Steam & Excursion > Fifty Years Ago on Sunday, June 11, 1967 ….

.... I made my first trip as a fireman for the Spokane, Portland & Seattle Railway. Not that that's a big deal; even in the aftermath of Presidential Emergency Board 282 there were still probably hundreds of "firemen" hired each year around the country to enter the time-honored "seat of the pants" method of training enginemen to fill the right-hand seat as the present supply of engineers was reduced by retirements or other reasons.

What made my move to fireman at that time unusual (running around quite a few hostler helpers who were senior to me) was that already knowing how to fire steam, I was promoted specifically to fill the need for a steam locomotive fireman; a VERY unusual situation on a Class I railroad in the latter 1960s. As did the then-CB&Q on the Black Hills Central Railroad, the SP&S supplied the operating crews for the Vernonia, South Park & Sunset Steam Railroad museum/tourist trains on their Vernonia Branch during the six years of operation beginning in 1964. The SP&S had no steam-qualified firemen and they were dismayed at having to call two formerly steam-qualified men from the Portland Engineer's Extra Board (or other assignments) for the usually Sunday-only operation.

I was on top of Cloud Nine. Not only was I getting to work steam but it was a 25% pay raise (including deadhead mileage) compared to my hostler helper job.

What started my interest in steamers? Who knows. Perhaps it was my foot-propelled steamer at age 3 (picture 1 - left side) or my wind-up clockwork-propelled steamer at age 4 (picture 1 - right side). More likely though it was the fact that my father was working on the Wishram Engineer’s Pool and running them on the “Sandy” to Pasco, Washington and on the “Trunk” to Bend, Oregon. There was only one row of houses between our house and the SP&S main line (with the freight yard spread out to the Columbia River beyond it) and all I had to do was climb our back-yard fence to watch the action.

Pic 2: My “Steam Locomotive Fireman” rules card issued by SP&S Safety Officer and Rules Examiner Vern Vasey who was a school classmate of my mother. I hope that friendship didn’t affect the test score! Vern was the long-time editor of the SP&S employee magazine “The Dope Bucket”.

Pic 3: First half of June 1967 timebook page (snipped) with the first firing trip highlighted. My engineer was Dan Crowley for whom I often fired the ex-Oregon-American Lumber Company #105 over the following three years.

EDIT:

Video: Many thanks to Fred Johnsen of airailimages.com for giving me permission to use a portion of one of his videos to add some action to this post. At 00:34 in the video I'm waving at his father Carl who's filming us from his car on adjacent Oregon Highway 47 between Banks and US Highway 26. He continues filming from US 26 and the scene ends at a crossing near Manning.


… to be continued - SP&S paperwork



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/17 05:29 by Jim700.

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Great story and photo history Jim! I was trying to remember when I first met you and I believe it was in the earlier 60's when they were first working on the restoration of the 105! I remember living in the baggage car for a week or so after the October 12th, "Columbus Day Storm" of '62! That in itself was a neat experience as I was only 15 at the time. I know my dad & I spent quite some time working up there from '62 til I went in the U.S. Navy in 65. Anyway...Congratulations on a long and successful career of railroading! (especially the steam part!)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/17 23:25 by patd3985.

Fifty Years Ago … continued
 
Pic 1:  The June 8th SP&S telegram, received at SP&S telegraph office “GO” in the general offices at NW 11th and Hoyt Street in Portland which ordered and specified the conditions for the operation of the June 11th train.  On days of low humidity conditions Vernonia Branch track inspector Pete Herinckx followed us on his speeder acting as the fire patrol.  Of course we also sprinkled all of the bridges and trestles on every trip regardless of the humidity.
 
Pic 2:  The Clearance and Form 19 Train Order giving the operating authority on the specified part of the Vernonia Branch for June 11th.  Note that the authority is good for 16 hours as the reduction to the 14-hour limit and the later 12-hour limit was still in the future.
 
Pic 3:  Conductor Walt Dunham’s train delay report which did not need to be signed by Engineer Dan Crowley also because we did not exceed the 16 hour working limit.

… to be continued - VSP&S pictures



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/17 00:12 by Jim700.

