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Railroad Newsline for Saturday, June 02, 2007

Compiled by Larry W. Grant

In Memory of Rob Carlson, 1952 – 2006

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RAIL NEWS

AMTRAK & LIONEL LAUNCH 2007 ESSAY CONTEST; GRAND PRIZE: The Santa Fe El Capitan™ train by Lionel

WASHINGTON, DC -- It's that time again for the Lionel Kid's Essay Contest. Amtrak and Lionel are partnering this summer for the eighth annual writing contest on-board 43 participating Amtrak trains nationwide.

Children ages 12 and under will have a chance to win the grand-prize, The Santa Fe El Capitan™ toy train set, by describing what they like best about riding Amtrak.

Fourteen lucky first-prize winners will receive The New York Central Flyer™ train set. Winners will be judged on content and originality by a panel of Amtrak judges. The contest begins June 1, 2007 and continues through August 31, 2007.

Entry forms will be available onboard 43 of Amtrak routes across the country including: California Zephyr, Texas Eagle, Ann Rutledge, Blue Water, Hiawatha Service, Hooiser State, Illini, Illinois Zephyr, Missouri Mules, Pere Marquette, State House, Wolverine, Capitol Limited, Vermonter, Acela, NEC Regional, Adirondack, Cardinal, Empire Service, Ethan Allen Express, Lake Shore Limited, Lake Shore Limited (NY/Boston section), Maple Leaf, NEC Regional, Palmetto, Pennsylvanian, Downeaster, Capitol Corridor, Cascades, Empire Builder, San Joaquin, City of New Orleans, Auto Train, Carolinian, Crescent, Piedmont, Silver Meteor, Silver Star, Coast Starlight, Heartland Flyer, Pacific Surfliner, Southwest Chief and Sunset Limited.

About Lionel

Lionel LLC is one of the world's leading marketers of model trains and accessories. Established in 1900, the Lionel name is the most widely recognized brand in the toy train industry and one of the most recognized brands in America.

About Amtrak

Amtrak passengers enjoy rail service in more than 500 communities in 46 states across a 21,000-mile route system. For schedules, fares and reservations, visit Amtrak's Web site at [www.Amtrak.com] . - Amtrak News Release

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CAMERA TO CATCH RAILROAD CROSSING VIOLATORS

Video here:

[www.wfaa.com]

GRAND PRAIRIE, TX -- You’ve heard of red-light cameras, but now you might be on the lookout at railroad crossings too.

What is believed to be the first railroad-crossing camera in the state will be activated Friday morning in Grand Prairie at the corner of Southeast 9th and Pacific streets, city officials said.

Those caught on camera ignoring the warning signs of an approaching train can be fined $150. Officials say they hope the cameras will encourage people to drive safely and obey railroad-crossing signals.

“We look forward to the day when the cameras don’t catch any violators,” police chief Glen Hill said in a news release.

The camera is the first to be installed along the main Union Pacific rail line in Grand Prairie, which currently has 11 crossings. Grand Prairie has the highest railroad-crossing fatality rate of any Texas city, officials said. Since 2003, five people have died in motor vehicle collisions at crossings.

Money generated from the cameras will be used to further improve safety at crossings, the city said. - The Dallas Morning News

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MOUNT RAINIER SCENIC RAILROAD SUFFERS FROM FLOOD'S AFTER-EFFECTS

ELBE, WA -- The Memorial Day weekend was supposed to revitalize businesses in the Elbe-Ashford area that had suffered since heavy rains and flooding closed Mount Rainier National Park in November.

It did, for the most part. The park reopened in early May, just in time for the kickoff to the summer season. Restaurants, lodges and stores a dozen miles west of Mount Rainier welcomed back park visitors who were absent for six months.

But one Elbe business missed out: the Mount Rainier Scenic Railroad.

Despite millions spent fixing roads in the park that washed out during the flood, no money has been available to fix a railroad bridge over the Nisqually River between the towns of Elbe and Mineral.

The bridge owned by the city of Tacoma and operated by Tacoma Rail still cuts off the scenic railroad from its station in Elbe, the site of a new depot the railroad dedicated in September as it celebrated its 25th anniversary.

"What I am trying to do is keep things running until the bridge is fixed," said Steve Sadtler, general manager of the scenic railroad. "It means we need to develop an entirely new program up here."

The railroad now runs its trains on weekends from a yard in Mineral to Divide, a crest of foothills between the towns of Mineral and Morton. It also plans to run trips from Mineral all the way to Morton on selected Saturdays.

But the key to the railroads operation is the depot in Elbe, which sits along Highway 7 on the way to the park's Paradise entrance.

The chances of out-of-towners unexpectedly coming upon the train yard in Mineral, which the railroad leases from West Fork timber, are next to none.

Sadtler said the number of riders over the Memorial Day weekend was about half what it was last year, from down from 500 to 250 riders. For all of 2006, the scenic railroad carried about 20,000 passengers.

It's unknown how long the railroad will remain separated from the Elbe depot.

The bridge, made of steel, still remains relatively unharmed. However, the raging river washed away the bank under the tracks on both sides of the bridge.

Fixing the bridge approaches is expected to cost between $2.7 million and $2.9 million. The city of Tacoma has applied for grants, including one from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to Sue Veseth, spokeswoman for Tacoma Rail.

Once money becomes available -- no one knows when that might happen -- Tacoma Rail could award contracts and finish construction in seven months "in a perfect world," Veseth said.

