanted inventories of streetcars.

"To the transit agencies, [streetcars] were at the end of their lives," says Vince. "They were scrapping them. If you go to some of the museums, they will have pictures of car bodies stacked and on fire. They would take all the metal, scoop it up, and make money off that."

"And even then, it was costing them money to scrap them," adds Tom. "They had all the glass and wood you had to clean up and get rid of. Selling the metal did not make the amount you needed to cover the costs of labor and everything. That's why they sold a lot of them. For a dollar, you could buy a streetcar body. For 50 dollars, you could ship it on the railroad wherever you wanted."

The result was a score of streetcars used for a variety of purposes: storage space in backyards; diner cars at kitschy restaurants; and even some built onto existing homes to create additional space.

"When you hear the term 'chicken coop,' streetcars were literally turned into just that," says Vince. "And storage shelters. Anything like that."

That's how the Mendenhalls found the old Tacoma Turtleback.

The eight-wheel, double-truck streetcar was sitting in a backyard in Auburn. In 2003, Tom and Vince had heard about it through their network of streetcar enthusiasts and museum operators. "We went down there one day and said, 'We can't do it right now, but sometime in the next six months, we'd like to stop in and see about buying the body.' He said, 'OK.' The neighbors heard about it, and they came running and screaming, and said, 'Take it away now!' It was in that bad of a shape."

It was a similar story for the smaller, four-wheel, single-truck Birney streetcar. In the mid-1990s, Tom and Vince learned it was sitting in someone's backyard in Black Diamond. They negotiated a purchase.

Today, the Mendenhalls own seven streetcars, locomotives, and speeders scattered throughout Washington, Oregon, and California.

"It's actually a network," says Tom, explaining how they find streetcars and parts. "Everybody in this business either works in museums or knows each other. You can call anybody and say, 'I'm looking for this. Who should I talk to?'"

EARLIER THIS YEAR, the last of two back-to-back jobs left the Mendenhalls' rented shop in Arlington: one streetcar bound for San Francisco, another headed to Kansas City. This week, Tom is headed to Yreka, California, to load a 25-ton locomotive. Then he will head to Colorado to inspect a steam locomotive that needs restoration. Other than work on a caboose in Kent, and a goal this year to sandblast and repair the roofs on streetcars they own, the pair is in a quiet spell. It would seem like a nice break from back-to-back projects, but a follow-up phone call this week to Vince, who builds airplanes full-time at a Boeing plant in Everett, reveals some frustration: he can't wait to get started on the next streetcar project.

He's not alone.

When Historic Railway Restoration is awarded a contract, it contacts a local union to hire two or three carpenters to help complete the project. Carpenters often call asking if there's any streetcar work.

"Union carpenters will leave jobs they're at to come work for us, even if it's for six months," says Vince. "They work on square boxes all day long. They get around these [streetcars] and put one back together, and they love it."

The Mendenhalls started their company in Ballard, but moved to Arlington in search of cheaper rent. They also learned that most of their vendors are based in Snohomish and Skagit Counties.
They want to purchase land -- ideally near railroad tracks -- that will serve as a permanent home. The company operates out of a rented trailer in a lumber company's gravel parking lot. A massive shop across the way is where they work on streetcars.

Though grateful for the space, they want a permanent location for all their scattered streetcars.

"We don't like the idea of trying to bring a car body in and restoring it in a rented building," explains Vince. "We don't want someone to come in and say, 'Well, we're developing the property and you have to leave,' and we're halfway through a car body.

"We're still a little company just plugging along," he adds. "But we met a lot of people have been to a lot of places, and that has a lot of value in itself. Hopefully, in the next few years, there will be a big explosion of cities wanting streetcars, and we can supply them." - Todd Matthews, The Tacoma Daily Index

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MINNESOTA'S NORTHSTAR COMMUTER RAIL CASH FLOW PROBLEM RESOLVED

A cash flow problem that threatened to jeopardize the Northstar Commuter Rail project has been resolved.

Failure of the Minnesota Legislature to pass a revised state bonding bill, which included language that would have released $60 million of the state’s $90-plus million bonding for the project prior to Federal Transit Commission (FTC) approval of a full funding grant agreement produced the cash flow issue, according to Anoka County Commissioner Dan Erhart, chairman of both the Northstar Corridor Development Authority (NCDA) and the Anoka County Regional Rail Authority.

