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Railroad Newsline for Monday, June 04, 2007

Compiled by Larry W. Grant

In Memory of Rob Carlson, 1952 – 2006

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RAIL NEWS

BNSF SEES NO NEED FOR A 'SOLUTION'

BNSF Railway would like to respond to a May 14 commentary relating to railroad regulation legislation written by representatives of the agricultural community.

We believe that past misunderstandings have motivated North Dakota’s support for re-regulation legislation. However, we also believe that our actions over the past three years have demonstrated a sincere effort to change the past and open doors to better communication with our North Dakota customers and the producers of North Dakota, so that we understand their needs and can provide transportation that consistently meets their expectations. Further, we believe we are well into that process and hope that the authors of the previous letter – and the elected officials who penned the original letter in support of re-regulation legislation – would agree.

Thus, starting from a place of improved understanding of our mutual economic interests, we should be able to agree on policy outcomes that promote those interests.

Since 1996, BNSF has invested nearly $23 billion in systemwide capital and service improvements to grow with our customers and to enable and support their growth. In the past two years we have undertaken to establish an intense two-way dialogue with our grain elevator customers and their customers – agriculture producers – regarding our mutual economic requirements and service needs. We are committed to the path of working proactively with our customers to meet their needs and develop appropriate long-term solutions that promote further increases in rail capacity, additional improvement in rail service and policies that promote reasonable oversight.

Railroading has always been a business of density. Because of their huge capital requirements, railroads can only be profitable where there is enough shipment density to support capital reinvestment. Therefore, it should be no surprise that where there is less density of population and industry, more than one railroad cannot survive. This natural market consequence, however, does create an understandable customer desire for appropriate access to a regulatory body charged with administering regulations designed to balance the railroads’ need for density with the customers’ need for service at a reasonable price.

Thus, BNSF agrees that Surface Transportation Board rules and processes must be improved to allow cost-appropriate access for smaller shippers who have service and rate complaints. There is a rulemaking under way at the STB designed to address those concerns. We are hopeful that an improvement in the STB’s complaint process will provide a transparency that assures our customers of our accountability – without jeopardizing the capital investment that has driven our service improvements and ability to haul the growing agricultural production.

Unfortunately, the legislative “solution” that some have endorsed would actually destroy the capital-based service improvements that we have made and irreparably harm the interests of agricultural customers.

Therefore, we believe that the relevant and compelling question is, will those legislative proposals lead to increased railroad investment, capital expansion and service, or will they lead to an investment decline, with its corresponding service and financial consequences? - Kevin Kaufman, The Fargo Forum (Kevin Kaufman is group vice president, agricultural products, BNSF Railway Co.)

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TEXAS LOSING HISTORY WITH TSRR MOVE

Have you ever been compelled to write something at a random moment in time? There you are, minding your own business, when the urge to put something down on paper overpowers you with such force that you have no option but to do so. That happened to me a couple of weeks ago, and this week’s column is the result. I was reading Stephen King’s Misery (I know I’m a little behind the times here, but cut me some slack) when I felt I needed to write something. So bear with me if this seems like a rant, but I needed to get it off my chest. Also, keep in mind the first version of this column was a little more scathing than what you see here, but for the sake of protecting both the integrity of myself and this paper, I have toned it down. I may or may not e-mail you the original version if you so desire.

As I’m sure the majority of you are aware, the Texas State Railroad has been officially given the green light for privatization. American Heritage Railways is slated to take over the park when it finishes operations at the end of August. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a sad day for the city of Palestine and the state of Texas. What we are witnessing is a seemingly large lack of respect that Texas Parks & Wildlife has for the history of our great state. It is, in no melodramatic terms and with no over exaggeration, a tragedy.

Steam trains are among the rare breed of machines that amaze every person that sees them in some way or another, whether it be a tiny glimmer of intrigue in the eyes and recognized only by close friends and family, or an all-out fascination and gleefulness seen in young children. The fact of the matter is, trains are awesome things, and you don’t really know that until you’ve come into contact with them. I never really paid them any mind until my father accepted a position at the TSRR, and I was then immersed in a culture of locomotives. I never developed the obsessive amazement that many do, but I won’t deny that I’m deeply interested in the machines and the way they operate, and this interest runs deep enough to prefer they stay in operation by the organization that is supposed to be taking care of them.

I am greatly disappointed by Texas Parks & Wildlife Department’s wishes to rid themselves of such a great part of their history. Texas is already one of the states on the very bottom of the list as far as funding for state parks goes, and now for the Texas State Railroad, the funding will be completely withdrawn and the notion of continuing operations cast aside like a young child casts aside a new toy after he has tired of it. The cold hard fact that is that the TSRR is a little bit of a money hog. It costs a lot to keep the trains running and keep everything in tip-top shape, and by God, if they can’t make a profit, then it’s no good for Texas Parks & Wildlife. Never mind that the park was never meant to make money in the first place. Never mind that it’s one of the top tourist attractions in the state and pumps much needed economic lifeblood into the cities of Palestine and Rusk. Never mind that it’s HISTORY.

And now that the railroad is on its way out, suddenly everybody was rooting for it all along. Politicians especially are crying out and claiming that they always wanted to see the TSRR keep operating and it’s such a shame that we have to take the risks of privatization. I’m not pointing any fingers, because I know good and well that plenty of politicians actually have been fighting for the railroad, and I applaud their efforts. But to those who have only come out of the woodwork here at the finale, shame on you.

It’s painfully obvious to me that TP&WD has not properly handled the operation of the Texas State Railroad for far too long, and instead of owning up to the consequences, they are just ridding themselves of the problem. It’s becoming clear that TP&WD is now more interested only in what the “W” represents and is beginning to phase out the “P.” I don’t know why, maybe the parks don’t make enough money for them, but whatever it is, it’s still a shame. What I want to do is write a book. I want to dig deep into the annals of TSRR history and talk to all the employees and document how this tragedy came about. I want to show everyone what certain organizations think about their history. I’d love to be able to tell the story, but it wouldn’t work. There’s no way I’d get the funding, and even if I did, some higher-up would probably find a way to sever that as well.