Meanwhile, other Elbe-Ashford area businesses ended the Memorial Day weekend with a sigh of relief.

"It was wonderful, just like nothing happened," said Phil Freeman, owner of Copper Creek Inn, several miles west of the Paradise entrance on Highway 706.

He said his lodging sold out during the weekend, and his restaurant was packed with park visitors.

"It was very vibrant," Freeman said this week. "Just like how it used to be, and just like how it should be. I think everybody was feeling a big sense of relief."

The scenic railroad is a nonprofit organization supported by volunteers, ticket sales and donations. It added 25 volunteers this spring, beefing up to about 100 people.

Local organizations are offering help to promote the railroad. One local artist has opened a gallery at the Elbe depot to attract tourists and send them to the train yard in Mineral.

But even with the help, Sadtler wont breathe easier anytime soon.

"We need to show that we can break even and not depend on donors," he said. - Eljiro Kawada, The Associated Press, The Seattle Times

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LYTLE CREEK RAILROAD BUFF'S PURSUIT KNOWS NO BOUNDS

Photo here:

[www.pe.com]

Caption reads: This 1911 caboose is built almost entirely of wood. Dave Newell had it moved last month from a vacant lot in El Monte onto a lot adjacent to his Lytle Creek house. (Paul Alvarez/The Press-Enterprise)

LYTLE CREEK - Five years into her relationship with her husband-to-be, Maria Newell got a signal that she was going to have to make some adjustments.

It was a signal too big to ignore.

It had flashing lights, an arm that went up and down, and a big wooden X that said "railroad crossing." Newell, 36, found the apparatus hanging from a boom crane as she drove up to her Lytle Creek home 15 years ago.

Her husband, Dave, 52, remembers her less-than-enthusiastic reaction.

"She flipped me off and drove away," Dave says.

The couple had only recently moved into a 1,200-square-foot "shack" on their property, says Dave, which they planned to rehabilitate and enlarge. Maria wanted a comfortable home with a yard that wasn't just a dirt lot. She wondered about Dave's priorities.

"We were still sleeping on the floor on a mattress," she says. "And he had to put that signal up. We fought about that signal."

In the end, she gave in.

"It made him so happy," she says. "I was like, 'Well, what makes him happy will make me happy.' "

These days, Dave is very happy. He not only still has his signal gate, but he's also got wigwag signals, switches, a working hand-car, a miniature station house and, his piece de resistance, a vintage caboose. He also has a remodeled home with an additional 2,000 square feet of living space, a large deck in the back and a grass lawn in front. So Maria is happy as well.

Dave won't say what it cost him to move the caboose last month from a vacant lot in El Monte up the winding mountain road and onto a lot adjacent to his house. But, he says, it was more than he paid for the 1911 relic that is built almost entirely of wood.

"There's probably only a handful of these that still exist," he says, standing inside the car and showing off the restoration done by its previous owner. With a new coat of paint on the exterior, a new roof, windows and doors, Dave says the old car will look like new.

Photo here:

[www.pe.com]

Caption reads: A railroad crossing sits in front of Dave Newell's home in Lytle Creek.

"It'll make a great playhouse," he says. He and Maria are expecting a daughter later this month and Dave foresees future tea parties and sleepovers in the caboose. He expects his daughter may suffer from the same train mania that grips him.

"My kid's going to be a lunatic," he says.

Dave's passion is not without some basis in reality. He runs a business of refurbishing and selling old railroad equipment. This weekend he will have a booth at the Big Train Show in Ontario. The size of the items he deals in, he says, is fairly unique.

"I'm probably the only guy that does this out here in the West," he says. "Nobody wants to cart this stuff around and set it up."

Some of the things he deals in are quite rare. The better pieces he keeps for himself, such as the old signal bell on a pole in his yard.

"This bell dates back to the turn of the century," he says, standing beneath the black and silver device. "It was the first electric signal (in use). The only other one I know of is at the Orange Empire Rail Museum (in Perris). I found it at a garage sale."

When he spotted it, he says, "I couldn't get my wallet out fast enough."

Dave also has an interest in the smaller side of things. An O-scale train circles a track that runs near the ceiling of his living room and kitchen. And the entire upper floor of the Newell home is filled with model trains.

"For some weird reason, I feel really comfortable around this old railroad stuff," he says. "It has an old familiarity to it and it's fascinating how low-tech it all is."

Photo here:

[www.pe.com]

Caption reads: Railroad equipment decorates the front yard of Dave Newell's home in Lytle Creek.

One of the signal lights in his yard runs on oil.

Maria says she never realized the extent of her husband's fascination until they left Los Angeles.

"We moved up here and that's when it started to become a notable sickness," she says. "When you don't have a place to put any of this stuff, what's the point? It wasn't until we moved up here that he was able to go insane."

And it's not just trains, she notes. When her husband gets wind of a theme, she says, it's hard for him to let go. When he points out her collection of Pillsbury doughboy characters that dominate their kitchen, she puts it in perspective.

"He bought most of it," she says. "I think I bought two things."

She mentioned getting an Elmo character for their daughter's room, she adds. "The next thing I know, poor little Grace has an Elmo room."

While she doesn't really share her husband's enthusiasm for the train equipment in the yard, she says the neighbors would be sad to see it go. People sometimes pose for photos in front of the signal gate. And even she likes the latest acquisition.

