40 years married to a railfan

The Keed with the Spotmatic.

Up they go. (We are in a passing-spur while descending.)

-1) Mt. Washington Cog Railway
It’s the summer of 1968 (or ‘69); our first vacation. (“How come every vacation seems to involve trains?”)
We are driving the TR250 all over, including into New Hampshire to the Mt. Washington Cog Railway.
Every railfan should ride the Mt. Washington Cog Railway, even though it’s quite a bit different than ordinary railways.
The rail is tiny; not supporting that much weight. A Mt. Washington Cog Railway steam-locomotive might weigh one-tenth of an ordinary steam-locomotive.
Traction is not by adhesion — the grade is too steep. At one point it gets to 38% (that’s up 38 feet for every 100 feet forward). No way under heaven could a regular railroad locomotive make that kind of grade without slipping.
The traction is by a center rack, equidistant between the rails. A cog-wheel on the locomotive engages that rack, and pulls the train up the grade.
So why am I doing the Mt. Washington Cog Railway? Because I’m a railfan, of course. (Slam-dunk!) —I’ve wanted to do it for years.
Above the tree-line, in the final ascent, the grade reaches 38%. A passenger got up out of his seat, and dangled his watch-chain. It was hanging sideways; except it was vertical and we were sideways.

The Keed with the Spotmatic.

Milepost 242, the mighty Curve. (This is actually our second visit; the following year; Labor Day 1969 [or ‘70].) The operator at that time was Penn-Central, a merger of Pennsy and New York Central that soon went bankrupt. It was supplanted by Conrail, who eventually went public and was broken up between Norfolk-Southern and CSX industries. The Curve is now operated by NS.

-2) “The mighty Curve”
.....probably the same trip we visited Mt. Washington Cog Railway.
First time for everything; I’ve been wanting to visit Horseshoe Curve ever since 1954 when first I became aware of it. (I woulda been 10.)
So here we are, navigating the TR250 all over Altoony; and there were few signs back then (not like now).
Somehow a sign directed us to 40th St., the road to the mighty Curve.
We head out 40th St. with me looking all over.
“Holy mackerel!” I exclaim. “We’re smack in the middle of it!” The Curve is draped on the hillsides, at least 125-150 feet above the roadway. Nothing like in the pictures.
Since then I have of course been to the mighty Curve “hunderds” of times. (And it’s only about 250 miles away.)
No camera can do justice to this place. Greatest railfan spot I have ever been to — the granddaddy of them all. And Pennsy had the foresight to make it a railfan spot. They coulda left the cut they made in Kittanning Mountain and not leveled the viewing-area.
And the train-frequency is staggering; wait 20 minutes and a train goes by. (I’ve even seen three at a time.) And climbing The Hill the locomotives are wide-open. “Assaulting the heavens,” I always say.
Since 1968 The Curve has been cut back to three tracks from four, and the gorgeous K4 steam-locomotive there (#1361) replaced by a lowly Geep (#7048; a GP9 diesel-locomotive).
But even then, nothing, absolutely NOTHING, matches the mighty Curve.

The Keed with the Spotmatic.

Up we go. At the runaway track at the bottom of Saluda in tiny Melrose, S.C. (Runaway track goes to left, and the track is switched into the runaway. The train has to stop.)