I have no doubts that American Heritage Railways is perfectly capable of operating the railroad with no problems, and for the sake of this city and for the sake of everybody who loves the place so much, I hope they bring it back to life and make it shine again. We should offer our sincere gratitude to AHR, because they don’t want to see the TSRR become a forgotten relic. But regardless of whether or not AHR brings the railroad back to life, I encourage all of you who care even the slightest bit about the TSRR or history in general to write letters to the TP&WD headquarters in Austin and tell them you’re outraged at what they’ve decided to do. Tell them you respect your community’s past and understand that that past should be protected and preserved by the state it’s a part of. It shouldn’t be left up to somebody else.

We need to stand up and fight for what we believe in. Even if all the letters that get written are shredded and never read, and the only thing that happens is that we’re laughed at for writing them, then let them laugh. At least we care. - Commentary, Robert Rich, The Palestine Herald (Robert Rich is a sophomore journalism major at the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from Westwood High School in 2006.)

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EXPRESS TRAIN IS READY TO RUN

Photo here:

[www.minotdailynews.com]:\oweb.net\minotdailynews.com\storyPhotos\IMG_0016copy.jpg&Width=285

Caption reads: The Magic City Express sits inside its roundhouse, which is actually oblong in shape, on Thursday afternoon. The names of all the original railroad workers who purchased the train and built the roundhouse and train tracks in 1989 are written in the concrete lip surrounding the repair pit. (Dan Feldner/MDN)

MINOT, ND -- Just about everyone young and old alike loves a train ride, and summer brings an opportunity for every Minot resident and tourist to take a ride on an old-fashioned locomotive in Roosevelt Park.

The Magic City Express, in operation since 1989, offers train rides seven days a week, weather permitting. James Huston, president of the Railroad Museum of Minot, which owns and operates the train, said they generally start running the train when the Roosevelt Park Pool opens, which was Tuesday. The train then runs seven days a week until school starts, when the train is parked for the winter.

“We don’t really have in-stone days and hours,” Huston said. “We’re open to that certain point when school starts, but if it’s a nice weekend or something we’ll go out and run the train.”

Huston said the museum sprang out of the North Dakota state centennial celebration in 1989 and was started mostly by a group of ex-railroad workers as a way of commemorating more than 100 years of regional railroading history. Getting a running train for Minot was one of the first things the museum tackled.

The Magic City Express is a 2/5 scale model of a Great Northern F-8 locomotive. It was originally purchased in 1989 by many of the same ex-railroad workers who started the museum. They not only purchased the train, but built the tracks and roundhouse where the train is stored in Roosevelt Park as well.

“A lot of things that they put together for the centennial, once the centennial celebration was done, those artifacts started the railroad museum,” Huston said. “So they just took all that stuff and put it in a building and started from there.”

Every item in the museum has been donated, according to Huston, and donations are the only way they are able to get new artifacts in. All the money made from the train rides and from monetary donations to the museum are used to pay utility bills for the museum and maintenance bills for the train. Huston encourages anyone who has railroad memorabilia that would otherwise be thrown away to donate it to the museum.

“Anything that people have that’s railroad-related that they don’t know what to do with, we’ll give it a home,” Huston said. “Everything in here’s been donated –belonged to somebody’s dad or grandpa or uncle.”

The train has been out of commission recently, as a new fuel pump needed to be installed. The pump arrived Thursday, and Ted Bolte and Larry Entzel installed it that afternoon. The engine that powers the train is not steam, but a 4-cylinder John Deere diesel. Bolte has been one of the volunteer train engineers for the past year after also driving the train in 1997. Entzel is training to be an engineer and saw the train for the first time about a month ago.

Bolte said the track the train runs on is about a mile long, and a ride takes between 10 and 12 minutes to complete. The train generally only needs to be filled with diesel fuel once a year thanks to the two large 150-gallon tanks in the tender car behind the engine. While the train is still running on last year’s fuel, Bolte said he’s sure they’ll feel the squeeze at the pump when Farmers Union comes in July to fill it up.

The train track is 2 feet wide, compared to 4 feet 8-1/2 inches for a regular train track. Bolte said the engine and tender car combine to weigh about 10,000 pounds, and a speed governor limits the train to 7 mph, though he generally drives about 5 mph.

The train normally starts running when the pool opens, but Bolte said they’ve invited school kids out to see the museum and to ride the train for the past three weeks. He estimates that they’ve already given about 500 kids train rides this year.

While Huston is a mechanic by trade, Bolte, and especially Entzel, are about as far away from that as you can get. Bolte used to work at Job Service helping to train people and Entzel was a banker for 30 years and worked at Sykes Enterprises for 10 years. But with Bolte’s experience growing up in the service station business and the knowledge Entzel gained growing up on a farm, they are able to service the train without too much difficulty.

“For a banker, this guy sure knows a lot about trains,” Bolte said.

Their repair skills were put to the test last week when Bolte was taking the train for a run and the caboose jumped the tracks. Thankfully he wasn’t hauling any passengers at the time and none of the cars tipped over, but there was still damage to the caboose and the passenger car in front of it.

There was additional pressure to get the train running because Bolte had an interview about the train the next morning. It took Bolte and Entzel an hour-and-a-half just to get the caboose back on the tracks, and they were fixing the train and track until 23:00 hours that night, but they got the job done.

Rates for train rides are $2.50 for children 6 and older and adults. Children 5 and under ride free. Discounts for groups of 25 or more are available by calling ahead of time. The Magic City Express runs seven days a week from 13:00 to 16:00 hours, weather permitting. Huston noted that the train engineers will stay until 17:00 hours if the weather is nice and there is customer demand.

The Railroad Museum of Minot, 19-1st St. NE, is open from 10:00 to 14:00 hours on Saturdays. Huston said the museum can be hard to find, and a distinctive feature of it is a red caboose located outside to the north. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated. For more information on the train, museum or becoming a volunteer, call 852-7091 or visit the museum’s Web site at [www.railroadmuseumofminot.org].

