When my mother asked me to write a story on my trips to Maybrook as a fireman for the Penn Central, I had to give it much thought. It had been more than twenty-nine years since I had been there and I had to dig deep to remember what a trip was like. They were all good ones because I never derailed or had any accidents on any of my trips. Some of the guys you worked with of course were better than others. What I mean by this is more of a personality angle than anything else. Some engineers were quiet and others would talk to you and explain things to you during the trip. Unfortunately some did not like having an “off division man” in the cab.
The Trackside Photographer lost a friend this year. Bob Hughes was an active contributor and enthusiastic supporter. He wrote over a dozen stories for us, and they are among our most popular articles. A former railroader himself, Bob was actively involved with the SONO Switch Tower Museum. He gave generously of his time to help preserve the history of railroading, working with other railroad enthusiasts to restore and preserve valuable collections of railroad photographs.
We are thinking about Bob this Christmas, and thought it appropriate to reprint this story from December, 2016. Enjoy his words and photos, and, if you are so inclined, lift a glass to his memory during the Christmas season. He will be missed.
This is Dale Bryan, thirty-three-year-old Southern Pacific relief second-trick telegrapher-clerk at Paso Robles, California (Paso de Robles/pass of oaks) on a warm July evening in 1960. And these are the tools of his trade:
Clockwise: earphone; scissors phone; shelves for 3-, 5-, 7- and 9-copy blank train-order forms (with carbons at the ready); dispatcher’s loudspeaker; westbound and eastbound annunciators (‘bells’); Motorola radio; clearance cards; telephone line ‘jacks’; ‘O.S.’ sheet; levers for westbound and eastbound train-order semaphores (‘order boards’ on the SP); a red flag and of course a classic Underwood typewriter. Although he is still referred to officially as a ‘telegrapher,’ Dale no longer has Morse code in his job description: the key and sounder were removed three years earlier. The new-fangled Motorola is the future of train control.
By 1960 Paso Robles, with its single overhead bulb burning in the dark, was the only fully-open, 24-hour train-order office remaining between Santa Margarita (which is north of San Luis Obispo and at the foot of the Cuesta grade) and King City. This is a distance of 75 miles.
What I remember is the understated manner with which Dale handled his duties while engaged in a great enterprise with all its dangers and opportunities to make consequential mistakes. Train-orders on single track were often about taking time from superior trains and lending it to inferior ones. Dale needed to transcribe his dispatcher’s orders quickly and with complete accuracy because as little as a typo would invalidate the order and stop a train. What’s more, that error would be magnified over distance causing further delays and recalculations up the line. No pressure then!
And Paso Robles’ annunciators gave minimal warning. How much ground did No. 99, the westbound Coast Daylight, cover in two-and-a-half minutes? The classic Hollywood films High Noon (Gary Cooper) and Suddenly (Frank Sinatra) drew on the dramatic potential in a rural California station like Paso Robles. Cue the ticking clock and the unseen inevitability of a fast-closing express.
The railroad will always be about time and distance
SP No. 98 the southbound (SP eastbound) Coast Daylight by the Pacific Ocean at Surf, California (between San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara) in 1960, watched by the first-trick operator and his wife. With a clear order-board the engineer can power through in Run 8. (Patrick E. Kelly Collection)
It’s worth remembering that the railroad in those days didn’t run only on rails. It ran also on an invisible matrix with real people passing detailed computations of time and distance from one to another. And these computations were of great importance, since the railroad was literally the main line of commerce and communication.
Now I guess it’s only natural that the sight of my old friend at his operator’s desk sixty years ago will shout analog, even if many of us do find historical railroad technology important and interesting. But whether analog or digital, steam or turbocharged diesel-electric, the railroad will always be about time and distance. From this modest station and using comparatively primitive and manually-dependent communications, time was given and time taken away. How many people could put that in their job description?
The town of Chesapeake Beach, Maryland is a town on the Chesapeake Bay. Today, it is a town with a water park, a resort, condos, and a restaurant overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. In the beginning, it was a completely different town. It began as a resort town to escape the hustle and bustle of Washington D.C. It had a beach, a carousel, roller coaster, bandshell, a boardwalk and a hotel. How did they get here? The Chesapeake Beach Railway was established to bring vacationers from Union Station in Washington D.C. to the Chesapeake Beach Train Station. As the train arrived in Chesapeake Beach, the passengers were just a short walk to everything. The town was a booming resort town, and the Chesapeake Beach Railway was a major contributor to the town’s success. What began in the late 1890’s… when into decline in the 1930’s. Vacationers were going to other resorts. There was a hotel the burned down. The Chesapeake Beach Railway was no more. The only thing of the old town of Chesapeake Beach that remains today is the Chesapeake Beach Train Station that remains in its original location, and it is the home of the Chesapeake Beach Railway Museum. The tracks are long gone, but there are some places where some of the old railroad bed remains.
When railroads retire signals they are typically thrown in the scrap heap, sold off to railfans or sent down to the C&S shop to keep any of their surviving kin up and running. For anyone interested in seeing these antiques, it typically means a visit to a museum or a backyard collection. After all, railroad signals are fairly specialized pieces of equipment that don’t really work well for general illumination, but despite this there does seem to be one little exception. Every so often a railroad will down-cycle its surplus signaling equipment into the somewhat less exacting world of grade crossing protection. Now this isn’t exactly common as traffic control signals tend to cast their light for a short distance over a broad angle compared to railroad signals that tend to do the opposite. Still, grade crossing applications can give life to signals far beyond their typical sell by date.
The sound could fool you into believing you’re hearing the ebb and flow of the lake’s waves breaking on shore, if not for the almost-alien whirring vibration. The thud-thunk, thud-thunk, the whispering whoooooosh, and the pulsating squeal of compressed metal on metal.
As a first time visitor to this city of towers and glass, one cannot help but be awed by the commotion above sidewalks and between infamous skyscrapers. These steel lines are the bones and the L is the soul of this city. Without it, this windy mecca would not exist as it appears today.
Nowhere in the world, does the melting pot of America appear more obvious than on the benches of the waiting platforms. One glance presents you with society in all of its glory. Class cannot exist here, as bodies press together in the hustle of our fast-paced lives.