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Fifty Years Ago … continued

Pic 1: The 21 miles of the SP&S line between Banks and Vernonia was anything but level and straight. With 68 curves and a westward 6.3-mile ruling grade of 2.3% there was plenty of action for the January 1925 Baldwin Prairie as it pulled a nine-car consist (8 pre-WWI ex-Oregon Electric Railway interurban cars and 1 ex-UPRR caboose) during the last several years of operation.

Pic 2: The grade chart shows a 2.3% grade on the railroad east side and a 1.5% grade on the railroad west side of the summit but it does not reflect current reality. As far as I know it was never updated to show the changes in the grade that occurred after the tunnel was daylighted about 65 years ago whereafter a severe hump started bulging up due to the pressure being exerted by the hills on both sides of the track. The 2.3% grade on the east side rose to 4% and the grade on the west side became even worse – just over 8% for a short distance as measured by the VSP&SSR General Manager Harold C. Mehlig. I took this picture with a 50mm “normal” lens on a 35mm slide camera.

Pic 3: As any good airline or highway lobbyist in Washington D.C. or elsewhere will tell you: PASSENGER TRANSPORTATION BY RAIL IS FOR THE BIRDS! Well, it actually has been. All these people boarding the VSP&S train in Banks, Oregon are about to depart for their 21-mile, 68-curve, severe-grade trip to Vernonia. What they don't know is that they have fellow passengers of a different "feather".

While making coach running gear inspections four weeks earlier I found that a robin had built a nest on a fulcrum lever of the brake rigging as shown in the middle picture. I tore the nest out because I just knew there'd be no chance of the birds hatching or surviving in such a location. The next week I found another nest in the same position with four eggs in it. I thought to myself "Well, if that bird is so determined, I'll just leave it alone". On two consecutive Sundays the four eggs made the round trip to Vernonia. By the third Sunday all the eggs had hatched and four young robins survived the round trip. The pictures are not the best because of very poor lighting and having to use a mirror. I have no idea whether the mother robin accompanied the trips. The four young robins survived and eventually left the nest.

… to be continued – more VSP&S pictures



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/17 02:59 by Jim700.

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Fifty Years Ago … continued

Pic 1: Someone snapped a picture of me on my first firing trip.

Pic 2: TO.com’s nitehostler Tom Moungovan took this one in the cab on my second or third trip. We never saw each other again until we both happened to be invited cab riders on 08/26/2006 on Tom Payne’s ill-fated Reading 2100 out of Tacoma.

Pic 3: Later that summer my sister took this one of me running up the 2.3% grade in Hares Canyon. That was unusual because the various hogheads for whom I fired almost always ran from Banks to Vernonia and traded sides of the cab on the return trip because they didn’t care for running the steamer backwards. It suited me just fine. It was easy to run in reverse by sitting on the armrest of the tall window opening and the top of the tender was low enough to easily see over it. Where else could a 21-year-old-wet-behind-the-ears kid be weekly having the time of his life running a nine-car passenger train with a beautiful Prairie logging lokie equipped with a New York 5-LT brake valve down a 6.3-mile 2.3% grade using retainers.

I would still express the same sentiment which I wrote ten years ago:

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“Where does one's life go? The time passes so fast. While I had started volunteering on 12" scale steam nine years earlier, it was 40 years ago today that steam power became official work for me. How blessed I was to be among a very small number of people in the USA who were regularly working steam locomotives for pay in the employment of a Class I railroad in the middle and late 1960s. And now, years later, to be running the same steam locomotive (SP&S 700) that my father had run in the 1950s. Sure, I don't have anywhere near the same total steam mileage as my neighbor hoghead in the Brooklyn roundhouse, but that doesn't make it any less sweet. It has been a rare privilege for which I'll always be grateful. Now in retirement I'm able to get back on logging lokies again, very similar to what I started out on, by having the opportunity to volunteer with the Chelatchie Prairie Railroad and the Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad”.