Those wishing to mail donations to the Railroad Museum of Minot can send them to P.O. Box 74, Minot, ND, 58702. - Dan Feldner, The Minot Daily News

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$100K FINE SOUGHT FOR TRAINS BLOCKING RIVERSIDE TRAFFIC

RIVERSIDE, CA -- A nearly year-old deal between the Union Pacific Railroad and the city of Riverside has prevented trains from stopping and blocking street traffic for long stretches, city officials said this week.

But a City Council member said the deal doesn't do enough to protect public safety.

The city and railroad reached agreement after an incident on the afternoon of May 26, 2006 -- the Friday before Memorial Day weekend last year -- when a Union Pacific train stopped for three hours in the neighborhoods near the Riverside Plaza.

No similar incident has happened since, Assistant City Manager Michael Beck said, though the city has documented several 20-minute stops.

Councilman Frank Schiavone is proposing the city slap a $100,000 fine on train companies each time a train violates a state Public Utilities Commission order prohibiting trains from blocking vehicular traffic for more than 10 minutes.

Halted trains put the public at risk by blocking ambulances, firetrucks and police units, Schiavone said.

Map here:

[www.pe.com]

"They need to know we're serious about it," he said of the train companies. "We can't wait until someone dies in an ambulance sitting on the wrong side of the tracks."

Union Pacific spokesman Mark Davis said the railroad has been cooperating with the city and shares concerns about public safety.

"We'd work together to determine how we can best help in the event of an emergency," he said.

An average of 30 trains a day -- both freight and commuter -- pass through Riverside on Union Pacific tracks, and 87 trains a day use the BNSF Railway Co. lines, Davis said.

City Attorney Greg Priamos said Riverside data show that Union Pacific trains blocked ambulances and firetrucks 78 times in 2005 for an average of three minutes each time and blocked them 47 times in 2006 for an average of 3½ minutes each time. For 2007 to date, there have been 25 blockages averaging about 3.15 minutes.

Photo here:

[www.pe.com]

Caption reads: A Union Pacific train makes it way across Magnolia Avenue at Magnolia Center in Riverside. A councilman is questioning a deal between the railroad and the city of Riverside. (Kurt Miller/The Press-Enterprise)

Clearly the situation has improved," he said. "It doesn't mean all the impacts to public safety have been mitigated."

A series of unfortunate events caused the May 26, 2006, incident.

The eastbound train was waiting for clearance to go on the BNSF line that heads north to Colton. While it was stopped, the train's crew received reports of people climbing on the train. This triggered a zero-tolerance procedure for trespassers and Union Pacific called police.

While officials searched the train for trespassers, the crew realized it was going to be on the job more than 12 hours so it had to call in a crew from Los Angeles. Federal law prohibits train crews from working more than 12-hour shifts.

As a result of the episode and subsequent meetings with city officials, Union Pacific:
Issued a standing order to its Inland dispatch center not to send any eastbound train past Jurupa Avenue until BNSF accepts the Union Pacific train onto its rail line.

Agreed not to send trains through Riverside unless the operating crew has at least 90 minutes to two hours remaining on its shift. This part of the agreement is meant to avoid a time-consuming crew switch when a train stops in Riverside near the end of a shift.

Provided Riverside City Hall with phone numbers for the Inland Union Pacific dispatch center to get information on train blockages.

The agreement is just the kind of solution the city should be coming up with to keep traffic flowing, said Harvey Anderson, a resident for 50 years.

"I'm all for them doing something different about it," he said Wednesday outside the Bank of America at Merrill and Magnolia avenues.

No similar arrangement is possible with BNSF, Beck said, because there is nowhere for its trains to stop outside the city limits without blocking traffic.

The Union Pacific trains can stop in Pedley or back up out of Riverside to Pedley if needed, Beck said. Their impact on vehicular traffic in Pedley is insignificant compared to their impact in Riverside, he said. - Doug Haberman, The Riverside Press-Enterprise

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TOXICS ON THE RAILS: THE BEST ROUTE IS TRAINING

A 90-ton rail car of chlorine passing within blocks of the Capitol, if its cargo were released, could kill or injure about 100 people per second. It would be lethal within two to five miles and dangerous for 14 miles.

These facts frame a debate about whether to reroute rail cars carrying hazardous materials away from the District of Columbia, as explored recently in The Post.

But there is a cheaper and more immediate way to enhance public safety, whether or not trains are ever rerouted. We need to develop quality training for preventing and handling accidents -- and acts of terrorism -- and then invest in such training for railroad personnel, emergency responders and community residents. At the moment, training by the railroads is woefully inadequate.

Improvements in railroad safety are critical to regional and national security and to the health and well-being of Americans. One million tons of hazardous materials, including chemicals and nuclear waste, roll along railways every day through cities and towns across the United States, unprotected by adequate emergency procedures or personnel trained in how to manage a toxic-materials crisis.

Millions of lives and billions of dollars are at stake.

Training can mean the difference between life and death.

In Graniteville, SC, in 2005, one of three rail cars, each carrying 90 tons of deadly chlorine, was breached after a derailment. More than 60 tons of chlorine vaporized into a toxic cloud. The engineer, a young man in good health, ran through the cloud for safety, but, because he was breathing deeply, he was overcome. The conductor, who had military training in responding to poison gas, walked slowly through the cloud using shallow breathing and was able to escape with his life. A former chemistry teacher recognized chlorine gas emanating from the crash site and warned residents to stay indoors and turn off their ventilation systems.

At the National Labor College in Silver Spring, we have trained more than 20,000 railway workers and first responders from across North America. We teach simulated-response drills to hazardous materials release. Our experience suggests that the public safety would be best served by:

· Training all local rail workers -- freight, Amtrak, VRE and MARC personnel alike.

· Training emergency responders in rail hazardous materials awareness, including joint exercises with rail workers.

· Familiarizing trainees with key resources: pocket guides for chemical identification and response, material safety data sheets and the Transportation Department Emergency Response Guide.

· Putting resources and training online -- in English and Spanish.

· Developing a community guide for residents on how to respond to an emergency.

· Providing training developed by the Energy Department for transportation of radioactive materials.

· Providing security training and training on transporting weapons of mass destruction.

