Author: Jim Pearson

by Gary Ostlund

In a time honored tradition, a veteran engineer and conductor compare time somewhere on the
Southern Pacific System about 1930. Standardizing time by the railroads was a massive undertaking
and played a huge role in providing safe movement of passengers and goods.

Sun Time was standard, with high noon setting the norm. When it was high noon in Chicago it
was 11:27 AM in Omaha, 11:41 AM in St Paul, 11:50AM in St Louis, 12:31 PM in Pittsburgh and
12:50 PM in Washington, D.C. The Buffalo depot had three clocks, one for each railroad. A
Chicago newspaper claimed that Illinois had twenty-seven different times, Wisconsin thirty-eight,
and so on.

Until long distance movement of goods and people, coordinated time was of little concern. For
the railroads though, even with telegraphic dispatching, extensive timetables, and a plethora of rules,
standardized time was seriously needed.

After much political, bureaucratic and entrepreneurial bickering on November 18, 1883 America
finally adopted Standard Time Zones. Their boundaries have remained relatively unchanged.
You can be assured that the two pocket watches held by the gentlemen above have been
inspected regularly, and the conductor checked his with the dispatcher as he picked up his train
orders and headed for the platform. Railroads spent fortunes making certain that time was correct.

(The picture graced the cover of the Spring 2010 SP Trainline magazine, the official publications of the Southern Pacific Historical & Technical Society. Text excerpts from Trainline and the Routledge Historical Atlas of the American Railroads.)

AMTRAK’S Hoosier State, racing towards Indianapolis splits the semaphores. Nearly all of
America’s semaphore signals are gone. They had motors and mechanical moving parts, the bane of
management. Newer models have LEDs and other gizmo’s and are driven by computer chip
technology. So capture those digital images soon folks.
This line is the former MONON, officially named the Chicago, Indianapolis and Louisville
Railroad, how dull. No wonder they used the Potawatomi Indian word meaning “tote” or “swift
running.” The Monon rails connected Chicago with Indianapolis, and Michigan City and Louisville,
forming a big “X.” The City of Monon marks the “X.” Indiana claimed the railroad as its own,
calling it the Hoosier Line. Someone even coined a poem:

Up and Down the Monon
everything is fine,
cause that root’n, toot’n Monon,
she’s a Hoosier Line!

What I miss about the semaphores is that as a railfan trekking around the country you could see the
position of the semaphore from adjacent highways. The color indicator was not pertinent. If they
were pointing toward the sky, tracks were clear. If one was horizontal there was traffic nearby,
either coming or going. (Now maybe one of you can tell me why one semaphore is pointed, and the
other squared ?? Really, I don’t know.). Gary Ostlund.

The graphic below was the rear cover of a timetable on the Northern Pacific Railway in 1942. It
caught my eye while perusing through my collection of magazines. We lived in Butte for four years
in the late 60s and early 70s. An extremely interesting place, loaded with history. Few realize that
back in the second half of the 19th Century, Butte was an equal to San Francisco in importance,
competing for its rightful share of trade and commerce, even traveling entertainment venues.
Take the quiz, first covering up the answers.

Many of my pictures and stories come from my magazine archives. Thumbing through the editorial comment section of the October 1951 TRAINS & Travel (before the name change to TRAINS) I came across today’s story line. I said to myself, “classic David P. Morgan….” whereupon I went to the masthead and low & behold, Morgan was listed, but only as one of four associate editors under Editorial Director Linn Westcott and Editor Willard V. Anderson. Not sure what to conclude, but prefer to think his fingerprints are all over this story. To those of you old enough to have experienced our beloved long time TRAINS Editor, David P. Morgan and the steam era, this will jog memories. You simply had to be there to fully appreciate…….. Railroading by Ear.

A dozen years or more ago, when the diesel was still a precocious doodlebug, someone said the
internal combustion locomotive would at least make less noise than a steam engine. Listening now
to the sounds that float on the night air, we wonder if we haven’t only traded one sound for another.
And the new sound is about as interesting as the boring drone of a DC-6 at 5000 feet.

The steam locomotive can play upon its exhaust nozzle in any major or minor key. Remember
the sharp, window-rattling staccato of the high-pressure Hiawatha engines as they hit the curve at
Grand Avenue, picking up from the junction slowdown? And remember the way an overloaded
Mikado every now and then would lose its footing on the grade up out of town and shatter the quiet
with a sudden cacophony?