"The caboose, I think, is going to be extremely cool," she says. "Who else would have a playhouse for their daughter that would be that wonderful?"

But for Dave, it's only part of the larger scheme for the lot. He envisions a jungle gym, a concrete skating pad and a separate section of track for his hand-car, among other things his daughter will be able to enjoy.

Which leads Maria to muse.

"I'm wondering if he's ever going to let her in," she says with a laugh. "When he finally gets it done in 10 million years, it will be adorable." - Mark Muckenfuss, The Riverside Press-Enterprise

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UP CLAIMS TRESPASS, NUISANCE

A lawsuit stemming from coal service disruptions in 2005 took another step forward this week when Union Pacific Railroad charged that coal owned by an Arkansas utility was responsible for track damage that led to the delays.

The Omaha, Nebraska, railroad, which ships tens of millions of tons of coal from southern Campbell County every year, added trespass and nuisance counts to a growing list of claims against Little Rock-based Entergy Arkansas.

Entergy, which has been joined as a defendant in the suit by several other Arkansas and Texas plant affiliates, is suing the railroad for failing to fulfill a contract to ship 10 million tons of coal to two Arkansas power plants the utility owns.

In documents filed this week in an Arkansas Circuit Court, the railroad said that by having coal dust fall from its rail cars leaving North Antelope Rochelle and other Campbell County mines, the utility was partly to blame for derailments and delays that sent a massive shock through rail system in 2005 and 2006.

Squarely in the middle of the suit are a pair of May 2005 derailments that occurred on the joint line south of Gillette. BNSF Railway, which owns and maintains the 120-mile stretch of rail but allows Union Pacific to operate there, has flagged coal dust as the culprit for deteriorating bed conditions that led to the derailments.

“By causing (and continuing to cause) coal dust to be deposited in the ballast along the Joint Line and Main Line rights of way through shipment of their coal, Defendants have entered land that is owned by and the possession of UP without its consent,” the railroad alleged.

Entergy also “failed to remove any of the coal dust that they caused to be there and that contributed to the (derailments and track work),” the railroad added.

The move was another step the railroad is taking in a lawsuit which is meant, in part, to avoid paying fees and making up deliveries the utility says it is owed after it failed to receive the proper coal shipments.

The railroad, though, says that since the utility owns the coal being shipped in the cars, they are liable for the damage that led to tens of millions of dollars of maintenance and delays.

“Coal dust really deprived the railroad, in this case UP, not only from revenue but a shared increase in maintenance costs to repair the railroad,” Mark Davis, a railroad spokesman said Friday.

“What this lawsuit is really about is UP’s breach of its contract to Entergy Arkansas and its rate payers,” said O.H. Storey, vice president and deputy counsel for Entergy. - Peter Gartrell, The Gillette (WY) News-Record

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FORMER DENT ELEVATOR REFLECTS BYGONE YEARS

Photo here:

[media.fergusfallsjournal.com]

Caption reads: The Homestead Elevator still dominates the skyline near the Soo Line Railroad tracks at Dent.

DENT, MN -- In 1903 the Soo Line Railroad positioned tracks on the east side of Dent, a community platted the same year. The city, named for a variety of corn the Indians called Northwestern Dent Corn, was incorporated Sept. 8, 1904.

After the Soo Line passed through Dent, it didn’t take long for city residents and area farmers to join in building a grain elevator along the tracks.

The structure became known as the Homestead Elevator and still stands today.

Managing the elevator and later owning the now historic structure was Louis Abraham. The Dent Farmers Shipping Association was organized in March 1916 and the Dent Elevator Company was structured in July 1920.

Shortly after the start of the 20th century, heavy timber covered much of the area around Dent.
Farmers supplemented their income by cutting trees and selling the wood which later became railroad ties, stove wood, fence posts and building materials.

Much of the open land today was cleared by residents from Dent after the city was incorporated. Wages for grubbing stumps was 50 cents per day.

John Hertel and Mike Rogalski were the first merchants in Dent.

The two men purchased white oak railroad ties for 25 cents each and paid $2.50 per cord for hardwood.

When the city was founded 103 years ago, the population was 169. Establishment of the Dent Creamery in 1909 helped boost the population.

In 1910, after one year of the creamery’s operation, the city population was 244.

John Harms came to town in 1912 as buttermaker and manager. Over the years several additions to the Dent Creamery improved its operation and efficiency.

Farmers who patronized the creamery averaged about 250 in number and reached a high of 325.

A new milk-pasteurizing unit was put into operation in 1961. When the plant closed in 1972, the creamery had only 30 patrons.

The Egg House, Locker Plant, and many other enterprises came and went over the past 103 years.

By the year 2,000 Dent’s population was 192. This doesn’t count many people who live near Dent, outside the city limits, and retirees who return to the area during the summer months from down south. - Tom Hintgen, The Fergus Falls Daily Journal

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TRAIN ACCIDENT VICTIM: 'I RAN AS FAST AS I COULD'

BOISE, ID -- An afternoon fishing trip took a near fatal turn this week.

Today, the 15-year-old Weiser teenager struck by a freight train spoke about the incident publicly for the first time.

Johnny Moore invited NewsChannel 7 to his hospital room where he recalled Wednesday’s nightmarish moment.

Johnny has a hard time remembering all the details, but he can vividly recall walking on a railroad bridge with a friend when the two suddenly realized a fast-moving train was right behind them.

"Well, me and my friend Tom Hanson were going to go fishing on the other side of the train bridge, but we couldn't cause another was train coming," said Johnny.