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Unfortunately, it was that same year that my wife Alyce and I started noticing changes which would turn into her nearly 10-year Alzheimer’s Disease journey. Almost 2½ years ago she began needing 24-hour assistance which nearly stopped my opportunities for volunteering. Thankfully we were able to arrange some accommodations with MRSR for a few months and BYCX until last November which allowed me to still be able to contribute some to their crew needs and make a great day out for Alyce at the same time. Our 476 months and 17 days of wonderful marriage sadly came to an end five weeks ago when God called her Home on May 7th. What a strong, beautiful, giving lady she was to cheerfully accept the working schedule of a railroader’s life and the effect it had on family life! Despite a challenging couple of years at the end I’ll always be grateful that I was able to care for her until she passed and not have to put her into a care facility.

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Jim,

First of all, my condolences for the loss of your wife.

Secondly, an absolutely fantastic series of photos and story to go along with it. Thank you for taking the time to share this with all of us.

Matt Starman
Greenleaf, ID

patd3985 Wrote:
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> Great story and photo history Jim! I was trying to remember when I first met you and I believe it was
> in the earlier 60's when they were first working on the restoration of the 105! I remember living in
> the baggage car for a week or so after the October 12th, "Columbus Day Storm" of '62! That in itself
> was a neat experience as I was only 15 at the time. I know my dad & I spent quite some time working
> up there from '62 til I went in the U.S. Navy in 65. Anyway...Congratulations on a long and successful
> career of railroading! (especially the steam part!)


Thanks, Pat. And I always thought you were older then me! I would guess that we met around '61 or so. As you may recall, I lived with my maternal grandparents in Vernonia (well, actually Riverview at that time, years before the city expanded its boundary eastward to include Riverview) during the summers from 1956 through 1964 so I was familiar with the VSP&S organizing efforts and joined the group early on though I don't recall for sure just which year it was. Earlier than that Greg and I were both around when the 105 was first fired up and run out from the O-A mill to the SP&S main line for an early Vernonia Friendship Jamboree before the VSP&S was ever thought of. I missed out on experiencing the Columbus Day Storm because I was a junior in high school in the Spokane Valley at the time.

I was able to help out with the trains the first summer ('64) but only a couple times in '65 because I was working a summer midnight shift job at the Inland Empire Paper Mill in Millwood, WA in the Spokane Valley and rarely had both a Saturday and Sunday night off which would allow me to ride SP&S #3 on Saturday night to Portland, volunteer at Banks on Sunday and return to Spokane on SP&S #4 Sunday night. 1965 was the only one of the six years of operation that I mostly missed out on. In '66 I was working in the electric shop at Todd Shipyard in Seattle and drove down to Vernonia every Friday evening after work to be available for the Saturday preparations and Sunday operations of the train. After a busy long-hours weekend I'd leave Vernonia usually between 9 and 10 PM Sunday evening and would occasionally find the rumble strips along the side of I-5 during the long drive back to Seattle. After only about three hours of sleep, Mondays were never much fun at work!

Maybe that's why I laid off on a Friday in mid-August and drove down to the SP&S Mechanical Office in Vancouver looking for an SP&S job. No success there until an hour or so later they were prompted by decades-long family friend and SP&S Assistant to the General Manager John Melonas from his 10th floor office in the American Bank Building in downtown Portland. I gave Todd Shipyard two weeks notice and started working for the SP&S on the first day of the last third of the twentieth century as the afternoon laborer at the Hoyt Street Roundhouse. I worked every day in September, had a couple days off then entered engine service as a hostler helper on October 3rd.

It's been quite a while since I last saw you at the MRSR shop in Mineral; hope you're doing okay.

Love the picture of the train creating the hump. What an interesting story, and start to a career.

Posted from iPhone

Jim,

Great article and wonderful tribute to your darling wife.

I understand you will be joining us as crew at OCSR. That is certainly great news. You will be back on a Prairie once again.

Martin

Jim, thank you for sharing your great experiences with us. I am terribly sorry to hear of your loss of Alyce, and please accept my condolences. It has been a pleasure sharing some steam experiences with you, and here is one from the Holiday Express in 2009. BTW, at a very young age you had very good perception of railroads, judging from the tender on that two rail wind up train.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/12/17 19:42 by nycman.

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Jim
Sorry to about your loss.
Luke Johnson

Posted from Android

YWRR19 Wrote:
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> Jim,
>
> First of all, my condolences for the loss of your wife.