Indeed, as we come more and more to live in a diesel desert, the sound of the steam locomotive
will be missed almost as much as those other sensations, the smell of steam and hot valve oil and
bituminous smoke, and the sight of flashing valve motion and side rods. It will be hard even for
modern efficiency and bright Duco finishes to recompense for the waltz-time beat of a three cylinder
Union Pacific 4-12-2 or the syncopated rhythm of an articulated, now in step, now out of
step. And when will a diesel ever equal the purring of a lightly loaded engine loping along with the
Johnson bar up close to center?

BTW: DPM’s brother “Len” was to airplanes, what DPM was to railroads. Go to Google: Len
Morgan.

credits: Pix & story verbatim – TRAINS & Travel, Oct 1951

“A sad sight at the Northern Pacific’s South Tacoma Reclamation yard in the spring of 1957: headlights from scrapped engines. Recognizable are lights from venerable Ten-Wheelers (1376 , 1387), husky Mikes (1700’s 1800’s and 1900’s) and of course, a Z-8, No. 5130.” That’s a direct quote in the Railway Post Office feature (letters to the Editor) in TRAINS Magazine in August 1958 from a Mr. H. A. Durfy of Seattle. The heyday of steam was over and other than a few donations to city parks, the bean counters dictated that
they be scrapped.

The Northern Pacific had a headlight style of its own on its steam locomotives. What you see here is the typical arrangement on NP steam; the headlight, engine numbers squared on the sides, and the number facing forward above in a wedged design. Would I like to have one of these on my wall of treasures in my “Man Cave..?” You bet. -Gary Ostlund
Photo credit: H. A. Durfy

by Gary Ostlund

The railroads were big on paperwork. This story is taken from the book: “Blow the Whistle Softly” an anthology by the late Ruth Eckes, a friend of mine in Federal Way, Washington. She published a series of six books, all short stories by railroaders from all around the country. Ruth graduated from HS in 1944, went to the Northern Pacific Railway telegraph-operators school in Jamestown, ND. Her first assignment as a full-fledged telegrapher was at Kanaskat, Washington, way up in the Cascade Mountains. There was an outhouse, no running water or electricity. Ruth was 17 years old. Ten Blackbirds, by Bill Harshfield – Maple Valley, Washington.

Accident reports to “railroad brass” sometimes required “word pictures” to get the point across to them. The following section foreman story is an example: A section foreman, while going to work one morning, derailed his track motor car causing quite a lot of damage to the “speeder.”* He made out the required customary accident reports in detail explaining the cause, any injuries – if any, the amount damage, what could have been done to prevent the accident, etc. He then sent it to the superintendent’s office. By return mail he received a very caustic note telling him his report was entirely too long, and for him to fill out a new, much shorter one. This he did, and here was his report: “Ten blackbirds were sitting on the rail, nine flew away. One was a rock”.

* speeder is another name for motor car, a picture (above) I took of Roger Sackett of Renton, Washington. In 1987, we took a ride on his Speeder on the former Milwaukee Road in the Snoqualmie Pass area. The majority of the former Milwaukee right-of-way is now a deluxe hiking and biking trail. Today you can trek safely from Seattle to the Idaho border, with occasional breaks. These “Speeders” as they were called, have not been used by the railroads for many years, and their disposal created a whole new railfan hobby.

In this case, Sackett purchased this unit from a scrapper. It had no engine but otherwise was in good condition. He mounted a Briggs & Stratton with some creative bicycle type chain drive and Wahlah. Those handles sticking out from the front, slide to the rear and made it possible for a worker to lift the unit off the rails from the front or rear. The short wheel-base creates a very low center-of-gravity, and with little effort you can wheel-barrow the Speeder away from the track for a passing train. The railroads had designated places for such removal, called “Set-offs,” where wooden planks permanently secured to the ties, between the rails, to create a relatively even surface and a platform of sorts extended away from the active rails. Or you could use a highway crossing like we did numerous times. Roger is using a come-along to literally drag the Speeder around the errant log.

The Milwaukee line across the Cascades had been closed since 1980. We successfully got the speeder past this obstruction, only to find another around the next curve. Hah. We turned around and went back and beyond where we “set-on.” And enjoyed the day. Speeder enthusiasts have their own organization called NARCOA, (North American Rail Car Operators Association). You can barely see the baseplate of a scissors jack under the rig. He can wind it down and do a U-turn, anywhere.