-3) Saluda
Here we are driving north from deepest-darkest north Floridy, after visiting Linda’s parents in DeBary — the house they moved to. Linda’s father is still alive.
I think it’s the year of Bill-a-Sue’s marriage; we did this on the same trip.
We are in the ‘78 Rabbit, a fairly decent car, although the air-conditioning wasn’t factory, and I had to replace all the mounting bushings.
Casey, our first Irish-Setter, was also along; I had to carve a plywood floor for her in the back.
Casey had a thing about UPS-men. Once I was walking her down Winton Road in Rochester, and she suddenly started barking. She had heard the UPS-truck’s four-ways clicking.
That UPS-man followed us all the way to Floridy. UPS tried to deliver a package to Linda’s parents, and Casey gave him a stern talking-to.
So here we are traveling up the Interstate (I-95 perhaps), and we angle off on another interstate west toward Spartanburg, S.C.
That’s near Saluda Mountain, the steepest mainline railroad grade in the nation.
Here we are out in the middle of nowhere and I’m gonna find that sucker. It’s one of the railfan pilgrimage stops.
We find the little town of Saluda, the top of the grade.
WHOA! That grade drops over the side of a cliff like a roller-coaster. Never in the past have I ever seen anything like that! (I’m used to the flat terrain of Pennsy and the PRSL.)
Saluda was operated by Southern Railway; a frontal assault on the Blue Ridge Mountains. Instead of winding all over the place, they just attacked the mountain in one fell swoop.
The grade gets over 4%; so steep they have to break a train into three or more sections just to negotiate it.
Saluda had a couple runaway-tracks; only one remains, at the bottom of the grade. We stopped at that, and walked around some.
Approaching our stop, the Rabbit started doing like all Rabbits ever did, not charging the battery.
The alternator was probably generating current, but it wasn’t charging the battery.
My GTI did that. It had a voltage-meter, and one day at Transit I noticed it was fluctuating, but mainly registering zero. (It was supposed to be registering 14 volts!)
I managed to get it home — probably on the battery — and started poking around with my charging-system tester. The alternator was generating current, but that current wasn’t getting to the battery — it was probably grounding someplace; the charging-wires were wet.
So I ended up jury-rigging a bypass — clipped out the suspect wiring, and wired in replacements of my own. Problem solved. (Toy not with the master!)
But the GTI was ‘83; well after the ‘78 Rabbit. We had to make Bill’s wedding.
So we took the Rabbit to the local Volkswagen-dealer in Spartanburg (on the battery), and they replaced the entire charging-system, including the alternator. (Ka-sching, ka-sching; how many times did I see Rabbits on hooks?)
And that was after being towed by another Rabbit to a place they could quick-charge the battery; out in the middle of nowhere.
To get to my tow-chain I had to remove the plywood flooring for the dog. Casey got in oil or grease or something, and we had little water to clean it up — only her water in jugs.
89 bazilyun catastrophic disasters struck, but I wasn’t missing Saluda. We also made Bill’s wedding — and passed the shop of Bud Moore in Spartanburg.
We never saw any trains, but I’ll never forget Saluda; the image of the start of that grade in Saluda is something I’ll never forget.
Saluda is defunct now, but the tracks were railbanked. The railroad may operate it again someday. So I’m glad we stopped — no matter what was happening.

The Keed with the Spotmatic.

Union-Pacific (which had trackage-rights on the AT&SF Cajon line) eastbound enters the cut at the summit. The line is now Burlington Northern Santa Fe. (Southern-Pacific opened a line over Cajon, called the Palmdale Cutoff, in 1967.)

-4) Cajon (pronounced “Ka-HONE”)
We’re on the other side of the continent. North of Los Angeles is Cajon Pass, where Santa Fe dipped out of the Mojave desert into the L.A. basin. It’s a prime railfan pilgrimage-stop; a place where millions of rail photos have been taken.
I had along an old Trains Magazine — it had an article by famous west coast rail photographer Richard Steinheimer about how to find your way.
By then the new route through the top of the pass was open; it involved a massive cut that drops the top by about 75-100 feet — it also cut out a slew of curves.
I’m finding that cut.
We have that old Trains mag, and gazatteers of the area.
I start out east along Cajon Boulevard out of San Bernardino, that parallels the Santa Fe, but come to a dead-end; and get routed back onto Interstate-15.
Up we go; I-15 crosses Cajon too, but well north of the AT&SF.
But we come across a side-road that looks like it might go up to that cut — perhaps the old Route 66.
After zig-zagging this way and that in parched desert, we come out next to that cut atop the pass.
“Never in a million years would I know to find this place,” Linda says — and that goes for all the other places too: e.g. Saluda and the Curve and others following.
40 years married to a railfan.

The Keed with the Spotmatic.