Johnny recalls when the Union Pacific train hit him, nearly taking his life.

One train was already on the tracks, so they let it pass and didn't see another train quickly approaching from the other side. While walking across the bridge the two looked back and realized there was another train right behind them.

"What's the first thing you thought when you saw that train coming toward you? asked NewsChannel 7.

“Run like heck," said Johnny.

And that's exactly what the two boys did. Johnny says they threw their fishing poles and tackle boxes over the bridge and took off running.

"He just said, start running and I kept thinking, ‘oh crap, oh crap,’ and tried to run as fast as I could," said Johnny.

Tom made it to the other side safely, but Johnny did not.

"We were just wanting to get off the bridge as fast as we could, I don't know what went through my mind, it went too fast," said Johnny.

While he was trying to get away, the train caught Johnny’s arm.

"I guess Tom said that my arm got caught in the ladder part of the train and it kept on banging me up against the train or something," said Johnny.

The next thing Johnny remembers is being rushed to the hospital.

His mother says it's a miracle that her son is alive.

Johnny says he can't believe it either.

"I am lucky as heck I guess," said Johnny.

And he has some advice for others.

"Don't try to out run a train," said Johnny.

Since Johnny has been in the hospital, he hasn't been able to see Tom.

As for fishing he says he'll do it again once he's out of the hospital.

But while Johnny was saying that, his mother was shaking her head “no” on the other side of his hospital room. - Ysabel Bilbao, KTVB-TV7, Boise, ID

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DEPOT RESTORATION BRINGS MEMORIES ALIVE

SAVAGE, MN -- When John McCarthy pulled the old watch out of his pocket one sunny afternoon at the restored Savage depot, it was like opening a door to the past for Will Williams, Nancy Allen and John Oster.

That’s because each of their fathers had the same watch – a special railroad timepiece that was synchronized with other watches carried by agents and workers up and down the line. The watches were used to track the arrival and departure of trains on certain lines, and to safeguard against accidents. Timing was so important to the agents and rail workers that the watches were specially built so they couldn’t accidentally be reset.

“You’d unscrew the face, pull a pin, then set the watch, and then screw the face back on,” explained McCarthy.

Charles McCarthy was the depot agent at the Savage depot for 30 years. Charles Oster, the father of Allen and Oster, started working at the depot at 16, became a telegrapher at 18 and went on to become the depot agent years later, finally retiring after 49½ years with the railroad. And Art Williams worked for “the other railroad” the Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern (MN and S) for more than 40 years as a section foreman.

So, as the restored Savage depot has come to life over the past several months, memories of the past have been stirred up for the group.

Oster and Allen said their father’s career started as a telegrapher, moving from station to station – wherever he was needed. Next, he worked as the depot agent at Merrian Station in Shakopee, which was located near where the Renaissance Festival grounds are now located. Then he came to the Savage Depot in 1952 and stayed until it was closed down in the early 1970s.

In those days, the depot was located on the north side of Highway 13 and was a great place to hang out, they all recalled. What’s more, working for the railroad wasn’t a 9-to-5 job, rather it was more like a 24/7 job.

McCarthy has memories of his dad rising each day in the early morning hours, sometimes as early as 3 a.m. to leave for work. As he tiptoed out of the upper room of the home where everyone slept, he’d wiggle the toes of John and one of his brothers on his way down the steps. “It was his special way of telling us good-bye for the day,” he said.

Allen and Oster note their dad “never missed a day of work,” and if he did, he could probably count those on one hand.

Williams said he could always find his dad in the MN and S tool shed, which was located in front of where Continental Machines now stands. “His job was to make sure the rails were top-notch,” he said.

On Saturdays, Williams and his brothers, Wes and Paul, often accompanied their dad to work. His dad’s section spanned from Bush Lake down to Orchard Gardens, so riding the rails was quite a trip. At certain times of the year, the Williams boys could pick plums or hazel nuts in areas next to the rail line.

“Then, as we got older, dad would let us sweep the grain out of rail cars and gather up the grain that was spilled on the ground,” Williams recalled. “We’d take it over to Shakopee to the grain elevator and sell it to get some spending money.”

Allen and Oster explained that when their father worked at Merrian station, they’d sometimes get a short ride on a steam engine as the machines were switching tracks at the station. “That was always fun,” Oster noted.

But that was before the railroad put a stop to allowing anyone except railroad workers in the yards for liability reasons.

McCarthy’s memories from his teenage years at the depot are of helping his dad out by moving freight or mail bags from time to time.

“Then I ran off and joined the Army Air Corps, got on a B25 crew and went all over the world,” he said.

But, whenever he was home, his first stop would be the depot to see his dad.

One time, he remembered standing on the landing waiting for a train and seeing a car headed for a dude ranch run by Ed and Becky Hanson get stuck on the tracks.

“It was a Sunday morning and Dad and I were standing there looking down the tracks and the car full of tourists just stopped in the middle of the tracks and didn’t move,” he said. “That train came along and the cow catcher on the front just flipped that car like a Cracker Jacks box. It was horrible, just horrible.”

McCarthy also recalls another tragic accident in 1942, when one passenger train torpedoed another one sitting on the tracks at the west end of the village. Eight people were killed and 50 injured. “I was a young kid and seeing that was a horrible sight,” he said.

