Category: Gary O. Ostlund

The Columbia River Gorge is a terrific place to watch and chase trains.   Both sides of the river host major rail lines,  the former Spokane, Portland & Seattle, now BNSF on the Washington side,  and Uncle Pete, the Union Pacific across the pond in Oregon.

It’s also a haven for other outdoors persons, particularly bicyclists.   Oregon’s Interstate 84 frowns on bicyclists, so they flock to Washington’s two-lane State Highway 14.    SH 14 shares the narrow gorge with the railroad involving an array of tunnels as seen above.

The problem:  look as the guard rail at the tunnel entrance,  and you’ll see the roadway has no  room for bikers, or pedestrians.  They compete for space with cars, 18-wheelers in these tight tunnels,  six times in about 15 miles.  At least they are short, averaging 500′ in length, but some have a gradual curve adding to the rise in blood pressure…

To enhance safety, the state installed push-button flashing lights with a sign:  “Bikers Ahead.”  Having navigated this maze several times, I can tell you that nearly no one slows down, so you look back and wait for a pause in the traffic, then pedal like your life depends on it.   It does….!

 But, I’d do it again,  the trains,  river, steep cliffs,  eagles and ospreys,  Mount Hood in the distance, all make it worth it.  That’s the Portland-to-Spokane connection for Amtrak’s Empire Builder.   It left Portland about an hour earlier,  late afternoon.   Usually a whole fleet of freights is soon to follow.  – Gary Ostlund

Credits:  Pix by John Ryan, as seen in TRAINS Magazine,  September 2011

With a westbound freight receding into the horizon, a Santa Fe section crew at Walapai, Arizona, resumes its work, connecting cold rail.   The men have ignited scraps of wood to expand and lengthen the cold steel rail on a rainy December 1977 afternoon.

They have replaced this rail.   If you look closely, this is jointed rail, 39 foot lengths unlike continuous welded rail you would find in mainline operations today.   Why 39′ rather than a nice round number like forty?    Two reasons:    “That’s the way they always were,  but more importantly, they fit nicely on relatively those short forty-foot flat cars of years gone past.”

You can see the outside fishplate and joint at the feet of the worker standing inside the rails holding a long open end wrench.    When the rail expands and the holes line up, his partner will slide in two bolts through a fishplates sandwiching the rail ends. He’ll then place a washer and square-headed nut, whereupon the open-ended long handled wrench will cinch it down tight. 

Those joints provided the clickety-clack that was music in years past whether in coach or Pullman sleeping cars.   Today the welded rail gives a better ride, is safer, quieter, less maintenance intensive, but I still like the clickety.

photo credit:    Dave Stanley as seen in TRAINS 100 Greatest Railroad Photos

Submitted by Gary Ostlund

A detouring Lincoln Service train uses the 5-mph connecting track between Metra’s Rock Island District and the St. Charles Airline on June 16, 2007. The raised bridge in the background has been out of service for about 50 years, but demolishing it is too expensive. Bob Johnston

Beneath a blinding headlight, four locomotives advance stiffly along a tight connecting track as
the rails squeal in protest. A dark figure emerges from a pickup truck waiting in the gathering
darkness, swinging a grip onto the lead unit’s pilot before mounting the steps. Throttling up, the
long train accelerates into the night, leaving its usual route behind for the unobstructed trackage of
another railroad. The “dark figure” was a pilot engineer.

Detours are nearly an everyday experience. Wrecks, scheduled maintenance work,
washouts, mudslides — all of these obstacles may cause trains to detour. Although railroads have
a long history of competition, they decided long ago that it made sense to cooperate in times of
crisis. To provide a contractual framework for such cooperation, the American Railway
Association in 1905 adopted a “Standard Form for Detour Agreement” which railroads could sign
to govern emergency operations over each-others lines.

Under the Detour Agreement, the railroad desiring to detour its trains (called the Foreign
Company) notifies the railroad it wants to use (the Home Company) why it needs to detour, what
part of the Home Company’s lines it wants to use, how many trains it wants to detour, “and such
other information as may be required by the Home Company.” The Home Company has complete
discretion to accept or refuse offered detours. As a practical matter, though, railroads rarely refuse
detour movements, because no carrier ever knows when it will need the favor returned.
The Foreign Company assumes all risks of liability arising out of the detour operations. Its
responsibility is absolute, even if the Home Company is clearly at fault. Another cost a detouring
railroad must pay is the trackage-rights charge imposed by the Home Company. Since 1978, the basic charge in the Detour Agreement has been $9 per train-mile. To that charge, the Home
Company adds the cost of crews, fuel, train and engine supplies, repairs, and locomotives provided
to detoured trains.

There’s one operator that isn’t bound by the Detour Agreement — Amtrak. The passenger
carrier has the right, under the Rail Passenger Service Act and its contracts with the major railroads,
to detour trains for incremental costs, meaning the specific cost of operating the detoured train
without any profit element.