Santa Fe trailvan climbs the Loop. (It’s SP but AT&SF had trackage-rights. It’s now Union-Pacific. BNSF still has trackage-rights, and is the heaviest user.)

-5) Tehachapi Loop (pronounced “Tuh-HACH-uh-pee”)
On the other side of the continent again. Same trip we first went to Cajon.
Tehachapi Loop is one of the railroad wonders of the world; an incredible railroad that looks almost impossible.
The mighty San Joaquin Valley, which runs from Sacramento (San Francisco) south, and splits Californy in half, stops at the Tehachapi Mountains in the little town called Caliente.
Californians thought a railroad would never climb the Tehachapis, surmounting Tehachapi Pass into the high desert above Los Angeles.
The Southern Pacific traversed the San Joaquin and stopped at Caliente, but SP engineers in 1875 led by William Hood laid out an incredible railroad up the Tehachapis, through Tehachapi Pass.
It twists and turns, navigates a slew of tunnels, and most extraordinary of all loops back over itself at a place where the climb was especially challenging.
So here we are, navigating a narrow torturous mountain two-lane that’s only good for about 25 mph in a rental Pontiac Celebrity-clone: we gotta find that Loop.
Again we have a Richard Steinheimer Trains magazine article and a slew of gazatteer-maps.
We drive through the rustic little town of Tehachapi, and find the ancient two-lane down through the pass.
Ziggity-zag, twisting and turning, we slowly plod along.
Finally, “Tehachapi Loop memorial, 1,000 feet.” We round a turn, and there it is, scarred by graffiti of course.
But it overlooks the incredible Loop.
Sure enough, the tracks loop back over themselves in a constant 2.5% grade (Horseshoe Curve is 1.75%).
Down the hill at Caliente (it hardly looks habitable), the tracks descend the mountainside in a horseshoe that makes the mighty Curve look easy. (It’s hung on the precipice.)
First visit we saw a train or two — last visit we were there three hours and didn’t see any. And we had my railroad-scanner; although it was getting transmissions from Mojave Tower, about 50 miles away.
Again: “never in a million years would I know this place ever existed,” Linda says.

The Keed with the Spotmatic.

Union-Pacific Challenger (4-6-6-4) #3985 (when it was still burning coal) near Cheyenne, Wy.

-6) Sherman Hill
We’re out along the Harriman Cutoff (opened in 1953) over Sherman Hill on the Union Pacific in eastern Wyoming in 1987; another railfan pilgrimage-stop. (It’s also the Continental Divide for the Transcontinental (the first Transcontinental); over 8,000 feet at Hermosa Tunnel (although that Hermosa Tunnel route isn’t the first Transcontinental).
We’re in the E250, a vehicle so big we called it “The Queen Mary.”
In front of me is the culvert under the Harriman I drove through years ago in a rental Firebird.
“Will the Queen Mary fit through this thing?” I thought as we approached.
I put my hand atop the van’s roof, and felt the clearance. We had about nine inches — so in we go.
On the other side is that barbed-wire fence I stood atop years ago to shoot 3985 (see pik).
Again; out in the middle of nowhere. What if we break down or get stuck? No phones; and it was well before cellphones (and even now, I bet there’s no cellphone coverage out there).
We navigated that huge boat all over Sherman, out along right-of-way out in the middle of nowhere.
Once I had to turn around, so I backed the thing up a gravel road up a cliff, and turned it around without getting stuck.
But Sherman Hill is something a railfan doesn’t miss.
It’s out in the middle of nowhere; even more so than Saluda. So ya don’t make any mistakes.

The Keed with the dreaded D100.

(This is from our most recent visit about two years ago.)