Communities will never be completely safe as long as they are near shipments of hazardous materials, but establishing adequate procedures for railway emergencies and having adequate training of personnel can go a long way toward decreasing the effects of a disaster, if not help in preventing one altogether. - Commentary, Brenda Cantrell, Columbia, MD and Ruth Ruttenberg, Bethesda, MD, The Washington Post (The writers teach health and safety at the National Labor College, an AFL-CIO-affiliated college in Silver Spring.)

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STATE ON THE WRONG TRACK?

Photo gallery here:

[www.madison.com]

EDGERTON, WI -- Henry Stockwell's got a problem with the railroad.

This year there were two derailments in two months in his Rock River neighborhood south of Edgerton; the February crash tossed a rail car up an embankment and within a few feet of the bedroom where his grandson was sleeping.

In May, Stockwell and neighbor Dave Markson stood along the tracks when a fact-finding train full of local officials chugged by, with signs reading, "Gov. Doyle Help Us!"

Rep. Mark Pocan's got a problem with the railroad, too. In his office at the Capitol, the Madison Democrat has a box too heavy to lift filled with hundreds of metal paperweights in the shape of railroad ties.

Pocan's budget-writing Joint Finance Committee controls state money for railroad improvements, but he's irritated with the railroad's lobbying, especially after his office told the railroad to stop sending the metal and it kept piling up. He threatened to take about $10,000 out of the railroad's budget request.

"If they have enough money to blow $10,000 on postage, the least we could do is nick that from their budget request," Pocan said.

Bill Gardner's got a problem, too, even though he runs the railroad. His Wisconsin & Southern Railroad runs on tracks owned by the state of Wisconsin. Gardner says he mailed the metal because some legislators aren't even aware that the state owns about 600 miles of tracks, acquired in the 1980s when railroads such as the Milwaukee Road went bankrupt.

"Why isn't the state interested in fixing up its own assets?" said Gardner, who has the blustering style of a railroad magnate from the 19th century. "Business (that uses rail) is coming in faster than the money to fix it. The state is happy to take the property tax and the payroll tax from those new businesses, yet they don't want to fix the ... railroad that brought in the businesses."

The biggest question for state residents and taxpayers is whether we have a problem with the railroad, too.

The question seems even more pressing here in southern Wisconsin. After all, the line where the two derailments occurred runs from Milton to Edgerton to Stoughton to McFarland to Madison, all of it in "deplorable" shape, according to Gardner.

"I don't have a crystal ball so I don't know where it will break next," he said.

Forrest Van Schwartz, the Dane County representative to the Wisconsin River Rail Commission that actually owns the tracks, was more soothing.

"There should not be a public alarm over track conditions," Van Schwartz said. But he added that all the state's tracks suffer from decades of deferred maintenance.

Gov. Jim Doyle recognized the problem, and has proposed increasing state spending on track improvement from $6 million to $11 million over the two years of the budget.

Gardner says that isn't enough, and he is pushing for passage of a separate bill that would spend $30 million on track improvement; he says it's needed because the state keeps acquiring more track, but doesn't increase the rail improvement fund.

Under the formula, Gardner's company pays 10 percent of the cost of improving tracks, the counties pay 10 percent and the state pays 80 percent.

He's says it's in our best interest: Not only do railroads bring businesses, the freight hauled by his railroad alone keeps 240,000 trucks off Wisconsin highways each year.

So even if you don't have 14 derailed freight cars in your yard or a hernia-inducing pile of metal in your office, the railroad's problems probably are your problems, too. - Susan Lampert Smith, The Wisconsin State Journal

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TEXAS STATE RAILROAD -- YESTERDAY, TODAY AND TOMORROW

The Texas State Railroad was built by the Texas State Prison System starting in 1881. The railroad was built by state prisoners to service an iron foundry that was operated by the East Texas Prison in Rusk.

By 1909 the railroad had extended 30 miles west to the town of Palestine and started passenger service. The iron foundry in Rusk closed in 1913, and the prison was converted into a state mental hospital in 1917.

Regular train service by the state ceased in 1921, and the line was leased to various railroad companies until 1969.

In 1972 the Legislature turned the railroad over to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department to be used as a state park and to operate a steam-powered excursion train over the line. Once again prison crews were brought in to work on the Texas State Railroad. Convicts from Ellis and Eastham Prison Farms worked 10-hour days rebuilding the railroad line.

On July 4, 1976, Texas State Railroad State Historical Park opened to the public as part of the U.S. bicentennial celebration.

Prison crews were brought in for a third time in 1996 to work on the railroad. During an 18-month period, state offenders logged more than 16,000 hours of community service. Offenders cleared brush from the 30 miles of right of way, restored the exterior of 13 passenger coaches and assisted with the rebuilding of Steam Engine No. 500.

In 2001 the state railroad celebrated three milestones: the 25th anniversary of the state park, the 25th anniversary of Engine No. 610’s use as the nation’s Bicentennial Freedom Train and the 100th birthday of Engine No. 201.

With very little promotion except for the Texas State Park’s publications, the Texas State Railroad has become a popular tourist destination. Last year the railroad recorded 71,000 riders, said operations superintendent Mark Price.

“State Parks are designed to set aside a unique resource, manage it, preserve it, take care of it and have it available for the average person to go and enjoy,” Price said. “A state park does not have advertising funds. The Texas State Railroad has been open 32 years, and many longtime Texas residents still do not know about it.

“A professional operator can come in with an advertising budget and let the people of Houston, Austin, Dallas and the rest of the world know we are here. The downside is they are in it to make a profit. If they are not making money, they can’t stay open, so they in turn will have to go up on the ticket prices.”

While there I also visited with Roger Graham, the engineer on our train. He has been with the Texas State Railroad for 32 years, having started before the park opened to the public, helping to clear the right-of-way. He was fireman for two years and engineer the remainder of the time. He was an air traffic controller in the Air Force for four years and came to the Texas State Railroad directly from the Air Force. Starting out, he ran the steam engine and later picked up on the diesel engine. He said that he likes the steam the best.

Robert Gore was the fireman on our train. He let me know he was no relation to Al Gore.