Amtrak is also insulated to some degree from the costs of using railroad crews by the
unusually long crew districts it has established for passenger operations. However, Amtrak still
must use railroad pilots when its crews are not qualified to operate over unaccustomed territory
and rent locomotives when its own units can’t read the host railroad’s cab signals.
This article, originally entitled “When trains must leave home,” appeared in the November 1993 issue. [ The above are excerpts from a much longer array. / Source for example below is from the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association Mainstreeter, Volume 19, No. l, Winter 2000. GOO ]

Addendum: A Real Life Example (with a lot of disappointed railfans)

From 1956 to 1968 the Northern Pacific Railway hosted what was called “Casey Jones Excursions, ” initially using steam hauled vintage passenger cars in Washington state. The NP was uniquely qualified to do this, in that western Washington was full of branch-lines. These excursions were always on Sundays when traffic on those lines was light or non-existent.

Steam locomotives were being sidelined by the industry-wide conversion to diesel, and adequate passenger cars were sitting idled in coach yards. To say that great times were had by all would be an understatement. These excursions were always sold-out. Labor Day 1965, a fully loaded Casey Jones Excursion was heading across the Cascade Mountains destined to the Ellensburg Rodeo, a popular end-of-summer festival. Ahead of them a freight derailed inside the 2-mile Stampede Pass tunnel shutting down the line. The excursion was sidelined in the small mountain town of Lester. The hamlet found its population increased by one-thousand, to the delight of the village grocer and barkeep. The excursion manager immediately began negotiations with the NP dispatcher for a detour rerouting over the Milwaukee Road’s Snoqualmie Pass line. The verdict was no. A detour would have involved returning half way back down the mountain, and trekking on a foreign-lines “less than stellar branch line” to the Milwaukee main-line over Snoqualmie. Having read the detour agreement policy above, it is understandable. These excursions for the most part, paid for themselves, but the railroad was not going to gamble on the potential costs of a derailment on foreign rails. The railway gracefully refunded
the charter money.

Gary O. Ostlund

From Gary Ostlund

The caption reads: “A steamship passenger’s introduction to the White Pass & Yukon was the view of the train from the ship as she stood on the wharf at Skagway, Alaska The loco seems eager to climb White Pass, portal of legendary Klondike.” This undated scene could be 40s/50s vintage, and is repeated to this day, albiet with Love Boat style liners, and mostly diesel locomotives. (Automobiles help dating old pictures, but none are close or clear enough to assist)

Nudging closer to the dock, this ship is undoubtedly one of the Canadian Pacific Princess liners out of Vancouver, B.C. The tourists will enjoy a scenic ride over the pass to Bennett, maybe on to Carcross or all the way to Whitehorse, Y.T., about 110 miles north.

The 36′ narrow gauge line was built at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush of 98, offering rail service beginning August 1, 1900. During World War II it supported the defense of Alaska and the continental U. S. hauling construction equipment for building the ALCAN Hiway, communications support, and volumes of petroleum. Eventually a pipeline was installed over the pass. The US Army took over operations at that time.

Post WW2 saw this line pioneer cargo containerization. The SS Clifford Rogers called regularly, with containers to be placed on flatcars. These were smaller than what we see double-stacked on today’s RRs. Ore was shipped out of the Y.T. in special containers for smelters in Canada and the U.S.

The line was closed in 1982. A highway had been built over the pass and into Skagway, mines had closed for a variety of reasons. After 6 years, public support and the cruise line industry made for favorable economics and the line is open to Bennett and Carcross, running several “boat” trains as traffic warrants.
Submitted by Gary Ostlund.

Credits: J. Norman Lowe collection, seen in RAILROAD Magazine, February 1973

Steam, Semaphores and blue Sky. Only the
sky is a common occurrence in this day and
age. But in selected locations steam is still there to be ridden, chased and photographed.

Semaphores are a little harder to find. Think New Mexico and a few other select locations.

Semaphores were widely used by
railroads, the most recent installed nearly a
hundred years ago. They were state of the art
in their day, one feature being that even with
the light bulb burned out, the position of the
semaphore provided protection. They are
woefully out of date in this digital age, and are
falling like flies in a freeze.

As a rail-fan I love to have them astride
the tracks. From any angle, even at speed on an adjacent highway you could tell by the horizontal position that a train was occupying the block. Wait for about a minute or less and either you had a train, or the arm went upward indicating the train is moving away. U-turn, and the race is on.

Former Spokane, Portland and Seattle #700 is splitting the blades near Prosser, Washington on October 19th, 1990. What an impressive cloud of steam against that blue sky. The massive Baldwin built 4-8-4 Northern loco was returning from a steam expo in the Yakima Valley.