Gov. Tim Pawlenty had vetoed an earlier bonding bill passed by the Legislature.

Northstar proponents had been optimistic that the Northstar language in the bonding bill would have passed following positive signals from FTA Administrator James Simpson in a letter to U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman earlier in May, in which he invited Northstar to submit an official application for a federal funding grant agreement (FFGA).

Approval of the full funding grant agreement is not expected to come before the fall -- likely in November, according to Tim Yantos, executive director of both the NCDA and the Anoka County Regional Rail Authority.

Without the state dollars, Northstar was faced with what Yantos called a “cash flow and management challenge.”

While it had money on hand from an earlier bond issue to make a $24 million payment to the BNSF Railway Company May 31 as part of the agreement that would give Northstar a perpetual easement to use its tracks for commuter rail, there was a cash flow gap for two construction contracts, which are scheduled to get under way in June so that Northstar can start operating in 2009, as planned.

One is the connection of Northstar to the Hiawatha light rail line at the new Minnesota Twins ballpark location in Minneapolis, including extending the light rail track and building the commuter rail station, and the other is the construction of the maintenance building for the rolling stock in Big Lake.

The bid price for the light rail connection/station came in at $24.211 million, while the low bid for the maintenance building was $21 million.

Members of NCDA’s executive and budget committee at a meeting May 30 agreed that the project would continue to move forward.

To do that, the committee decided to go the route of short-term borrowing, either through bonding or a letter of credit, until the federal and state dollars become available, probably late this year, Erhart said.

The three regional rail authorities that are part of NCDA -- Anoka, Hennepin and Sherburne -- have the authority to commit to short-term borrowing, he said.

At the meeting, it was decided that the Hennepin County Regional Rail Authority would be responsible for 50 percent of the $44-plus million cash flow need, while the regional rail authorities of Anoka and Sherburne counties would provide the other 50 percent, according to Erhart.

The Hennepin County commitment will basically cover the cost of the light rail connection in downtown Minneapolis, Erhart said.

Under the NCDA cost-sharing formula, Anoka County will be responsible for 80 percent of the remaining $22-plus million with Sherburne County committing to 20 percent. The cost sharing is determined by the miles of track that passes through each county.

The Anoka County Regional Rail Authority will be asked to commit to the county’s share at its next meeting, Tuesday, June 12, Erhart said.

But the actual borrowing, either short-term bonds or letter of credit, won’t occur at that time, he said.

“We will only pay cash for what we need to until the federal and state funds are released,” Erhart said.

“The borrowing will only be for a very short period of time.”

Without the NCDA committee’s action May 30 to keep Northstar moving ahead, “the project would have been over,” Erhart said.

A third project planned this year was not affected by the cash flow issue -- the purchase of four remanufactured locomotives from Motive Power Industries at a cost of $10.9 million through the Utah Transit Authority.

The Metropolitan Council is fronting the dollars for this acquisition, according to Yantos.

The Northstar commuter rail line on the BNSF Railway Company tracks from Minneapolis to Big Lake is scheduled to open in 2009.

There will be stations in Big Lake, Elk River, Anoka, Coon Rapids and Minneapolis. A planned station in Fridley has been deferred.

Bids for the construction of the stations in Big Lake, Elk River, Anoka and Coon Rapids are expected to be ordered in late summer or early fall this year. - Peter Bodley, The Coon Rapids Herald

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COMMUTERS' COCKTAIL HOUR LIKELY TO KEEP ROLLING

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Caption reads: Commuters relax on a 5:26 p.m. Metro-North train to Bridgeport, CT, one of few with a dedicated bar car. (James Estrin/The New York Times)

NEW YORK CITY, NY -- The city banned cigarettes in bars, and the smokers trooped out to the sidewalk. Trans fats in restaurants were next, and the French fry addicts mostly shrugged. But since the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced that it was considering banning alcohol on commuter trains, it has been a different story.

Bankers and brokers and blue-collar workers spoke out in defense of the tradition of a Scotch and soda or a cold Budweiser on the ride home to Huntington or Greenwich.

And the authority listened.