But accidents were rare in Savage, the group said, noting the depot provided a hub for the community. It even provided shelter for a famous wayward pilot who was forced to land his plane unexpectedly near the Minnesota River in the summer of 1923 during a thunderstorm. A young Charles Lindbergh spent three days in Savage waiting for replacement parts to repair the propeller of his World War I Curtis Jenny.

Charles McCarthy, the depot agent and mayor of the village, offered Lindbergh shelter for three days at the depot and kept him company. Four years later, Lindbergh made a name for himself with the first non-stop, transatlantic flight from New York to Paris.

In the months that followed, Lindbergh toured the country and among his stops were Minneapolis and St. Paul. Before he left the area, he made a special pass over Savage to acknowledge the town’s hospitality.

Charles McCarthy witnesses the return flight, telling others that the aviator circled the village three or four times. - Nancy Huddleston, The Savage Pacer

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AMES, IA -- Ames feels Burlington's pain.

The city of about 50,000 shares a common problem with it's smaller cousin -- the jarring sound of train whistles.

"It's pretty bad. The trains blare their horns louder and longer than they did a few years ago," said John Joiner, public works director for Ames.

The city is in the process of reducing train noise by creating quiet zones, a move Burlington, Iowa city officials hope to emulate.

In Ames, the process began last year when the city hired a consulting firm to gauge public opinion about quiet zones.

"With about 75 trains a day coming through the city, we found business and property owners were squarely behind quiet zones," Joiner said.

A feasibility study was conducted to determine the cost associated with meeting federal guidelines for establishing quiet zones at six railroad crossings. The cost to make the mandated improvements is about $40,000, according to Joiner.

"The key is to get the risk level at a railroad crossing down below the nationally recognized safety standard. If we hadn't already met the minimum safety requirements, it would've cost the city about $500,000 a crossing," Joiner said.

"Right now, we're in the beginning stage of making the upgrades. We look to have everything in place by the end of the year," he added.

As part of its safety upgrades, Ames will install a four-quadrant gate and medians that prevent vehicles from trying to cross the tracks when a train is approaching.

Burlington officials are looking at either closing or improving safety at eight railroad crossings in order to establish quiet zones.

The push to limit train whistles, which register at about 100 decibels, began last year when a petition was filed by several downtown business operators and building owners.

Acknowledging the problem, the council approved a $14,968 contract with Minnesota-based SRF Consulting Group Inc. during a May 21 meeting. The funds will be used to evaluate the cost of creating quiet zones. Any plan the city devises would need railroad administration approval.

At that same meeting, members of Downtown Partners Inc. said noise pollution caused by roughly 55 trains that pass through Burlington has increased due to a 2005 federal law that requires horns to be sounded for longer intervals.

In 1994, Congress passed a law that requires trains to blow their horns at public crossings.
Under federal requirements, locomotive engineers must sound train horns for a minimum of 15 seconds and a maximum of 20 seconds in advance of railroad crossings.

City officials say noise from trains has negatively affected downtown businesses. Kathy Geren of Burlington said the same is true for property values.

"The value of homeowner property is going down in Burlington with every train whistle that's blown," she said last week.

For Ames, quiet zones can't come soon enough.

"The noise from passing trains can be unbearable. Once we finish this project, people won't have to compete with train noise," Joiner said. - James Abell, The Burlington Hawk Eye

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MDEQ TO FINISH CREOSOTE CLEANUP IN HATTIESBURG

HATTIESBURG, MS -- Hattiesburg's Gulf States Creosote Plant shut its doors nearly 50 years ago, but the clean up of creosote continues.

On Thursday, the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality began what it hopes will be the last major cleanup of creosote contamination at the former plant site.

MDEQ representatives Tony Russell and Gloria Tatum said the chemical company Tronox, formerly Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp., ironed out an agreement with Norfolk Southern Railroad to clean a ditch that runs about 100 yards along the northwest side of the railroad tracks.

MDEQ hopes the work can be completed in two to three weeks.

Gulf States operated the plant from the 1930s until about 1960, when it was acquired by Union Camp. Kerr-McGee ultimately acquired control of the plant, which sits on about 20 acres in southwestern Hattiesburg.

Creosote, a toxic chemical, was found in the ground at the site after the company went out of business in the 1960s.

Sometime prior to 1960, the creosote seeped into the ground of an old industrial park in the area, which then drained, contaminating several blocks near the plant, environmental agencies said.

"There is contamination beneath some of the buildings, but it's not gross contamination like you see here," Russell said of the site. "But they can't dig on any area without notifying us beforehand."

Environmental activists and property owners are far from satisfied with the project, said Sherri Jones, organizer of the Forrest County Environmental Support Team.

"Our position is that we need someone on the federal level to come in and look at the work that has been done," Jones said. "We're not fixing to accept MDEQ's recommendation and the people are not satisfied that this is the last stop."

Russell said MDEQ knew the creosote had been at the site for some time but had to work out issues with the railroad.

"Once we get this out, it will be the last commercial property cleaned up," Russell said.

Jones said the issue is not just the creosote but also the other chemicals.

"You don't have to find creosote; you have 16 different chemicals in the creosote. So the physical part can be sitting here but the chemicals are in the water," said Jones.

Russell said if residents have health issues related to the creosote, they need to notify the Department of Health. - The Associated Press, The Biloxi Sun-Herald

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TRANSIT NEWS

LIGHT-RAIL OFFICIALS MAY HELP BUSINESSES

PHOENIX, AZ -- Merchants have brainstormed several ideas for bringing business back along the light-rail line, and now Metro officials say they will work to put them into action.

