Railroaders' Nostalgia > My Dumb Luck: the AFT years 15

15 Oklahoma City... continued

The trip from Wichita Falls had been on the Santa Fe, but the last mile or so to the site in OK City was on the Rock Island. The condition of the Rock Island was... well, you know.

Photo 1

The layout of the display put the 4449 along side the Bunk Car. I was awakened the first morning by some sort of fuss going on around the locomotive (the bunk car walls were not well insulated- try waking up to Dolly Pardon's rendition of “Here Comes The Freedom Train!” over the loudspeakers over & over & over & over- for a solid year!! Our own private Goundhog Day Hell)
Anyway- the fuss had merit: the 4449 was slowly rolling over!! The roadbed was too soft to support a lingering GS-4. The fire had been dropped the night before so a switcher was needed. NOW. The Rock Island said they were kinda busy, but promised they'd get it on the 3rd trick crew's to-do list. They clearly did not understand the (pun warning!) gravity of the situation, but Doyle explained how anything short of NOW would involve the Really Big Hook.

Ah!

The second morning dawned nearly as interesting. I had tumbled out of the Bunk Car in search of coffee and wandered past the '49....

Photo 2

I asked around as tactfully as possible, but Tommy, Bobby, and Craig all took sudden interest in their shoe laces and bird spotting, so I dropped it.
I learned years later, at a reunion, a small crack had been found in the main rod and had been successfully repaired.

Photo 3: The one shot I got before we were stopped.

We did make make a quick side trip out to El Reno OK in search of things Rock Island (courtesy car- probably used the “laundry” ploy again. The guys that controlled the car keys were a gullible lot) We found the CRI&P yard, but the minute they saw a camera, they were on us- No Photography! It wasn't a security issue- it was embarrassment! The foreman said that if we'd leave our cameras in the car, we were welcome to wander freely- but that conditions were so bad, they were concerned about what people (OSHA?) might think if they saw photos. And things really were quite horrible. Example: Out in a field, in the wind, they'd rigged up some crude scaffolding and were trying to spray paint an un-prepped box car into the new blue 'Rock' paint scheme. I pretended not to notice- my Mama raised me right.

Now, set aside all this RailFan business for a moment and remember that the greater purpose of the AFT was to tour the US with a museum exhibit that attempted to summarize 200yrs history in 10 individually themed display cars. Cars 2&4 dealt with Native Americans. The 1970's were an interesting and controversial time for this subject. Native tribes were trying to shake off 200yrs of being marginalized and this was showing up in protest (Alcatraz Island) and worse (Pine Ridge). They were hardly “celebrating” the Bicentennial.
I bring this up because it sets up three stories I have to tell: The Good, the Bad, and Ruben.

In Oklahoma City- The Good.

The AFT had advance teams of two who would leap-frog several weeks ahead of the train to break trail for the train itself. One team member concentrated on logistics (parking, potable water supply, phone lines, courtesy cars, traffic control, etc) the other promotion, PR, and (where needed) diplomacy. Oklahoma & Kansas were “Indian Country” and the Freedom Train was aware that diplomacy might be in order. There had been rumors of protesters.

Photo 4

The Good: Laurie (Advance PR)

After much petitioning for an audience, Laurie drove out to visit the Inter-Tribal Council (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, and others) and invited/urged them to come down to the train and vet (although I doubt any of us had ever heard that word in 1976) our telling of their story. And (Holy Moly!!) they showed up!! She shepherded them through Cars 2&4 herself, and pointed out other native artifacts among the other displays. Their verdict fell somewhere between 'We'd shown proper respect' and 'We'd done no harm'. They reassured her there would be no protest, and allowed native dancers to preform at the display site.
Laurie told me this story years later- certainly one of the train's nobler moments.

SR Bush
Dutch Flat



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/19/14 15:49 by BoilingMan.

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Anxiously awaiting the portion of the trip into Kansas. I chased part of that to the Pauline display site.

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Boilingman has developed this series into a wonderful, detailed look back at 1976 and a look at places where real railroading goes on like it always has without much or any publicity or railfan coverage.
I commend him for stepping back to remember the purpose of the trip: our shared history.
IIRC there was another episode of the 4449 spending too much time on soft track subgrade. At Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco I got into the cab and found a weight (C-clamp?) hanging on about 4 feet of wire. "What is that for?" "It is how we keep track of track settlement, when it gets over to here (pointing) we know we have to move the engine." This was late 1975.

An amazing journey, I wonder if 4449 takes the cake for most miles across the country? Surely goes toe to toe with any of the other traveling demo steamers.