Cleburne has a connection to the Texas State Railroad. Graham has made several trips here to get parts off Engine No. 3417 in Hulen Park to repair the railroad’s steam engine. - John Watson, The Cleburne Times-Review

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MAN ARRESTED FOR STEALING COPPER AFTER CHASE

WELD COUNTY, CO -- Police arrested a man who was suspected of stealing copper wire after a high-speed chase Friday.

A Union Pacific railroad employee reported seeing a man later identified as Robert Hix, 43, of Arvada, Colorado, in a blue minivan parked along railroad tracks on Weld County Road 124 near the town of Carr.

When police responded, Hix drove away and refused to stop.

Hix went onto Interstate 25 and drove at speeds near 100 miles per hour with his headlights turned off.

Colorado State Patrol joined in the pursuit and Hix was eventually stopped. A roll containing approximately 300 feet of solid copper wire was found in the back of the minivan along with wire cutters, a step ladder and a rope.

Union Pacific confirmed copper wire was missing from the area Hix was first spotted.

Hix was charged with felony theft, vehicular eluding, driving under revocation and two outstanding arrest warrants from Arvada and Adams County. - Matthew J. Buettner, KCNC-CBS4, Denver, CO

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THE LURE OF THE STEAM WHISTLE

Photo here:

[www.coshoctontribune.com]

Caption reads: Harry Williams examines a steam engine during the First Fridays celebration in Coshocton. The Ohio Central Railroad displayed its 1293 engine built in the late 1940s. (Matthew Leasure/The Coshocton Tribune)

COSHOCTON, OH -- For Jim and Edna Jones of Coshocton, having the chance to admire a historic steam engine in town was a treat.

"This is beautiful. They take good care of it," Edna said. "I grew up here, and in the '40s, I remember there were two tracks for Pennsylvania Railroad passenger trains. During the war years we would wave at the soldiers."

"I remember 55 years ago when we used to watch the 4-8-8-4 Mallets go through Kent," Jim added. "It was fantastic. They were twice as long as this one." These "longtime steam train fans" were just a couple of the many passersby who were drawn to the Ohio Central Depot on South Fifth Street Friday evening to observe the special First Fridays guest. The Ohio Central Railroad displayed its No. 1293 engine built in the late 1940s.

Andy Novak, a dispatcher and engineer for Ohio Central, said this engine was built in 1948 for the Canadian Pacific Railroad. After years of running and traveling, it sat in various museums in Vermont and Scranton, Pa. Then the Ohio Central purchased it and restored it to operation in 1997.

"It's been a workhorse since then, and probably our most reliable steamer," Novak said. "She's our little sweetheart."

Tim Sposato, fellow engineer, added the engine probably went through 4,000 gallons of water and three tons of coal traveling from the shop in Miller's Dip to the depot display location and back.

The engine isn't out on display much. Novak said it makes a few appearances here and there, but is mainly reserved for special company events.

With this rare arrival in Coshocton, plenty of onlookers gathered to gaze and gawk at the massive black engine with yellow lettering and maroon background.

"When we first came in, there was a fair amount of people looking at it, especially when we blew the whistle," Novak said.

The engine attracted onlookers from all age groups. Small babies sat on their fathers' sturdy shoulders, older children pointed and smiled in amazement, and adults admired the machinery and chatted with several of the engineers.

Midge and Andy Reidenbach and their daughter Waverly, 6, wanted to finally see the engine up close and personal.

"I wanted to see the wheels and the bell," Waverly exclaimed. "You can always hear the whistle in school, even through the glass."

Jim Jones also commented on the engine's sweet signature sound.

"I was on the golf course the other day and I heard the steam whistle; it sounded so good," he said.

The reaction make it all worthwhile, said Charles Moon, who was helping to promote the Coshocton County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"It's rewarding to see the look on people's faces," he said. "I want to express my appreciation to the crew for being willing to bring the steam engine down. We've got something special here in Coshocton that nobody else has. It helps bring families downtown."

Sposato said this was an opportunity for the railroad to aid in drawing more visitors to the area.

"This was the railroad's part of helping attract people to the community and bring people down here," he said. "We try to get involved where we can, and we might do this again." - Holly Richards, The Coshocton Tribune

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THOUGHTS FROM A TRAIN

RURAL SIBERIA, RUSSIA -- We have compartments on the famed Trans-Siberian Railroad. To the others it offers an ordeal, something to be dealt with. They take it in good humor. For me it is luxury. I enjoy train travel.

We roll past huge numbers of even smaller handmade wood houses. There are miles and miles of them. I don't see any people. More and more houses but no people and no cars.

What goes? The houses go on and on. Each has its own garden, worked and ready for spring.

Finally I learn they are “summer houses.” In the communist days the government would provide the land almost for free. People would have a “cliff-dweller's” apartment in town, but eventually the summer would come and they would have the reward -- the summer house.

“What kept them from just moving there?” I ask.

Answer: “The government didn't allow them to be heated.”

“Could they sell them?”

“Yes, but with many restrictions. Mostly they could only be sold to retired people. Or, if the owner was a teacher, he could sell it to another teacher. Now, they may do whatever they wish. Heat them up, sell them, use them winter or summer. But the old patterns mostly remain.”

The Russian tundra, with only part of its snow cover intact, is endless. Today's ride on the Trans-Siberian Railroad will be 45 hours. Once every hour or so there's a stop at a tiny town, but other than that there's nothing but empty land guarded by the birch trees. The land appears never to have been touched, never plowed and hardly entered. There are no houses, no people, no old wrecked cars or other cast-off junk and waste that people leave behind.

It's a strange, wide-open land, cold and forbidding and huge; it has survived for the millennia mostly because it is cold and forbidding and huge. Out my train compartment window the snow is half-melted in April. Some of the flat land looks like swamp with the recent thaw, other parts are still white and the reflection almost hurts my eyes.

There is no dining car. They come around offering plates of meat or fish and french fries and vegetables. I try it and resort to the peanut butter I brought along. Banjo player Howard Elkins produces a bottle of fine French red wine. Ah, a feast! American peanut butter, French wine, and Russian dark bread. Seriously, this is good eating!

