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The Great Smoky Mountains Railroad

September 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I

Misty clouds, rising from the dark green faces of the Great Smoky Mountains during the morning, appeared like smoke tendrils. The twelve-car train, wearing the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad’s tuscan red and Rio Grande gold livery and pulled by an EMD GP-9 diesel locomotive, vibrated and clanged its bell atop the gravel-imbedded rails next to the gray, wooden Bryson City depot, as it prepared for its imminent, 44-mile, round-trip departure to Nantahala Gorge. Passengers, many of whom had dislodged from buses, inundated the tiny portico waiting area, lulled into a North Carolina mood by a guitar-strumming trio. I would make the journey in the MacNeill Club Car, number 536, today, attached to generator car 6118 and trailed by Silver Meteor dining car 8015. That journey, inextricably tired to these western North Carolina mountains, could trace its origins to the mid-1800s.

Although the ruggedly beautiful area had been rich in natural resources, such as timber, fertile soil, and minerals, the Appalachian and Blue Ridge Mountains, peeking at 6,000 feet, had rendered it isolated and inaccessible, with a rough, wagon-plied route its only connection with the rest of the state. After considerable efforts to persuade the state legislature of North Carolina to rectify this deficiency, it had agreed to subsidize the construction of track between Salisbury and Asheville in 1855, to be used by the Western North Carolina Railroad.

A smooth development period, spanning six years, had been thwarted in 1861 by the Civil War, at which time some 70 miles of rail had yet to be laid, but momentum had ultimately been regained 16 years later, when convict labor had been employed for the first time. Five hundred tracklayers had been subdivided into 150-men camps, each of which had been led by a captain, a foreman, and several guards.

An erroneous route survey, revealing that existing topography had been unsuitable for track, had required another decade to properly determine, and had been exacerbated by crude, hand tool usage and primitive rock removal methods, the rocks themselves expanded by fire-created heat and cracked after drenchings with cold water.

The rails, following Indian trails and cow paths, entailed an 891.5-foot elevation gain with an average two-percent grade, and passed through five tunnels, and the precarious route had hardly been forged with safety. Indeed, on March 11, 1879, the Swannanoa Tunnel, which had been being bored from both ends, had collapsed and instantly crushed 21 workers.

Murphy, already the eastern terminus of the Marietta and North Georgia Railroad, served the same purpose in 1891 when the tracks for the Western North Carolina’s Murphy Branch had been laid, albeit six years later than planned, and traffic interchange between the two had been facilitated when the former had changed its gauge from narrow to standard. The 111 miles from Asheville had, for the first time, been connected by rail.

Despite the delays incurred by its construction, its crude method, topographical obstacles, rough roadbed, and lack of ballast had often caused derailments, a condition partially alleviated with the addition of culverts and abutments.

Rapidly becoming the lifeline to the communities lining it, it carried supplies, agricultural products, and timber, and connected with other, existing shortline railroads, such as the Alarka Valley, the Appalachian, the Carolina and Tennessee Southern, the B&B, the Smoky Mountain, the Ritter Lumber Company, the Sunburst, and the Tuckasegee Southeastern, but it had always been plagued by steep grades, sharp curves, low-capacity locomotives, and inferior maintenance.

Three years after its completion, the Southern Railway took control of it, and, in 1907, it had been reorganized as the “Murphy Division,” with Bryson City serving as its headquarters. Its local businesses and industries, manufacturing pulpwood and pallets and selling propane, had heavily relied on rail transport to support their activities, routinely requiring feed, cross ties, lumber, and sand.

Improved road access, however, gradually replaced the need for the rails. In 1937, for instance, two daily trains had departed Murphy-a freight service at 0600 and a passenger run at 0800-but by 1944, only a single passenger train had plied the line, leaving Murphy at 0715 for Asheville and returning at 1415. Aside from offering increased western North Carolina access, road development had been necessitated by the opening of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Diminishing timber resources, coupled with the completion of the nearby Fontana Dam, had finally resulted in the permanent discontinuation of passenger services on July 16, 1948. Thirty-two years later, in 1980, 2,239 freight car loads had plied the rails, yet by 1987, the number had dwindled to 817. During the last three years, by which time the railroad had been acquired by Norfolk Southern, regularly scheduled service, of no more than five cars, had only been maintained between Waynesville and Andrews, with stops in Murphy only sporadically made.