-7) Cass
Every railfan should be required by law to visit Cass; but only to hear the steam-locomotive whistles echo through the hollers.
Cass Scenic Railroad is an old logging railroad restored to operation.
As such it is unlike ordinary railroads, since the railroad was only built to bring out timber, not ship anything.
The village of Cass is also extraordinary — what attracts Linda.
Your cellphone won’t work there. It’s out in the wilds of rural eastern West Virginny, far from civilization.
Cass has also gone out of its way to not modernize itself. The village center is the old company store, a very large old wooden building that’s been converted to a tourist-store and rudimentary restaurant.
The place fairly reeks of atmosphere. You’re transported to the late 1800s. It ain’t Wal*Mart or Mickey D’s. Pancakes in the restaurant are to the tunes of mountain pickers.
Logging railroads required a special locomotive application. The average side-rod steam-locomotive would never hold the rail, which was often very basic and too steep.
Curves are often tight and frequent.
A side-rod steamer is only working motion one side at a time, and had significant piston-thrust.
In fact, behind a side-rod steam-locomotive you can feel the train being pulled side-to-side.
A side-rod locomotive will break traction (slip) as the pistons thrust.
For steam-locomotives to work on logging railroads, a special application called the Shay (this is one of the Cass Shays) was designed.
Instead of pistons working side-rods, three or more cylinders were slung on the right side of the engine, and worked a long driveshaft that turned each axle with bevel-gears.
This evened out the piston-thrusts and worked all wheels at the same time.
Over rough track and up steep hills a Shay won’t break traction.
So a logging railroad could be built very cheaply now that steam could operate it.
Other designs beside the Shay were also made — although they all use the principle of working the wheels through a driveshaft.
Cass has a couple; but three-or-more working Shays.
One, Big Six, is not a logging-railroad Shay. It was built for Western Maryland Railroad to climb a very steep coal branch. Big Six never goes to the top, because it’s too big to negotiate a sharp curve near the top. (“Big Six” is the one in the pik.)
Cass is at least eight hours from our house. We now drive it as a two-day trip. The Curve is one day (half way), and Cass the second.
First visit I went to Cass myself. Then I took along Linda.
Again: “never in a million years would I know this place ever existed, and what a place!”
It’s on the Internet now, so we see garish tour-buses full of aging geezers in dayglo Dacron leisure-suits in the vast parking-lot; but all railfans know about Cass.

The Keed with the dreaded D100.

Helmstetters Curve.

-8) Helmstetters
This is after the stroke. We have returned from Cass via the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad in Cumberland, MD.
Western Maryland Scenic Railroad operates a short segment of the old Western Maryland Connellsville Extension, a long abandoned railroad that was a lot better engineered than the parallel Baltimore & Ohio line to Connellsville (and eventually Pittsburgh).
By winding all over everywhere, the Wild Mary Connellsville Extension had a way easier grade, without the challenging hills of the B&O.
So Wild Mary excelled for a while, competing successfully with the B&O.
One of the curves on the Connellsville Extension is Helmstetters, a railfan pilgrimage-stop.
It’s a big horseshoe out in the middle of nowhere (of course) west of Cumberland, Md.
It was originally double-track, but now WMSR has only single-track, but Helmstetters is part of the WMSR.
Eons ago rail-photographers shot Wild Mary trains slogging up the grade and around Helmstetters.
So I’m finding Helmstetters, stroke or not.
We drive the old National Pike (old U.S. Route 40), looking for La Vale (the town) because someone told us you could take a road from there to Helmstetters.
But my gazatteers don’t indicate any such road.
We find the road, and my topo-maps indicate a cemetery overlooking the curve, and it appears to be where the pictures were taken.
We’re finding that cemetery.
“There it is,” so in we go. I’m probably driving the so-called soccer-mom minivan (the Astrovan).
We pull into a turnaround and park the van; hard by a car with a K4 vanity-plate.
“Yada-yada-yada-yada; this is it all right: Helmstetters Curve;” a railfan pilgrimage-stop.
Again: “never in a million years would I know this place ever existed.......”
And again, out in the middle of nowhere.

Linda Hughes.

Me looking through my 300mm “cannon” on a tripod. I’m about 25.

