Steam & Excursion > A Very Personal AFT Artifact (I'd forgotten even existed!)

If you followed my "AFT Confidential" series, you might remember how I got involved with the AFT in the first place:  I was driving for Yellow Cab in Santa Barbara when the AFT came to town on New Years Eve of 1976.  On the morning of the 2nd I got a call to pick up a fare at the Lemon Tree Motel.  It was 3 guys who needed to get down to the train.  I quickly figured out they were AFT employees an started pummeling them with a million questions about their jobs until one of them stopped me and said, "Jeez, are you looking for a job or something?!"   
The thought hadn't occurred to me, but... hey!
One thing lead to another and next thing I knew, I was in Miami- a year and several thousand AFT miles later.  Unemployed.

Fast forward 45 years....
Last December, old friend Joe Heumphreus passed away.  Joe ran the Railroad Hobby shop in Santa Barbara for many years.  Anyone in the hobby anywhere near SB in those days probably knew him. (He retired and closed the shop in 1997)  I got a call from Joe's wife, Mary, a few months ago- she had a few things Joe wanted me to have.  This was the biggest surprise:  The advertising placard that had been on the trunk lid of my taxi cab when the AFT came to town.  I had pulled it off my cab and given it to Joe after the train left town.  It hung in his shop for 20yrs, and then his train room until now.  I had completely forgotten all about it!
SR

BTW:  I've made arraignments to donate the sign to the South Coast Railroad Museum.  The SCRM occupies the former SP Goleta Depot in Goleta CA (Near Santa Barbara)   They've not only agreed to accept it, they've ask me to help them put together a small AFT exhibit for them to compliment it.  I'll be working on this while I'm down on The Boat this Summer.

---

Great story and good deed SR.

NICE  !!!!  the oregon rail heritage center's AFT exhibit continues to be popular and, in my less than humble opinion, will remain as a permanent reminder to our visitors of the importance of this odessey and the role the Portland' 4449 played in it....as well as that McCormack fellow.   Arlen

Great story, BoilingMan. 

Great story; I remember Joe during the years I lived in SB. He was a very genial person and involved in a wide range of rail and non-rail groups around SB and Goleta.
Very cool that you got the item back from his estate.

Was the hobby shop on upper state street? San Roque area. 

Yes. The 3000 block of State, on the right side of the street going up- about 3010 or 20.
(I was a cab driver, right?)
SR

Awesome story, and great connection to a unique item.  I've thoroughly enjoyed your AFT series, makes me a tad jealous I missed it all since I was a todller at the time.

Nathan

Boiling, you may have addressed this and I missed it but since obviously life has been downhill since AFT tied up, how have you occupied all these empty years?  In other words what field did you end up in and did your AFT experience help at all?

filmteknik Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Boiling, you may have addressed this and I missed
> it but since obviously life has been downhill
> since AFT tied up, how have you occupied all these
> empty years?  In other words what field did you
> end up in and did your AFT experience help at all?

Well, yes, the AFT directly helped me get where I was going, but not in a way I had seen coming.
After the AFT I eventually ended up driving for Greyhound (this had nothing to do with the AFT). I loved the ‘hound, but after a series of labor strikes it was obvious it wasn’t going to last, so I applied at Amtrak. At first this appeared impossible. Oakland had just transferred nearly all it’s jobs to Chicago, and LA said there was No Way they’d hire a guy living 500mi away in The Sierra.
I was about to look elsewhere when I stumbled across something in TRAINS magazine: Ross Rowland was on the Amtrak Board. I cold called Washington DC, and they clicked me over to Ross. It had been 8yrs since Miami, but AFT is Family. Ross said he’d look into it…
A day or so later LA came calling.
I retired in 2016 after 32yrs with On Board Services.
SR

Oh- and I commuted to LA from Dutch Flat for the first 8yrs, until Oakland needed transfers to launch the Capitols in late 1991.

Like others have said previously, thanks for your AFT series. You write so well, you could publish a book.

Blessings!
Markus V.
“The Fort” in Indiana

Posted from iPhone