Maintenance costs, already high because of the 34 bridges connecting Dillsboro with Murphy and the excessive track curvature, had escalated without a commensurate increase in revenue, and in 1984, the Champion Paper Mill, long dependent on the line for its business, had converted its traditional pulpwood product to woodchips, packaged in a cube whose size had precluded its rail transport through the Dillsboro and Rhodo tunnels. Costs to either lower their roadbeds or increase their ceiling heights had been prohibitive, particularly for use by only a single company. As a result, the papermill had been forced to truck its products to Canton and Norfolk Southern, unable to stem its losses, had been forced to abandon the 67 miles of track between Dillsboro and Murphy in 1988.

Although several prospective operators had explored both passenger and freight uses for it, none had been financially self-sustainable, and on July 18 of that year, the North Carolina Department of Transportation had forcibly purchased the track for 0,000 for the intended introduction of a passenger excursion train operated by the newly-established Great Smoky Mountains Railroad.

Its initial equipment, two GP-9 locomotives from Burlington Northern and Union Pacific, along with several converted, open coaches, had been joined by a 1942 Baldwin steam engine originally built for the US Army and two more GP-7 diesels from Chicago and North Western by 1995.

Its present fleet, comprised of open cars, coaches, “Crown” coaches, club cars, dining cars, and cabooses, had been acquired from several railroads and extensively refurbished. Track modifications, whose 80- and 85-pound ratings stipulated 25-mph maximum speeds, have entailed heavier rail and track side lubricator installations on sharp curves, the reinforcement of many trestles, and the redecking of the bridge crossing the Tuckasegee River at Dillsboro.

In 1996, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad purchased the Dillsboro-Andrews section of track from the state of North Carolina, while the state itself continued to own the remainder of it, from Andrews to Murphy.

Acquired three years later, on December 23, 1999, by American Heritage Railways, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad became one of three excursion trains owned by the new company, which operates similar ventures in Colorado and Texas.

II

Bryson City, origin of my own Nantahala Gorge excursion, is a mountainside community of 1,400 located on the Tuckasegee River and named after Colonel Thadeus Dillard Bryson. Incorporated in 1887, it had been laid out in accordance with the ancient trails and roads of the Cherokee, who had originally referred to it as “Big Bear Springs,” and today serves as a gateway to the Great Smoky Mountains and is the hub for the railroad. Because of its proximity to the Fontana Dam, it had temporarily burgeoned during its construction period.

The current railroad depot, built during the 1890s, is the only one remaining from the Southern Railway’s operation of the line, although its freight storage portion had since been removed and replaced by an open portico. A one-and-a-half mile long rail yard, of four tracks, had facilitated the town’s many industries, including the Carolina Wood Turning Company, the Carolina Building Supply, the Southern Concrete Company, and a petroleum dealer, while a turntable, a water tank, and a coal chute had been instrumental in the then-present use of steam locomotives. Bryson City is located at mile marker 63 on the track running from Asheville to Murphy.

My train’s complement had included the 1955-manufactured diesel engine, a generator car, the MacNeill club car, the Silver Meteor dining car, the Dixie Flyer dining car, the Conductor’s Café, the Bryson City coach, the Wildwater open car, the Cherokee coach, the Fontana open car, the Crescent Limited coach, and a caboose.

A car coupling-created lurch preceded the train’s initial movement at 1030, as it slowly glided over Everet street-imbedded track, soon mirrored by the stationary, red and gold Great Smoky Mountains Railroad’s chain of coaches cradled by the freight yard, before it plunged through dense, almost tunnel-like foliage at increasing, although still-gentle speeds.

