Park City

Before it became famous as a high rolling ski resort, Park City Utah was just another small town up in the mountains that had seen better times. Once a thriving mining town, in 1975 when I shot this picture of the Union Pacific Railroad depot it was a sleepy backwater. Even so, the depot was still in use though rail service was infrequent.

The inside gateway

There are three rail routes from Oregon into California. The least known of the three is the Inside Gateway route. used by the BNSF Railway. The line is the newest - built in 1931. It connected the Great Northern at Klamath Falls with the Western Pacific up through the Feather River Canyon. The lines met in the middle of nowhere, at Bieber, California. For many years this marked the place where the locomotives and cabooses of one line were exchanged with those of the other. This route connected with the Santa Fe Railroad in the Central Valley, providing a through route to the bay area. Because of its circuitous routing, it never could compete with the much shorter Southern Pacific routes to the west. Hence, the line never carried a lot of traffic.

In the present day, the Great Northern, the Western Pacific, and the Santa Fe are gone. The BNSF controls the entire route, and routes their California bound trains down this line.

In 1999 I captured a southbound at the appropriately named place of Stateline. The lead locomotive is within a few yards of crossing into California.

Classic paint

Throughout the years railroads have had some unique paint schemes for their cars and locomotives. These ranged from the regal like the Pennylvania's through the circus-like multi colors of some of the Florida roads. One of the more unique schemes was that of the Chessie System.

The Chessie System was relatively short lived. It was formed from the merger of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad (C&O),the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), and some minor lines in 1973. It's unique scheme featured a cat logo. The cat represented Chessie, a kitten used by the C&O for advertising purposes from 1933 until the line turned over it's passenger trains to Amtrak in 1971. Chessie was used to make the point that you would "sleep like a kitten" on the C&O's trains. When the Chessie was merged with the Seaboard Coast Line in 1980 the new corporation was renamed CSX. Their new scheme was a bland grey and blue and starting in the mid 80s equipment was repainted into the new colors.

Harpers Ferry, West Virginia is a small town with a rich history. Located at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers, it was the site of a Federal Armory dating from 1799. This is where John Brown attacked in an attempt to incite a slave rebellion just prior to the Civil War. The original B&O mainline to the west runs through town, crossing the Potomac on a massive double track bridge that still carries heavy traffic.

On one of my visits I captured a short Chessie coal train crossing the Potomac bridge. Overlooking the scene is the famous "Hilltop House" a historic hotel that once hosted the rich and famous.



A better shot of the bridge and the Chessie Safety Special.

Another day, another special

A bunch of special trains have come through the Springfield area this summer. The Operation Lifesaver, the circus train, and a couple of inspection specials. It is a great change from the same old same old that I normally see.

I captured the latest one speeding through downtown Springfield. It is crossing the bridge over the Springfield Millrace. The power is another of the Union Pacific's heritage units, the 1983. It is numbered for the year that the UP took over the Western Pacific Railroad. I was told that one of the railroad VPs was onboard, inspecting the property.

Thurmond, West Virginia

Thurmond, West Virginia is one of those places. One of those places that a "normal" person would never go to. But then, I've never been normal.  Located in the New River Gorge, the town is wedged in a narrow valley shared by the river, the town, and the double track mainline. It is coal country, and once was a wild town. All types of vice flourished, and miners spent Saturday nights being relieved of their hard earned pay.

Those days are long gone. In July 1985 when I took this picture, the only business left was the Bankers Hotel (the red brick building nearly hidden by the locomotive) and associated cafe. My buddy and I stayed there, getting front rooms that looked out on the busy rail line, only separated by the one lane width of Main Street. We had come to shoot the NKP 765, pulling an excursion train through the scenic gorge. When the big steamer came through, the engineer put on a show for us, whistling and dirtying the sky with black  smoke. It was easy to imagine how things must have been years back, before diesels, when coal was still king.

Though I haven't been back for 25 years, things are different today. Thurmond has become a destination for recreationalists, folks who come to whitewater raft the New River. Most of the town is now owned by the National Park Service, as part of the new River Gorge National River. The entire town is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The first of many

My first ventures into rail photography took place when I lived in Wyoming, in the mid 1970s. The Burlington Northern Railroad's line through the Wind River Canyon ran a couple of thousand feet below where I lived. I was working as a television engineer, living on a mountaintop high above the canyon.

When I came down off that mountain every couple of weeks, I needed to amuse myself. There weren't a whole lot of things to do, even in town. I ultimately found myself trackside resuming an interest I had mostly given up for cars, planes, girls, and other adolescent pasttimes. But this time I had a camera.

There wasn't much left of Bonneville, Wyoming by the mid 1970s. Some trailer homes, a few dilapidated old buildings, a railroad siding, and this relic of a station from days gone by. This siding was the meeting place of the daily north and southbound trains, so the station was still in use, even to having an agent. I wandered around getting pictures of the station and approaching train. I wish now I had taken more.

The station at Bonneville was still there when I left Wyoming in 1980, but was no longer in service at that time. When I returned for a visit ten years later, it was gone, just a flat spot in the gravel and some broken concrete to mark it's place.

Dunsmuir

Dunsmuir is a small town in northern California, in the shadow of Mt. Shasta. It was known for the purity of it's water. The Southern Pacific Railroad was the driving economic force of town, and had a major facility which employed many local residents.

That was some years ago. The railroad still goes through, and Amtrak stops, but the rails don't have a big presence anymore. It is a crew change point, and still has a small yard and service facility, but otherwise doesn't see much action. The town's business district is quiet, now serving the tourists coming for the recreational opportunities or exiting off the interstate for food, fuel, or lodging.

The town still pays homage to it's rail heritage. This locomotive fuel storage tank honors the SP, and downtown has murals featuring trains of years gone by. There are several semaphore signals setup on Main Street. A few miles south of downtown is a motel where one can stay overnight in a restored caboose.

It is still a nice little town, I always try to stop when passing through.