The Northern Pacific and Great Northern Railways owned the SP&S jointly, and had a bad habit of giving hand-me-down locos to its step-child. But in 1937 the owners let the SP&S buy new locomotives, including three fast passenger Northerns. The #700 was part of that purchase.

The #700 occupies new digs in Portland, Oregon with the other Pacific Northwest 4-8-4 Northern, Daylight #4449 of Southern Pacific heritage. Both locos shared space in Portland’s Oaks Park for years, and they can both be found pulling rail-fan excursions several times a year.

Photo credit: Alan M. Miller, as seen in Classic Trains “Fantastic 4-8-4 Locomotives”, special 2012

Submitted by Gary Ostlund

The single-track swing bridge was built by the Northern Pacific RR for entry into Aberdeen, Washington.  It has a rather strange footprint; in that it wraps itself around a warehouse building. The bridge is rather difficult to photograph, short of trespassing, or getting wet. I tried to copy the Google Street image from the highway bridge at the bottom of the pix, but no luck. The pic I got from the street at the right margin does not do justice to its design and placement.  Thus, the Google earth image.

Opened on October 21, 1898, the Wishkah River Bridge has been in daily use ever since, including a brisk business today hauling import autos to market.   The Puget Sound & Pacific Railroad, a short line currently services the Grays Harbor region, connecting with the BNSF.  That connection is in Centralia on the busy double-track mainline north to Tacoma and south toward Oregon and California.

The harbor was once served by the Milwaukee and Union Pacific entering the harbor from the south, crossing into Aberdeen on yet another swing bridge, now long gone. The NP was the major player though, with branches from Aberdeen and Hoquiam out to Moclips on the ocean, and to Markham on the south side of the harbor out near Westport, (think beaches, salmon fishing and cranberries).

     In the heyday of railroading on the harbor the rails served two pulp and paper mills, numerous large sawmills, a thriving shake and shingle industry and active seaport. In the mid-60s when we lived there, at about supper time all three railroads sent eastward an impressive array of freight.

Submitted by Gary Ostlund

“Like an ancient fossil, the imprint of a fallen leaf on a rusty rail preserves its image until the next train comes along.”    That is a direct quote from the regular feature Final Frame  in Railfan and Railroad Magazine, September 200l.  No location is listed, and I don’t know Bradley McClelland the photographer.  But, I’ll bet both are well east of the Mississippi.   One of you horticulturists may ID the leaf.

I have to differ with the caption, in that the next train has already appeared.  That shiny edge is the inside of the rail,  probably on a curve to the left.   Pretty much only the flange of the wheels made  contact with the rail.   On straight track more of the leaf image would have disappeared.

This is jointed rail, probably the typical 39′ length, as you can see one of the four rail bolts, with the nut showing.  Just thought this was a neat twist to toss in a little of Mother Nature’s artwork this “Fall” week.

Gary

Pix is from Kalmbach’s Classic Trains special “Trains go to War.” My guess is they used the shipping crate.  Modifying it slightly to resemble a boxcar, and directed the exhaust downward to be disbursed among the desert sand.  (Yankee Ingenuity at its best), Gary O. Ostlund

Rail safety has always been a high priority.  Technology has provided the industry with a wide variety of devices to keep us safe, and the railroads from being sued.  Even so, railroading is still a dangerous profession, and grade crossings still claim many victims.

Ditch lights, those twin headlights about five feet apart at eye level on the front of locomotives create a triangle of bright light on an approaching train.  When the engineer blows the whistle, the ditch lights flash alternately as an added alert for the wary automobile or pedestrian.

It’s been widely reported that ditch lights were the creation of the Canadian railroads in their western mountains. These lights could peek around tight corners spotting fallen rock or other problems. Soon other railroads went along and by the mid-90s most railroad locomotives in the Americas had them. The Federal Railway Administration has since mandated them.

But, wait a second.  Look at the second picture to the right.  Seems the Russkies beat us to the punch just like Sputnik in 1957.   The Russian steamer appeared in the August 1958 TRAINS Magazine.  Photo Credits: B&LE 905 – Michael S. Murray, Russian Steamer #251 – J. N. Westwood

Our train is pulling into the siding at Osier (elevation 9,637).   The downhill train has already arrived and we will pull just past it so we can access the Beanery.  They don’t call it that, but that’s what the railroads had to feed passengers and crews.

We had been pampered all the way up the mountain, aboard the catered extra-fare lounge car, through tunnels, around Whiplash Curve and along the edge of the Toltec Gorge.  The aspens were in their fall splendor, we had been consuming Rocky Mountain fresh air, “we were hungry.”

And the railroad knew it.  The dining hall was specially built, hardly the original depot.  It had the aura of a Swiss ski chalet with class and pizzazz.  We had been asked whether we prefer turkey or barbecue for lunch. Mitch and I selected the turkey, expecting a sandwich and chips.  Yikes, there was a buffet layout to rival Ryan’s or Furr’s. 