Re-emerging from the dense forest, whose tall, thin trees stood like sentinels guarding the single track, the chain of cars inched away from Bryson City, paralleling the north bank of the Tuckasegee River. The original roadbed, curing to the right at mile 64.5, had been replaced by the present route in 1944 because of dam construction-created flooding.

Traversing a steel truss bridge, which had been constructed in 1898 and spanned 426 feet, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad crossed the Nantahala River, and thence arced into a 12.1-degree curve, commencing an almost-imperceptible climb up a 1.3-percent grade, before reaching its summit by means of a horseshoe curve to the left. The Alarka Creek, a blue sheen amidst the blur of deep forest green, flashed through the left windows.

The train’s gentle rock, lulling me into relaxed serenity, prompted closer internal inspection of the MacNeill club car in which I rode. The line’s newest addition, it had been built in the 1940s and had previously been designated the “Powhatan Arrow,” operating Norfolk and Western’s service of the same name on its Premier line until 1982, at which time it had been transferred to the merged Norfolk-Southern’s Steam Program. Although it had been refurbished in 1993, it had been subsequently damaged the following year in a collision in Lynchburg, Virginia.

No longer needed after the Steam Program had been discontinued in February of 1995, it had been auctioned and acquired by the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, renamed in honor of Malcolm and Jean MacNeill for their years of service and dedication, and for their vision of an economically viable western North Carolina scenic railway. It had been inaugurated into this service in mid-1999 on the very Nantahala Gorge run I had currently made after meticulous restoration.

Opulently decorated, it had featured a serving area; single, swivelable, tan-upholstered, opposed easy chairs separated by round tables on one side, and pairs separated by rectangular ones on the other; wood-grained wall paneling; brass lamps above the tables; and thick, red carpeting. Fruit salad, blueberry muffins, and coffee had been served shortly after departure.

The sun, finally managing to tear the billowing white, gray, and silver cloud deck open, revealed patches of blue. The pine green, glass-reflective surface of Fontana Lake, once a fertile valley, flicked through the dense foliage before opening up to a full water body, at mile 72.2. Its very creation had dictated the current railroad’s route.

The Murphy Branch track, having been 8.5 miles longer, but with gentler grades, had followed the north bank of the Tuckasegee River to Bushnell, the small community located at the converging point of the Little Tennessee River and the junction of the Carolina and Tennessee Southern Railway Company’s track. But World War II-necessitated demand for increased electrical power to facilitate production of vital war materials had sparked the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Fontana Dam Project and the Murphy Branch’s track rerouting.

Fontana, a town 1.5 miles from the construction site, had been nucleic to its successful completion and the Carolina and Tennessee Southern’s track, extended 2.84 miles along the Little Tennessee River, had formed the temporary lifeline to it, facilitating material and machinery transport. A timber trestle had been built over Eagle Creek. A four-track rail yard, long enough to support 100 cars on each of its spurs, along with a machine shop, a carpenter shop, a warehouse, and storage areas, had formed the base of the project, and cement-filled boxcars had run from Bryson City to the dam, conveying 8,000 cubic yards of concrete and 15,000 tons of sand and gravel per day.

The war had carried two stipulations: the dam had to be completed within a two-year period and steel could not be allocated for it, requiring relocated or reconstructed bridges and enormous amounts of fill to substitute for otherwise needed trestles.

Three different rivers had formed the bottom of the newly-created Fontana Lake when the resultant reservoir had flooded 24 miles of former Murphy Branch track from Bryson City to Weser, and the dam, at 480 feet, had been the highest in the eastern United States and the fourth-largest in the world when it had been completed in 1944.

The old line, discontinued by the Southern Railway between mileposts 64.5 and 88.2 on September 25 of the previous year, had been replaced by the new one on July 30, 1944.

Eating away the steel girder, concrete stanchion-supported Fontana Lake Bridge, the present Great Smoky Mountains Railroad crossed the evergreen-reflected water.

