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The Steptoe Valley Flyer

16:00 hours February 9th, 1941.

The crew of the outbound Steptoe Valley Flyer prepares their train for a fifteen mile round trip to wye the train at Keystone, Nevada, before boarding passengers on Train No. 3 heading to Cobre, Nevada where the line meets the Western Pacific mainline to Reno. At the helm, 4-6-0 number 40, built by Baldwin’s Philadelphia plant in 1909, pumps air in anticipation for her run up Robinson Canyon.

16:00 hours February 9th, 2019.

Fireman Con Trumbull, fresh in from Casper, Wyoming, and trainmaster Angie Stevens, a local in the town of East Ely (and engineer for today’s run), chat about slow orders, bulletins, and happenings reported on the 145 mile stretch of Nevada Northern mainline that await their nighttime run to Cobre, as the aroma of coal begins to fill the air inside the cab.

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Saturday Afternoon at JO

JO Tower

Many people have memories of their childhood. I am more fortunate than most to have had a father who took me to work with him. Of course he never looked at it like that because he would have preferred to be at home rather than at work on weekends like most people. When I think back to those days when my dad worked in the A&P supermarket in the dairy department part time, it brings a smile to my face. He would get up Saturday mornings and walk to the A&P and work from 9:00 a.m. till 1:00 p.m. Each week he would tell me not to come into the store to see him because it did not look right to the boss. Each week when I could, I walked down to see him anyway. I would try to time it to when he was cutting up those big wheels of cheese. There he would be in his white apron behind the counter, and I would pop in and say “Hi dad!”

He would frown and say, “What did I tell you about coming here!”

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Riding the Joliet Rocket

No, this isn’t from WWII in the forties, but present day history buffs volunteering their time in their magnificent period uniforms aboard the “Frank Thomson” PRR closed-end observation car, seated in its comfortable art deco lounge area and photographed on September 16, 2018. The train is the “Joliet Rocket” clipping along at over sixty miles per hour on its way to Chicago’s LaSalle Street Station powered by the famous Iron War Horse #765 of the Nickel Plate Road. Built in 1944, NKP 765 is now owned and operated by the Fort Wayne Railroad Historical Society. The four fan trips held over the weekend of September 15th and 16th, 2018 are named in remembrance of the fallen-flag Rock Island Rocket trains of the past that ran on these rails.

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Back in the Day

The scene is winter, 1964.
The snow came down hard. Then, a man with a broom came out . . .

Modern railroading is amazingly high-tech. The BNSF completed installation of PTC, so it knows where every train is. LORAM units pass by, slowly resurfacing rails. Track gangs have laser sighting devices so track is always straight. Tier 4 locomotives maximize horsepower while minimizing pollutants.

It wasn’t always so.

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Anatomy of a Photograph
 The Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad

The Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad

Saturday, October 20, 2018 was the final day of the week-long Lerro Productions photo charter on the Oregon Coast Scenic Railroad. The anatomy of an image: here are the accounts of Polson #2 steam locomotive fireman Martin E. Hansen, and photographer Matthew Malkiewicz.

Reflecting on a steam run as experienced inside the cab and from behind the lens

Martin E. Hansen

The night before the last day of the charter I was told that one of the firemen for the charter had to leave and go home early. Our trainmaster asked if I could fill in for him on the log train the next morning with Polson Lumber Company #2, a standard gauge 2-8-2 Mikado built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in 1912. Since I had just completed a week of hard work days in the shop with our restoration crew finishing the jacket, piping and other final installations on the Skookum locomotive, I was ready for a change and gladly accepted the assignment.

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Richmond Division Recollections

Part Three

Peninsula Subdivision

Providence Forge

Providence Forge depot.

Margaret Askew was the agent-operator at Providence Forge which was a train order office. During the summers of 1972 and 1973 when I worked at that depot, I never met Margaret nor copied a train order. However, I did handle a couple of small Railway Express Agency shipments.

I heard Margaret on the dispatcher’s line when she OS’ed passing trains. Her voice seemed elderly and all comments about her by other personnel were complimentary. She was among the women who were hired during World War II as telegraphers and had sufficient seniority to stay at Providence Forge as other agencies were closed. Read more