And then, of course, are all the forays chasing trains: e.g.
-1) All the times I chased trains along the old New York Central Water-Level, many times in blizzards, like the shot of me looking through my 300mm “cannon” along the highway overlooking the Water-Level east of Newark, N.Y., and the picture I got. (See pik below.)
-2) 60-70 mph behind 611 in a frigid open car, getting covered with soot while freezing.
-3) Sitting for three hours while 1218 filled its two tenders at a trickling fire-hydrant. (And that was on Conrail, which gave us a place to turn around and water the engine, but they weren’t giving us any breaks, since we were competition. [We got back to Buffalo at 3 a.m., and 1218, a steam-locomotive, had run out of coal, and had to be replaced by two diesel-locomotives.] —And 1218 ain’t some model-railroad engine. A big hand doesn’t just drop from the sky and turn everything.)
-4) Freezing in a shed out along the Union-Pacific mainline in wide-open Wyoming, wind howling, while 3985 was being turned; and finally:
-5) Here we are driving west on Route 62 toward Montgomery in West Virginny. We strike out the woods, and there it is: 765 at 50 mph pulling the New River Excursion back to Huntington.
The train is on my right, so having power-windows in our Bronco II, I roll down the window to experience 765.
THRASHA-THRASHA-THRASHA-THRASHA! It’s also blowing its whistle in ear-piercing blasts for grade-crossings.
I, of course, am in ecstasy. Linda is terrified. THRASHA-THRASHA-THRASHA-THRASHA! 765 is right next to her.
WOOO-WOOO-WOO-WOOO!
40 years married to a railfan!

The Keed with the Spotmatic.

Westbound Penn-Central freight on the Water-Level east of Newark, N.Y. (It’s led by a U-boat, #2887.)

And then, of course, are all the forays I did myself; e.g.:
-1) Trying to find Sand Patch Tunnel on the B&O. I had my gazatteers but ended up on a narrow dirt fire-track, in the Faithful Hunda. Linda would have wanted me to turn around — there were no paved roads along Wills Creek.
And I was about to turn around, but all of a sudden I was overlooking the B&O Pittsburgh main, and a train was coming.
This kid ain’t turning around. Nothing doing! We got this far.
(I never did find Sand Patch Tunnel — it was out a private CSX dirt road: no trespassing. And a massive front-end loader was coming.)
-2) My following the vaunted B&O West End. —An incredible roller-coaster railroad that was built way too early; it was the original B&O mainline to the Ohio River.
It includes Seventeen-Mile Grade, and Cranberry; both extraordinarily torturous.
I managed to find my way (this was after the stroke), and Cranberry starts with a drop-off just like Saluda. Cranberry exceeds 2.4%, and faces eastbound traffic (like heavy coal-drags).
I also crossed a rickety bridge over the tracks in Amblersburg that Linda would have counseled against. No way under heaven would that thing have supported a dump truck. I was afraid of it collapsing under the Astrovan.
And finally
-3) In the ‘90s, I flew down to Charleston, West Virginny to ride the New River Excursion behind 765. That night I called Linda from my motel and cryingly described one of the most incredible epiphanies I have ever experienced: 765 at 70-75 mph in Teays Valley with 34 coaches (and I was in the front dutch-door of the first coach). I will never forget that as long as I live; it’s going to my grave. (It’s right up there with Don Garlits.)
The next day I drove my rental Probe in New River Gorge on a dirt-track I’m sure that car will never forget. The road was on my gazatteers, but holy mackerel. That road carved through every ditch, and even forded streams! Linda would have wanted to give up. It came out near Prince, near Stretcher’s Neck Tunnel, the only tunnel on the line. Turning back seemed stupid, since I’d have to retrace all the horrible road I had already traversed. So I kept going.

40 years married to a railfan!

“The TR250” is a 1968 Triumph TR250 sportscar, our first car.

Horseshoe Curve (the “mighty Curve”), west of Altoona (“Altoony”), Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use.

“Hunderds” is how my blowhard brother-in-Boston noisily insists “hundreds” is spelled.

“Pennsy” is the Pennsylvania Railroad, no longer in existence. It merged with New York Central Railroad in 1968 as Penn-Central, and that went bankrupt in about two years. “Pennsy” was once the largest railroad in the world.