Even at this altitude the temperature must have been in the high 70s.  Ample time was given for wandering around the trains for pictures and friendship.   Eventually we pulled out on our venture upward and the downhill train did likewise.  Our train looped around the valley and our vista included the lodge, mountains, valleys and the downhill train disappearing around a bend.  What a neat train ride.

Credits: Text and pix by me. This event was in September 2010, on the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic RR in SW Colorado. 

Credits:    East portal photo by Alex Mayes.  Submitted by Gary Ostlund.

In 1956 when the fully dieselized Great Northern Railway turned off the juice on their electrified line over (actually under) the Cascade Mountains in Washington state, they thought their trouble with smoke and fumes was over.   Wrong..!  The 8-mile tunnel under Stevens Pass opened in 1929 had been utilized by electric powered trains from day-1. 

With the introduction of diesel-power the tunnel had to be purged of diesel fumes after each eastbound train.   The grade inside the tunnel eastbound is fairly steep, 1.57%.  The long tunnels I know of are either ascending one direction or the other.  Some ascend from both portals to a high point in the middle.  All this is in the interest of drainage.

Fast-moving passenger trains can negotiate the tunnel successfully, but when slower freight locomotives tried it, operating problems became immediately apparent.  Tremendous heat generated by the exhaust gases of slow moving east-bounds raises air temperatures dramatically.  The trailing unit of a multiple-unit train soon overheats and shuts down.  Increased burden on the remaining diesels soon shut down the remaining units, like dominoes.  Another problem not anticipated, the train advancing through the long tunnel creates a “piston” effect, pushing most of the air in the tunnel in front of it.  This left little fresh air to cool the radiators.

Soon a steel drop door was installed at the east portal, along with two 800 horsepower electric motors driving 6-foot fans.  Now when a train enters the west entrance, the door automatically drops, and the fans engage creating a near hurricane blasting past the oncoming train.   Problem solved…?  Not quite

An interesting problem cropped up as a result of “supercharging” the bore with air.  When the door opened to allow eastbound freights to move out of the tunnel a 100-mph gale dynamited out of the tunnel, and rocks and debris were thrown in all directions.   To minimize this hazard the GN blacktopped the area around the tunnel entrance.   Both portals are easily accessed for viewing from US 2, the Stevens Pass highway and Forest Service roads, without trespassing on railroad property.

A dozen years or so back, on the quiet deck out back enjoying our coffee, and perusing the morning mail, Justine read out loud  Rick Bragg’s regular piece in Southern Living Magazine. Something clicked, it read as follows:  “It was in the early 1960s, in a place called Spring Garden, Alabama, where I would lie in my bed in a big, ragged house and wonder if the whole world had stopped spinning outside my window.  I would have asked my big brother, Sam, about it, but he would have just told me I was a chucklehead, and gone back to sleep.  I have never slept much, I think I was afraid I would miss something passing in all that quite dark.  Then, sometime around midnight, I would hear it.  The whistle came first, a warning, followed by a distant roar, and then a bump, bump, bumping, as a hundred boxcars lurched across some distant crossing.  They were probably just hauling pig iron, but in my mind they were taking people to places I wanted to be.  A braver boy would have run it down and flung himself aboard.

And then it was gone, without warning, and I would go to sleep, grudging, and dream about oceans, and elephants and trains.”

That could have been me back in the Summers of mid to late 40s, way across the country out there in Tacoma.  From my large upstairs open window, or sleeping on the ground in the back yard with friends, you could hear the trains switching.  The clear air resonating the sound from over 4 miles away. Sometimes it sounded like the next block over.  Or maybe it was a logging train hauling empties back  to the woods near Mt Rainier, with that “malley” huffing and chuffing up that 3.5 percent grade.    Oh those good ole days.

It took an upset like this to visualize and explain “Blind Drivers.”  In December 1927 the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy narrow gauge Engine #537  rolled off the rails into the snow in the Black Hills.

The pointer focuses on the middle two driving axles, both of which contain blind drivers, wheels without flanges.  In the early days all drive wheels were mounted rigid to the frame. With four axles in a row, the flanges would not negotiate the tightest curves in the rail, causing derailments, not to mention adverse wear and tear.  The flanged front and rear axles provide enough stability to keep the locomotive on the rails in normal operation. It’s the weight on the drivers, not the flanges that provide the tractive force to move a train.

Advances in locomotive design included lateral motion devices on the drive wheels.  #537 was retrieved, taken to Denver, rebuilt with some modern appliances, returned to duty, and performing better than ever.

Thinking back to my Lionel trainset of the 40s, the middle set of drivers also were blind.

 Credits:  Pix courtesy of Roger O’Keefe  as seen in Railroads of the Black Hills, by Mildred Fielder