Every couple of hours the train pulls into a station and there are little stands on the platforms selling food and stuff. I indulge in Lay's potato chips.

Then and now

I don't know how we let our great trains get away. My family often used the Katy (Missouri-Kansas-Texas or MKT, which came to be known as the KT or Katy for short) to travel to Dallas.
You could get on any time after 20:00 hours and go to bed. At about 02:00 hours, while you were asleep, they would pull out. If you rose at 07:00, dressed, had breakfast in the diner, you could step out on the street in downtown Dallas well rested and ready to hit it at 09:00 hours.

The Russians do a pretty good job. Trains are right on time, the roadbed is in good shape, and the ride is smooth.

Of course I do know what happened to our trains. The deathblow, during the Eisenhower years, came with the Interstate Highway Act. The government built the roads. The railroads had to build their own roads and ultimately it was an unlevel playing field. The car people, the oil people loved it. Most Americans don't think about what a mess it's made of our cities and how it has diminished our quality of life. We're just beginning to wake up to the problem.

But back in Russia the Trans-Siberian Railroad is one of the country's best features. We're headed due west, and after about 20 hours a few plowed fields are beginning to appear at my window.

I sleep on and on, wake, eat and sleep, watch the panorama framed by the window and sleep. Maybe that sleep is the reason I have always so enjoyed the trains. Upon awakening the attendant brings me a series of cups of hot tea. It is the best, I think, and they bring it in a heavy glass set in an elaborately decorated silver holder that comes halfway up the glass. The train is filled with tea-drinkers.

Each car has an old-fashioned coal-fired boiler to heat the water for the tea. Below is a bucket of chunks of coal. The old firebox glows red. Passengers need to be a bit careful not to burn themselves as they pass up and down the car. In fact there is a great deal more “enter at your own risk” than we are accustomed to. The old communist bosses didn't allow you to own anything so they controlled your life but didn't care about small stuff. If you were fool enough to step into the tea boiler, go ahead!

Today's tea party is in the Ural Mountains. They contrast with the flat landscape we've passed through for a thousand miles. This is the Southern Urals, and, if it were not for the beautiful bank upon bank of birch, they would look very much the same as the Texas Hill Country. I imagine, however that the Urals cover an area 100 times as large as our hills. Also, no one is slowly making them ugly by building tacky McMansions on top of them the way they are in Texas.

In these areas outside Russia's great cities, there is such poverty that no one could afford a McMansion. One positive effect of this is that the beauty of the Urals remains unspoiled so far.

Given a choice between American wealth and Russian scenic beauty, I would have to opt for the former — but muse to myself: couldn't there be a compromise? Couldn't most of those hilltops be saved for future generations? Take a few hundred hills and force all the ugly houses to be in one area. Probably they wouldn't like that because nobody wants to have to look over at his neighbor's ugly house. He wants to look over at the beautiful natural hilltop while it lasts, and oddly he curses when someone eventually builds on it.

‘Your papers, pleez'

Reminiscent of a scene from a Bogart movie, I hear a rustle through the car. Teams of Russian soldiers are moving through. An officer is saying in Russian or some other language, reflecting the stereotypical equivalent of the deadly serious German officer: “Your papers, pleez.”

They rap loudly on my door. The first wave of them is at ease, giving at least a hint of a smile.

“Passport?”

I fumble for it and quickly hand it over. As he leafs through the pages of my passport he blurts something in my face, which I can tell is a question. He pauses for my answer, which doesn't come. Another man says in English, “Job?”

“Oh! Music,” I say. “Musician.”

They hand back my passport and move on.

It seems that the agents who have organized the tour have us traveling one leg of the Trans-Siberian Railroad through the top corner of Kazakhstan. In the Soviet days it didn't matter, but now we have without realizing it left Russia and entered another country without a visa. It seems that they want us to get off the train.

What then?

A second group of Kazakhstan police enter, complete with polished boots, army-green officers' uniforms and Russian fur hats. They ask to enter the compartment and sit down on my bed. They smell very strongly of some powerful spice they have had for lunch.

Pianist Valeri Grohovski stands in the doorway arguing like crazy in Russian. He slips a word of English to me. “They really want us to leave the train.”

“What?”

“Yes!” he says, but he's really arguing. It seems that we don't quite have proper documentation to enter Kazakhstan. “But it's American artists here for good will,” he says.

Somehow he prevails; although I'm not sure how. The officers disappear and the train rolls on through the night. - Jim Cullum, The San Antonio Express-News

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TRANSIT NEWS

BUILDING HISTORY: A FATHER-AND-SON TEAM PUTS HERITAGE TROLLEYS BACK ON CITY STREETS

EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is second of a two-part series on Tom and Vince Mendenhall -- the father-and-son team that owns Historic Railway Restoration. The Mendenhalls also own a 1908 Turtleback streetcar that once operated in Tacoma, and now sits in storage on a field in Rockport, Wash. They have restored heritage streetcars and locomotives in Detroit, Kansas City, Ottumwa (Iowa), South Carolina, Quebec, and Whitehorse (Yukon Territory of Canada). Yesterday, the Index published a feature article about the Mendenhalls and a recent trek out to Rockport to inspect the old Tacoma car. Today, we catch up with the Mendenhalls in a Q & A interview.

TACOMA DAILY INDEX: How did you get started in the business of restoring streetcars?

VINCE MENDENHALL: Walter -- my grandfather, Tom's father -- was a train nut all his life. He passed away in 1965. He had sent information and books to different museums around the country. We were going to Oregon in 1978 on a family trip, and we stopped into a trolley museum.
The people there said, 'Yeah, we knew your grandfather, and we have a few of his books still.'

We just started hanging out at the museum. In 1983 or 1984, the museum leased some of their cars from San Francisco for the trolley festival. Tom had a tractor-trailer Class A license. They needed to get the car from downtown San Francisco to Oregon. So my dad started hauling cars for them. Then we ended up rebuilding some of those cars. Tom retired in 1989, and decided to go off and do it as a sole proprietor. We got a [contract with] SCANA Corporation -- South Carolina Electric and Gas -- [to restore a Fort Collins Birney Safety Car]. They hired us specifically to come down to do the work. They were just really happy with it. We did little jobs here and there. We installed a streetcar up in Whitehorse, in the Yukon Territory. We worked with the City of Detroit, Kansas City. Tom did a lot of roaming between 1989 and 1995.