Thank you, Matt, and thanks also Martin, Fitz, Luke and all the others who've expressed the same via PMs, emails and cards. Alyce was amazingly strong during that nearly ten-year journey which started the year after I retired from Amtrak. Though I miss her terribly she's so much better off not suffering any longer. Many years ago we both filled out our POLSTs to indicate no tube-administered nourishment or hydration in the event we should become disabled by a disease such as Alzheimer's which at the end causes one to lose the ability to swallow.

As believers in Christ's promises in His Word, we're convinced that we're just sojourners here and the best is yet to come; therefore we're not afraid to die. Considering the health storm through which Alyce passed it's no wonder that one of her favorite Bible verses was Philippians 4:13.


> Secondly, an absolutely fantastic series of photos and story to go along with it.
> Thank you for taking the time to share this with all of us.


I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was fun putting it together as it reminds me how blessed I've been to have my vocation and avocation be one and the same. I have never regretted leaving college after three semesters to pursue what I really wanted to do even though it took me even another turn around "McCloud's red barn" (Todd Shipyard) to get there. Once I first pulled a steamer throttle at age twelve I never could get it out of my system. Not that I ever wanted to! Though I've never run an articulated (but possibly, I just learned, might get to some time in the next year) I consider myself to be very fortunate to be one among a pretty small group of hoggers who's pulled a throttle on all four major brands (Climax, Heisler, Shay and Willamette) of geared lokies.

atsf121 Wrote:
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> Love the picture of the train creating the hump.


It's a bit unusual isn't it Nathan. At that point the 105 is still in full throttle trying to get those nine cars over the crest. Notice that the sanders are turned on even on dry rail to hopefully avert a spin-out. I've often wondered what the Black Hills Central Railroad employees must have thought when, upon the arrival those pre-WWI ex-Oregon Electric Railway interurban cars on their property, they found themselves looking at husky hook and loop chains between each of the cars. If you could have stood at the crest watching the couplers shifting positions it would have been very evident to you that the chains were excellent insurance as the knuckles would usually be within a half inch of slipping by.

nycman Wrote:
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> Jim, thank you for sharing your great experiences with us. I am terribly sorry to hear of your loss
> of Alyce, and please accept my condolences. It has been a pleasure sharing some steam experiences
> with you, and here is one from the Holiday Express in 2009. BTW, at a very young age you had very
> good perception of railroads, judging from the tender on that two rail wind up train.


Thanks again, Jim, for that picture of me oiling around the Hammond Lumber Company #17 that you gave me that day. Expectations are that you'll see the 700 back out of the barn to share pulling the 2018 Holiday Express.

I wondered if your sharp eye would catch the NYC name on that tender. Thankfully my father didn't paint it to represent the SP&S as, about six or seven years later, he did with a Lionel "O" gauge PRR GG-1 and three heavyweight coaches that he gave to me as a Christmas present. He had no clue as to how that would affect the value of those pieces a half century later. During most of my grade school and high school years I always knew what kind of birthday and Christmas presents I would receive as he loved haunting garage sales looking for Lionel items. Upon moving from Wishram to Dishman (Spokane) on Memorial Day 1955 we moved into a house which had a full basement so there was room for a train setup. It started out as a 4x8 sheet of plywood and eventually grew to 8x12 feet in size using both "O27" and "O" gauge tinplate track.

Jim, my heartfelt condolences on the loss of your lovely wife.

Best wishes,
Lou

LoggerHogger Wrote:
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> Jim,
>
> Great article and wonderful tribute to your darling wife.
>
> I understand you will be joining us as crew at OCSR. That is
> certainly great news. You will be back on a Prairie once again.
>
> Martin


Thank you, Martin. Just a couple days ago I had a call from Brandon Thompson inquiring about my availability. Unfortunately Alyce's 90-year-old father (who lives in Grady, Arkansas - 21½ miles SE of the Cotton Belt 819) is declining rapidly and I likely will need to head that way soon so I'm holding off for a bit on the OCSR.

It will be good to be on the 25 again. My first experience with it was as a guest fireman for Ray Piltz heading up the hill out of McCloud nearly 50 years ago.