“Geep” is the nickname given to EMD GP four axle road-switchers.

“EMD” is Electromotive Division of General Motors, GM’s manufacturer of railroad diesel-locomotives. Most railroads used EMD when they dieselized; although many now use General-Electric railroad diesel-locomotives.

“Bill-a-Sue” are my younger brother in northern Delaware and his wife. —Said that way because that was how my Down Syndrome brother said it: “Bill-uh-Sue.”

“PRSL ” (Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Lines) is an amalgamation of Pennsylvania and Reading (“RED-ing”) railroad-lines in south Jersey to counter the fact the two railroads had too much track. It was promulgated in 1933. —The first trains I saw were on PRSL at age 2 in 1946.

The “GTI” was my 1983 Volkswagen Rabbit GTI — a factory hot-rod.

“Transit” is Regional Transit Service, the transit-bus operator in Rochester, NY, where I drove transit-bus for 16&1/2 years.

“Bud Moore” used to drive NASCAR in the early years. He later became an entrant with others driving for him. He entered both Trans-Am (Mustangs) and NASCAR (Fords).

“Santa Fe” is the Santa Fe railroad; A.T.S.F. (Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe.) Not long ago, it merged with Burlington-Northern Railroad; forming BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe). —Santa Fe was the main route to southern Californy; BNSF still is.

RE: “My railroad-scanner.......” —I have a radio-scanner that scans railroad radio frequencies. Part of the railfan paraphernalia.

“Mojave Tower” is a railroad tower in Mojave, Ca. that controls the line.

RE: “when it was still burning coal......” —3985 has been converted to burn fuel-oil.

The “E250” is our 1979 Ford E250 van; probably the neatest vehicle I’ve ever owned.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“Wild Mary” is the nickname for Western Maryland Railroad; merged long ago with Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad — mostly since abandoned.

“The so-called soccer-mom minivan” is our 1993 Chevrolet Astrovan, traded two years ago. My loudmouthed macho brother-from-Boston called it a “soccer-mom minivan” as a put-down.

A “K4” is the Pennsylvania Railroad K4 Pacific (4-6-2) steam locomotive; and PRR had many. It was their standard passenger loco for years.

A “U-boat” is a General-Electric road-switcher, called that by railfans because GE called them utility-units: e.g. “U-25,” “U-30,” etc.

The “New York Central Water-Level” is their mainline across New York state, “Water-Level” because it followed river-courses, thereby avoiding mountain grades.

“611” and “765” and “1218” and “3985” are all restored steam-locomotives that operated (or still operate) steam-locomotive excursion-service. 611 (a 4-8-4) and 1218 (a huge 4-6-6-4 articulated), both previously of the Norfolk & Western Railroad, have since been retired, but Nickel Plate SuperPower Berkshire (2-8-4) 765 is still in service, as is Union-Pacific 3985 (4-6-6-4); the largest restored steam-locomotive still running — even bigger than 1218. —I’ve ridden behind all.

I sold the GTI after a fuel-leak, and bought a 1990 Ford “Bronco II;” nice to look at, but horrible.

“B&O” is Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, merged with Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad in the early ‘60s. B&O was the first common-carrier railroad in the nation; founded in 1827. It was Baltimore’s attempt to counter the monstrously successful Erie Canal.

“Sand Patch Tunnel” was on B&O’s line to Pittsburgh, a very long tunnel that bored an Allegheny ridge in the way.

“The Faithful Hunda” is our 1989 Honda Civic All-Wheel-Drive station-wagon, by far the BEST car we ever owned, now departed. (Called a “Hunda” because that was how a fellow bus-driver at Transit, pronounced it.)

“Cranberry” is also a very steep railroad-grade.

RE: “Front dutch-door of the first coach......” —The doors of a railroad-coach often closed halfway: a “dutch-door.” I set up in the front dutch-door of the first coach right behind 765. Came home covered in soot (“looked like a coal-miner”) but thrilled.

Ford “Probe.”

“Prince,” West Virginny. C&O had a modern station there; deep in New River Gorge.