Business owners who gathered at the Red Roof Inn on Camelback Road last week asked Metro for more promotion in newspapers and in radio and television ads.

They also asked Metro to divert some funds set aside for rewarding contractors who clean up their messes in a timely fashion to promoting and preserving existing businesses along the line.

Dan Abrams, a commercial real estate agent who organized the Wednesday meeting, said contractors should not be rewarded for simply responding to customer complaints.

"This is just not right," said Abrams, who sits on a Metro community advisory board that awards the incentives. "They could have used this money much more effectively to give it to the merchants to help their financial struggle. I think it's a great idea to stop giving this money to the contractors."

A chorus of merchants spoke out Wednesday about the devastating impact of construction on their business.

Peter Netzband owns Langert-Netzband Jewelers, 1526 W. Camelback, which has been in Phoenix since 1946. He said he didn't make a single jewelry sale Monday or Tuesday. He told his fellow merchants that he had lost $700,000 in sales since construction began in 2005.

John Crallie, co-owner of Panino, said business was down 60 percent at the restaurant at 5202 N. Central. Crallie said he had sought marketing assistance from Metro but was denied for unspecified reasons.

Councilman Tom Simplot, who chairs the Metro board, said a legal team from the city would meet to determine whether the contractor incentives could be diverted.

He said Metro also had a $500,000 contingency fund that officials could tap to aid businesses. -- Casey Newton, The Arizona Republic

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RESIDENTS TRY TO STOP LIGHT RAIL IN ITS TRACKS

THORNTON,CO -- Some residents are protesting a light rail stop they say would come too close to a school. A number of children and adults gathered Thursday night at a high school for a public hearing held by Regional Transportation District of Denver (RTD).

"We shouldn't put a site there when, in reality, there are two sites that are directly two miles south and two miles north of that same school location that commuters would be able to use," said Michael Baum, a Thornton resident.

FasTracks is proposing a light rail stop and a parking area at 144th Avenue near York Street.

The Rocky Top Middle School is nearby.

FasTracks says the station will be a "Kiss-and-Ride," 1,000 feet from the school with 100 parking spaces.

"In the future it will be a great stop for us to have in the neighborhood," said Noel Busck with RTD, "people walking to that rather than driving their cars.

RTD says the station is still just a proposal and that it is far enough away from the school.

Residents disagree. They've gathered 200 electronic signatures for a petition to protest the plan. Click here to see the petition.

"Having the Park and Ride structure, having other communities having vehicles come into our community and crossing two or three intersections there to get to the parking structure, those are the same access points that children will be using to go to school and home," Baum said.

Residents add they are concerned about increased traffic, child security and crime at the proposed RTD commuter station. RTD says safety is priority.

"We will work with the school district, we will work with the parents. This will be a safe site for everyone." said Busck.

FasTracks plans to build six stations in Thornton. The project should be competed in 2015. -- Anastasiya Bolton, KUSA-TV, DENVER,CO

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BOOKS: WHEN STREETCARS WERE DESIRED

TWIN CITIES BY TROLLEY

By: John W. Diers and Aaron Isaacs.

Publisher: University of Minnesota, 368 pages, $39.95.

Review: An exhaustively researched and marvelously illustrated history of the Twin City Rapid Transit Co. that reveals much about our history and cityscape.

Photo here:

[www.startribune.com]

MINNEAPOLIS, MN -- Underneath the streets of Minneapolis and St. Paul, miles and miles of tracks lie entombed in asphalt. These are the hidden remnants of a trolley network that for years rolled through the lives of everyone who lived in the Twin Cities area.

When their popularity peaked in 1920, streetcars run by the Twin City Rapid Transit Co. carried 238 million passengers -- more than three times what Metro Transit buses and light rail carried last year. The 523 miles of track stretched from Stillwater to White Bear Lake to Minnetonka, and the streetcars ran so frequently that catching a ride was like waiting for an elevator.

That's one of the descriptions offered by "Twin Cities by Trolley," the encyclopedic new book by John W. Diers and Aaron Isaacs that recreates the streetcar era in words, maps, charts and more than 400 marvelous historic photographs.

Diers and Isaacs, both longtime transit administrators and rail enthusiasts, have exhaustively researched the history of the defunct Twin City Rapid Transit from its origins in the 19th century to the running of the last trolley in 1954.

It's a work that doesn't probe deeply into the social context of mass transit and only briefly notes conflicts such as the bloody streetcar workers' strike of 1917. Instead, the authors set out to portray a remarkable for-profit company that, without public subsidy, built its own streetcars and operated a rail network that helped give the Twin Cities area an enduring cityscape.

Shrinking time and distance

The trolleys' influence is visible in the summer concerts at Lake Harriet, originally staged by streetcar operators to attract riders; the satellite downtowns that sprang up on Lake Street in Minneapolis, Grand Avenue in St. Paul and other streets with busy streetcar lines; the grids of walkable tree-lined neighborhoods with charming corner stores; even Edina's posh Country Club neighborhood, a classic "streetcar suburb."For centuries, the distance one could cover on foot or horseback limited a city's reach, but the urban electric railway shrank both time and distance," the authors write in their introduction. "More than anything else, it was responsible for the growth and development of the modern city."

The lavish black-and-white photographs provide an amazing window into the past, in which trolleys were always front and center in the bustling downtowns and the transit company-operated resorts at Minnetonka and White Bear Lake.