INDEX: Where do you find the parts for the streetcars?

VINCE MENDENHALL: Either at museums or we build them from scratch, unless the car actually still has the parts on it.

TOM MENDENHALL: It's actually a network. Everybody who works in this business, or works in museums, knows each other. You can call anybody and say, 'I need this. Who has one we could borrow and make a copy?' They'll say, 'Well, go call Danny or Carl or John.' Also, I was in South Dakota once, and this guy said, 'Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of streetcar bodies out in the field out there.' And that's how you find them. People are fascinated by what we do. And they say, 'Oh, yeah, I've seen some out here.'

INDEX: How much does it typically cost to restore a streetcar?

VINCE MENDENHALL: It depends on if you have everything on it. The cars from Detroit averaged about $350,000 to $375,000. Those were vehicles that were operational, but they just needed to be rebuilt. Cars like [those formerly in Tacoma], we actually almost sold [one of the cars] and rebuilt it for a development firm in the southeast two-and-a-half to three years ago, and I think I quoted them about $625,000. That's for a complete rebuild, creating trucks, redoing the body, brand-new propulsion system. You have to go through everything.

INDEX: What's the history behind the Tacoma streetcars you own, and how did they wind up with you?

VINCE MENDENHALL: The Turtleback was sitting in a guy's backyard in Auburn. We knew about it. 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 shape.

INDEX: How did they wind up in people's backyards?

TOM MENDENHALL: Well, back in the 1930s, for a dollar you could buy the body and for 50 dollars you could ship them on the railroad to wherever you wanted.

VINCE MENDENHALL: When you hear the term 'chicken coop,' they were literally turned into chicken coops. And storage shelters. Anything like that. The transit agencies back in the 1930s and 1940s, the cars were at the end of their lives, as far as they were concerned. They were scrapping them. If you go to some of the museums, they will have pictures of car bodies stacked up on fire. They would take all the metal, scoop it up, and make money off that.

TOM MENDENHALL: And even then, it was costing them money to scrap them. 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.

INDEX: Do you have a sense of how many streetcars are out there in operation, or sitting in someone's yard?

TOM MENDENHALL: Most of the museums get the bodies. The Seashore Trolley Museum [in Kennebunkport, Maine] has fifty-something bodies without wheels, which they have other cars they have picked up over the years. They have been collecting most of the stuff on the East Coast, when cities shut their systems down. And they didn't collect just one. They collected as many as they could because they wanted the parts for the future.

INDEX: Have you thought about how Tacoma could restore its streetcar system? What would be cost-effective? What should it aim for in terms of routes and service?

VINCE MENDENHALL: The perfect scenario for Tacoma is, Number One, you have to have high-density. You want to hit the apartment complexes and the condos where there are a lot of urbanites that want to get places without getting in their cars. Number Two, it has to go by or into some of the shopping complexes. Downtown should be the nexus of where you want to go on the weekend. On the weekday, you have to make sure the system is built so people can literally go from their work to their homes to the Safeway or Thriftway. And it sounds like there are a lot of places in Tacoma building up like that now. One of the things Tacoma could do is talk to some of [the developers of] these complexes that are being built, and say, 'Hey, maybe you should engineer in streetcar tracks or a streetcar stop now because this is coming.'

INDEX: The streetcars you own and now store in Rockport -- one is a Turtleback, and the other is a Birney. What's the difference between the two?

TOM MENDENHALL: A Birney is a single-truck, one-man safety car. It has four wheels. The Turtleback is a double-truck car, which has eight wheels. The Cincinnati Car Company built several of the Turtlebacks. American Car Company built the Birney 326 and 324. They were built in 1919, and they were called "Birneys," or one-man safety cars. Stone and Webster had American Car Company build the cars. Most of them boarded a certain amount of cars, and as the train went along, it would drop a flatcar loaded with a streetcar off from one city to another. They all had a basic undercoating -- orange. It was the primary paint. When they arrived in a city, they got painted the color the city wanted. I did research on the Birney car because I like them, and I like to rebuild them.

VINCE MENDENHALL: The Turtleback literally looks like a turtle -- the body with the head stuck out.

INDEX: You own a number of streetcars in various locations. Where are they stored?

TOM MENDENHALL: We have them in Oregon, California, Washington. There are a couple streetcar bodies in Fresno that I'm going to take and make one body out of.

INDEX: I imagine some of these streetcars you hear about and interested in wind up destroyed, right?

TOM MENDENHALL: There was one body that I went and talked to the owner about. I said, 'Don't do anything with the car. Call me, I'll come up and give you a hand.' The next thing I heard was, 'Oh, by the way, the guy you talked to a year ago, he wanted to move the body so he wrapped a cable around it, pulled on it, and then ran his bulldozer over it.'

INDEX: And there are probably interesting stories about transporting these old streetcars.

TOM MENDENHALL: I talked to a fellow up in Sedro-Wooley. He bought a Bellingham car. He went up there with his Model T truck. The streetcar body weighed 7,000 pounds -- it still had its glass and everything. He put it behind his Model T truck that weighed 4,000 pounds. There were no brakes on the trailer. He drove from Bellingham to Sedro-Wooley.

VINCE MENDENHALL: He took Chuckanut Drive, too. His Model T only had brakes on the rear wheels.

INDEX: Have other things, such as old boats or buses, received the attention that streetcars have in terms or restoration? It seems streetcars have a certain draw.

VINCE MENDENHALL: They do have nostalgia. Some employees at King County Metro have historical buses. Metro still owns the buses, but employees have actually rebuilt them. They've got a couple of 1940 Pullman trolley buses that they pull out for Christmas runs. And they have some original 1930s to 1950s gasoline buses they still operate. But it's not on the grand scale of what people are trying to do with trolleys. For some reason, a bus doesn't grab people the way trolley cars can.