Faced with an overwhelmingly negative response to the proposed ban, a committee of the authority’s board has recommended that the cocktail hour be allowed to continue on the trains and platforms of the Long Island and Metro-North railroads, according to a member of the committee and two people briefed on its findings. The full board is expected to take up the issue next month, and appears likely to follow the recommendation.

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The panel, which has been meeting for the last few months, received a thick sheaf of petitions signed by what officials estimated were thousands of commuters. And it met with representatives of rider groups who wanted to retain the end-of-day ritual.

“It’s one of the things that makes this slog north or east palatable,” said Richard Shea, a public relations executive who helped start a group called Commuters Allied for Responsible Enjoyment, to defend what he described as “the romantic ideal” of the suburban commuter enjoying a drink on the way home -- in his case, a Bud Light on the 06:52 to Chappaqua, in Westchester County. Mr. Shea encouraged fellow passengers to write to authority board members, urging them to block the proposal.

At Pennsylvania Station and Grand Central Terminal yesterday, as riders stocked up on chardonnay and Bass ale for the trip home, many could not resist casting the issue in terms that went far beyond one evening’s round of beers.

“People don’t like to have eyes over their shoulders 24/7,” said John Carnival, 43, an operating engineer from Massapequa Park, on Long Island, who bought two cans of Budweiser, packed in a plastic bag with ice, from a bar cart at Penn Station. He called the proposed ban “a little too much Big Brother.”

Liquor service on commuter rail is a vestige of earlier days. Peter Derrick, a transit historian, said the commuter lines were modeled after interstate railroads, on which alcohol was a traditional amenity.

Uniformed bartenders employed by Metro-North sell beer, wine, hard liquor, sodas and snacks from carts stationed near platforms at Grand Central Terminal on weekdays, beginning shortly after noon. The Long Island Railroad has carts staffed by bartenders on the platforms at Pennsylvania Station, and at the Hunterspoint Avenue, Jamaica and Flatbush Avenue stations, beginning about 15:00 hours.

During the evening rush, bartenders wheel their carts onto two Long Island-bound trains leaving Penn Station and sell alcohol to passengers during the trip. On Friday afternoons in the summer, the Long Island also sells alcohol from carts on the Cannonball, a train that travels from Hunterspoint to Montauk, carrying weekenders to the Hamptons.

The only full-fledged bar cars that remain are on Metro-North’s New Haven line, and are run in cooperation with the State of Connecticut. On a typical weekday, 17 trains leaving Grand Central for cities like Stamford and Bridgeport from 12:07 to 21:07 hours include a bar car.

The authority first agreed to consider a halt to alcohol sales on commuter trains and in rail stations in December, at the urging of Mitchell H. Pally, a board member from Long Island. Mr. Pally said he was concerned that passengers would drink on the train and then drive home, creating a liability for the authority if they became involved in an accident. He also said he worried that rowdy drinkers might be disturbing other passengers.

A committee of five board members was created shortly afterward to study the idea.

But data provided by the authority’s Police Department does not indicate widespread problems stemming from the sale of alcohol by the railroads.

The police issued 287 tickets on the Long Island and Metro-North lines last year to people on trains or in stations who were drinking alcohol and creating a disturbance. Far more prevalent, the police said, were instances of people on commuter lines who needed medical help because of extreme drunkenness. There were 994 such cases on the two railroads last year, but officials said that in virtually every case, the riders appeared to have done most or all of their drinking before they ever got on a train.

Each year, the railroad bartenders rank high in a customer satisfaction survey of Metro-North riders. In 2006, they received a favorable review from 97 percent of riders, who rated their courtesy and responsiveness second only to that of conductors, who scored 98 percent.

Gene Colonese, the rail administrator for the Connecticut Transportation Department, said that an official from the department met with the committee in April and strongly urged it not to change the policy, saying alcohol sales were “a valuable service to our customers.”

The committee also met with the presidents of the two railroads, conductors and a representative of the authority’s police force, which patrols the commuter trains and stations. “There was no overwhelming evidence of drunkenness or anything like that, or accidents,” the board member said.

He said the only person who met with the committee to speak in favor of the ban was Mr. Pally.
The committee finished its work earlier this month and submitted a report to Peter Kalikow, the authority’s chairman, and Elliot G. Sander, the chief executive and executive director. Mr. Kalikow and Mr. Sander declined to be interviewed about the committee’s recommendation. - William Neuman, The New York Times

THE END