A large portion of the book is devoted to details on each route, giving readers a chance to look up the streetcars that served their neighborhoods, down to how often they ran. Take the Bryn Mawr line, downtown Minneapolis to Laurel and Upton avenues: "Thirty minutes off-peak, twenty minutes peak."

In the end, the streetcars were sunk by Americans' love of cars, massive spending on highways and the migration to the suburbs. Twin City Rapid Transit was taken over by criminals; streetcars were replaced by buses, and a government agency, now called Metro Transit, eventually made public transportation a government function.

Yet the nostalgia for the streetcar era never faded. The success of the Hiawatha light-rail line has set off a scramble to build a second line linking St. Paul and Minneapolis, a commuter train link to St. Cloud and other rail projects. And a half-century after trolleys disappeared from the city streets, the Minneapolis City Council is studying how to put streetcars back on a handful of busy routes.

By delving into the past, "Twin Cities by Trolley" makes the case that Minneapolis and St. Paul are ready to get back on board. - James Eli Shiffer, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune

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LAGNIAPPE (Something extra, not always railroad related, for Saturday’s only)

NEWLY FOUND DIARIES SHED LIGHT ON 1889 JOHNSTOWN FLOOD, AFTERMATH

JOHNSTOWN, PA -- To the Rev. David J. Beale, it looked like an avalanche: an enormous wall of water thundering down the mountain into the valley community, carrying building debris, barbed wire, livestock, train cars and people.

"The dam, having burst, the water was upon us washing away all before it," Beale wrote just days after the 1889 Johnstown flood.

Last summer, Beale's yellowing journals were found in an old Philadelphia carriage-house, shedding new light on a catastrophe that killed 2,209. A presentation on the diaries will be given this coming week, marking the 118th anniversary of the flood, before the collection is made a part of the Johnstown Flood Museum's permanent exhibit by 2009.

Acquired in November by the Johnstown Area Heritage Association and the National Park Service, the vast collection includes some 80 pictures and 60 journals written by Beale and his family.

"Greatest calamity of the XIXth century took place at 12 minutes after 4 p.m. This book was submerged two weeks in my study," Beale wrote on the page dated May 31, 1889, personal testimony to a disaster that would mark his life and his writings until his death 11 years later.

"In our Johnstown disaster not a few became insane from grief," he would write in early 1890.
Historians say the journals are a rare, reliable firsthand account of the flood, the cleanup and the controversies that followed in this community about 60 miles (96 kilometers) east of Pittsburgh.

"Oral histories 50, 60 years later are good to have, memoirs are good, but diaries aren't meant for an audience," said Paul Douglas Newman, a history professor at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown. "This really could be significant ... it could really shed some light."

Dan Ingram, curator of the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, said he had long looked for Beale's diaries, assuming that a minister would have kept journals and saved his letters.

"It was just an amazing discovery because some of the material had been slated to be thrown away," Ingram said. "They were already in garbage bags when the person who was cleaning out the carriage house discovered them."

Intent on gleaning as much information as possible from this account, AmeriCorps member Nathan Koozer is sifting through the diaries. Their maroon leather bindings are fraying, at times falling from the thin, blue-lined paper crowded with Beale's tight cursive handwriting.

Koozer, a 22-year-old who graduated from Penn State University with a history degree, has spent the past few months bent over his desk, magnifying glass in hand, trying to read Beale's sometimes messy, grammatically incorrect and even, at times, incoherent writing.

Reading the journals dated 1889 to 1899, Koozer has discovered that Beale was sitting in his parsonage study writing his Sunday sermon when floodwaters that had plowed through the poorly maintained South Fork Dam hit Johnstown, crashing into his home. The frightened minister yelled for his six children, his wife and visiting neighbors to run to the attic.

That evening, piles of debris burned at the stone Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge that momentarily stopped the water only to send the torrent roaring through the town a second time. The Beales headed to Alma Hall, then Johnstown's tallest building.

On the way over, one woman in the group fell into the water but was pulled out by her hair.
Beale and his entourage finally made it to the hall, joining some 200 other people for what would be a "night of indescribable horror," the minister wrote.

"One of the things that Beale tried to do was to remove alcohol flasks from people in the building and he also offered prayer to some of the people," Koozer said.

"He could hear the people screaming, the dogs barking on the hillsides, not knowing where their owners were. Some women gave birth that night in Alma Hall. Children were crying for food, food that wasn't available," Koozer said.

Later, Beale was appointed superintendent of the morgues, including one he established in his First Presbyterian Church.

The minister's morgue books, part of the collection found, include lists of names and descriptions of what the dead were wearing. Including sketches with some, Beale wrote "unknown" for bodies that were not identified. In all, 700 bodies would never be identified.

Beale, a prominent member of the community, has long been known to historians, largely due to a memoir he published a year after the flood. He also had a well-publicized conflict with John Fulton, general manager of Cambria Iron Works and a senior elder in his church. The New York Times ran news of the Johnstown flood on its front page for 10 days and covered the controversy, including a heated vote in December 1889, at which the church retained Beale as its minister.

The diaries give a new perspective on the conflict, which was apparently the reason Beale left town almost a year later. The diaries reveal his bitterness, especially over accusations that his children stole jewelry from corpses in the church's morgue.