INDEX: What's next for Historic Railway Restoration?

VINCE MENDENHALL: We've basically been to all four corners of North America. We've been everywhere. We haven't turned into a big company. We're still a little company just plugging along. But we met a lot of people and have been to a lot of places, and has a lot of value in itself. Just being able to have that experience. We feel like we're on the lower end of the hill climbing up. Hopefully, in the next few years, there will be a big explosion of cities wanting these streetcars, and we can supply them.

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To view additional photos of the Mendenhalls and their Rockport, Washington, streetcars, click on the following link:

[www.tacomadailyindex.com]

rockportst1.jpg -- Tom and Vince Mendenhall

rockportst2.jpg -- Historic Railway Restoration's 1908 Turtleback streetcar, which once operated in Tacoma.

rockportst3.jpg -- Inside the old Turtleback streetcar.

rockportst4.jpg -- A chipped and flaked door handle reveals nearly a century of wear-and-tear on the old Turtleback streetcar.

rockportst5.jpg -- a 1919 Birney model streetcar (left) sits near a 1908 Turtleback streetcar on 40 acres in Rockport, Washington.

rockportst6.jpg -- steel siding runs the Turtleback streetcar's length.

ALL PHOTOS COPYRIGHT (C) TODD MATTHEWS/TACOMA DAILY INDEX

- Todd Matthews, Editor, The Tacoma Daily Index

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MUSEUM HOSTS CENTURY CELEBRATION OF YAKIMA TROLLEYS

YAKIMA, WA -- Take a ride on the Yakima railroad, and arrive in the past.

Getting there -- during a round-trip that covers about eight blocks one way -- is the fun. So is getting back.

"Something about a wooden streetcar is just more appealing than a metal bus," says 64-year-old Paul D. Edmondson, a Yakima attorney and vice president of the Yakima Valley Trolleys association.

To him, the old-time trolleys that run on the remainder of this area's early 1900s tracks are "very beautiful -- Spanish mahogany on the inside."

But that's only part of their charm: "It's the wood," he says, "and the history."

The Yakima Valley Trolleys return to the rails every summer. But this one's different. This year, the trolleys are celebrating their centennial. And the public is invited to learn more about them Sunday afternoon.

Author Kenneth G. Johnsen will talk about how the trolleys got going and what has happened to them since then, including the end of their passenger operation in 1947 and its return in 1974.

"What a historic gem the YVT railroad is. There's no other railroad like it," says 61-year-old Johnsen, a Maple Valley dentist and author of the 1979 book "Apple Country Interurban: A History of the Yakima Valley Transportation Company." He's also president of the Yakima Valley Trolleys.

In addition to the past, he'll talk about the future.

"We have several long-range goals," Johnsen says. "One is to return the track to Tieton Drive and go up six or eight blocks to the (Yakima Valley) Museum. It would give us both a destination."

The trolleys run on the tracks of the former Yakima Valley Transportation Company. The railroad was built between 1907 and 1913 and, at one time, stretched more than 44 miles, carrying passengers as far away as Selah and Wiley City, even out to Wide Hollow Road to a stop called Henrybro.

These days, the tracks extend over just five miles. And instead of a main mode of public transportation, the trolleys are a novelty, offering a window into the past.

The trolleys started running at Christmas in 1907. The first fares were 5 cents, or six for 25 cents, or 25 for $1.

Forty years later, regular passenger service gave way to more modern buses. The trolleys made their last passenger transit runs on Feb. 1, 1947. Rails were removed from Yakima Avenue in the summer of 1947.

Freight operation continued until 1985. But by then, passenger service had returned as a sightseeing attraction.

"It's part of Yakima's history, which we are trying to keep alive," Edmondson says.

Yakima Valley Trolleys, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, incorporated in 2001. Its purpose is to provide historical and educational trips to sightseers and vintage rail enthusiasts alike.

"To get to ride a trolley, that's just fantastic," says Yvonne Wilbur, historical society program chairwoman. "There are all these stories about people that met their spouses on the trolleys. Children should get to ride a trolley."

The trolleys will be running before Johnsen's talk, and Wilbur encourages folks to catch a ride before attending the lecture. If there's enough interest, Edmondson says, motormen will keep the trolleys running for an extra hour after the event.

Public rides are available weekends and holidays until Labor Day. Rides start at the corner of Third Avenue and Pine Street and run to 12th Avenue and back. They depart hourly between 10:00 and 15:00 hours.

Organizers -- the Yakima Valley Trolleys association has 34 members -- are planning a centennial parade this summer as well as a re-enactment of Yakima's first trolley run in December. And plans don't stop there.

"Eventually, I'd like to see the trolleys return to North Front Street," where they used to run on what was known as the Courthouse Loop, Edmondson says.

"Eventually, I'd like to see the trolleys run during the week," he continues. "I'd like them to be part of the city's transit system.

"I just like to see them going down the street."

If you go ...

What: Presentation on the history of Yakima Valley Trolleys, presented by the Yakima Valley Museum and Historical Association.

When: The event begins with a potluck at 13:00 hours Sunday. The program follows at 14:00 hours.

Where: Yakima Valley Museum, 2105 Tieton Drive.

Cost: There's a $2 admission charge for nonmembers of the society. Annual dues cost $5. Donations for Yakima Valley Trolleys will also be accepted.

* For more information: Visit [www.yakimavalleytrolleys.org].

Yakima Valley Trolley facts

Two trolleys from Oporto, Portugal, arrived in Yakima in 1974. They are nearly identical to those in use in 1907 and have become the mainstay of today's trolley operations.

The trolleys' track, overhead wire system, storage barn and powerhouse remain the same as they were in the first decade of the 20th century.

Fares and donations, along with an occasional grant, are the only funds that keep the trolleys operating.

Fares have been lowered this summer, due to the theft of copper wire that has cut off the interurban Selah route. For the shorter, in-town run, rides are $4 for adults, and $3 for children ages 6 to 12 and seniors 60 and older. A family fare is available for two adults and two children for all-day for $15. Children 5 and under, who sit on a lap for the ride, get in free.

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THE END