"They do really give you a well-rounded sense of the person," Ingram said. "You get ... a sense of the personality, of the individual, and it just happens to be one of the more important players in the aftermath and the recovery effort in Johnstown after the flood." - The Associated Press, The International Herald Tribune

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THE CAR SPY; HIS MISSION: SNAP PHOTOS OF AUTOMAKERS' SECRET NEW MODELS

DETROIT, MI -- Jim Dunne has made a career of stealing automakers’ secrets and sharing them with the world.

Dunne has the job half the little boys on Earth would kill for: hiding from authority, waiting for the coolest new cars to come by and snapping their pictures.

They call the job spy photographer: tracking down automakers’ secret new models and photographing them months and years before they go on sale. A handful of men and women around the world do it for a living.

Native Detroiter Dunne has been a master spy for decades. Detroit Free Press photographer Kathleen Galligan and I spent a day with him as he snared photos of the 2008 Mazda 6 and other upcoming models at engineering centers from Dearborn to Milford.

If you’re a car buff, you look forward to his work: photographs of cars that won’t go on sale for months or years.

Automakers rack up countless test miles as they develop new cars and trucks. They disguise the vehicles so that competitors won’t know what’s coming and customers won’t postpone a purchase because they know how much better the new model looks.

Automakers have no secret more precious than the styling and performance of their new cars. They camouflage them; they build privacy fences around their test tracks; and they hire security guards and teach engineers how to lose a tail.

It doesn’t matter. Dunne still gets photographs of the new models, cruising engineering centers all over southeast Michigan in his SUV and staking out service stations and motels in extreme-weather test sites from Death Valley in California to Kapuskasing in northern Ontario.

Dunne is one of the best-known spy photographers, along with Arizona-based Brenda Priddy and Germany’s Hans Lehmann.

Dunne’s been writing about cars and photographing them for more than 40 years. He’s become as much of an icon as the cars he photographs. Ten years ago, Car Magazine in England ranked him 122 among the 300 most important figures in the global auto industry. Dunne rated higher than DCX’s Dieter Zetsche and racing legend Carroll Shelby.

Dunne has revealed so many automakers’ secrets that General Motors Vice Chairman Bob Lutz jokes about arming his engineers with baseball bats when they test new cars.

"Their instructions are to stop" but try not to hurt Dunne and "smash his camera to smithereens," Lutz said with a laugh before adding more seriously that the elaborate camouflage kits disguising the cars "are absolutely designed to foil Jim Dunne."

Dunne has spent his career writing for magazines. He got frustrated reporting news weeks after newspapers did, so he decided to make news of his own.

"I’d be months, even years, ahead of everybody else," he said, scanning the road for his next target. His first spy shot was a restyled Chevrolet Corvair about 40 years ago.

"I borrowed my sister-in-law’s camera," he said. "I sent the picture to my magazine, and the editor told me, ‘Jim, that photo was electrifying. Send as many more as you can get.’

"How much more validation do you need?" Dunne said. "I was raising seven children, and the money put food on the table."

He uses a few key design elements and the relationships he’s built up over decades to strip away the disguises and identify upcoming cars.

"I look at the fender flares and the headlights, then I talk to a few people," he said. "I never ask anybody to identify a car their company is testing. But if it’s a Ford, I’ll call GM."

GM vehicles top his wish list now. He’s shot the best photos anyone has seen of the supposedly secret super-performance Chevrolet Corvette SS.

"The hottest car in spy photography is the Corvette," Dunne said. "Everybody loves the Corvette."

He’s still hoping to get pictures of the new rear-wheel-drive sedans GM has coming and a compact sport utility vehicle in the works for Cadillac, which GM won’t admit exist.

Dunne has worked for Popular Mechanics magazine for years. The magazine gets first use of all his pictures, then he sells them to newspapers, magazines and Web sites around the world. The fee can be anything from $50 to $2,500.

"The most I ever got was $10,000 for a car that hasn’t been produced yet and may never be built," he said, declining to identify the car or who bought the picture.

These days, Dunne takes all his pictures from public property, but the rules were looser in the go-go ’60s, when he snuck into every design studio in Detroit.

He never lied about who he was, but Dunne regularly donned a white short-sleeve shirt, black tie and clipboard - "It was the uniform" - and ambled into the studios when they emptied out around lunchtime.

He and auto writer Jerry Flint once snuck along a railroad line into the old Dodge design center, on Detroit’s east side, where Chrysler now builds Jeep Grand Cherokees and Commanders.

Three engineers had skipped lunch that day and asked the two journalists what they were doing.

"We came by to see the new cars," Dunne answered with a smile.

"Where do you work?" an engineer asked.

"We’re with publications. Downtown," Dunne replied, growing uneasy.

"OK, but you’ve got to sign in. We’ve had some problems here lately."

"Naw, we’ve got to get back to work," Dunne said, leaving, but not before shooting photographs of several of Dodge’s future cars.

A fit 75-year-old who regularly plays tennis and jumps in and out of cars like a man decades younger, Dunne enjoys matching wits with the engineers and security people who set out to foil him.

"Some of the new kids try to provoke the engineers, get photos of them coming at them with their hands raised," Dunne said. "Why hassle them? They’re just doing their job."

And he knows his job is an adventure.

"I get a heightened sense of awareness when I get close," Dunne said as we approached GM’s high-security proving grounds in Milford.

"The adrenaline still rises when I see a disguised car. It’s the thrill of the hunt. I’m not out here to tell jokes." - Mark Phelan, The Detroit Free Press

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THE END