At milepost 76, orchard remnants, location of the former Southern Railway president’s summerhouse, moved by. Following the azure of Fontana Lake, the diesel locomotive negotiated the 14.2-degree curve to the right at mile 77.8, the relocated line’s sharpest, which could only be safely traversed at five mph.

The Nantahala River, a fluid life force exploding into small fumes of white anger with every rock and boulder obstacle thrown in its path, paralleled the 12-car link.

Lunch, served in the Silver Meteor dining car attached to the MacNeill club car, had included grilled vegetables, portobello mushrooms, and creamy goat cheese on a hero, served with seasoned potato wedges and a side of lettuce and tomato. The two-axle, lightweight car, built in 1940 for Seaboard Airline Railway and restored by the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in 1994, had featured a forward galley; twelve, four-place, black lacquer tables with upholstered, floral motif-sporting chairs; small, brass lamps; and gray, geometric textured carpeting which had adorned the bottom half of its sidewalls.

The Conductor’s Café, a snack car constructed in 1949 and an alternative eating venue, had been operated as a dormitory on the Atlantic Coast Line Railway and had also seen brief service with Amtrak before being converted to its present configuration in 1997.

Plying the last mile of relocated track, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad passed Weser Creek Falls and the Nantahala Outdoor Center before crossing the Appalachian Trail at milepost 80, now cradled by steep mountains which formed Nantahala Gorge and impeded all but the high, afternoon sun’s rays from penetrating it. The track, paralleling the river, had been laid close to the mountain’s side with the aid of nothing more than picks and shovels and seemed to bore through cool air and nature’s dense, perennially-green, vegetation-created tunnel.

The caves beyond the coaches’ right windows had once been used by hunters and settlers and had been instrumental during the Cherokee’s exile to Oklahoma in its Trail of Tears period.

Maneuvering through the line’s sharpest curve, of 17 degrees, at milepost 83.2, the train approached Talc Mountain, approaching Nantahala, once the last location of a water tank, a coal chute, and a sand tower for replenishing steam engines, thus necessitating sufficient provision for the 56-mile round-trip to Murphy and back. Today, it had served as my own journey’s terminus.

Diesel locomotive 1751, disconnecting from its 11-car chain, passed it on the Stanley track to its right before reconnecting in front of the caboose and reinitiating motion, now in the opposite direction, after a barely perceptible lurch, destined for the Nantahala Outdoor Center and a one-hour interlude.

Gently lurching and rattling, the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad retraced its path, boring through the forest green walls which reeked not of soot or coal, but instead of dense vegetation.

Amid the rushing of the river, where the tracks briefly doubled, it inched into the Nantahala Outdoor Center. Immediately above the green canopy, tiny specks of blue had rendered the otherwise white and silver cloud blanket an afternoon mosaic. The center itself, starting point for rafting excursions and permanently suffused with the heavy scent of pine, had been comprised of several wooden, rustic cabins housing gift ships and restaurants.

After having been pelted by a fierce, but quick rain shower during its one-hour rest, the diesel locomotive, once again signaling imminent departure with its whistle, released its brakes at 1400 and reinitiated momentum, each car induced into coupling-snagged motion like a chain in mimicked reaction.

The Nantahala River, now paralleling the train on the right side and a reflection of the mountain-covered vegetation, appeared a crystal green mirror. The gentle blue of the sky crested the towering trees.

Traveling in a northwesterly direction, the long chain of cars thread its way through the dense forest toward the almost-blue peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains ahead, their wheels screeching in protest as they adhered to the track’s curvatures.

The cork on the champagne bottle had been popped and cheese and crackers had, in the meantime, been served in the MacNeill club car.

Fontana Lake, draped by green-carpeted hills and dotted with houseboats, once again glided by, now visible through the long, rectangular windows on the left side, as if they had served as large television screens depicting a world from which one had been temporarily disconnected in the self-contained coach.

Following the dense, green mountain valley-cradled tracks, the train once again traversed the steel truss bridge and inched past the railroad yard, crossing Evert Street in Bryson City and snagging its brakes for a final time abreast of the gray depot.

Climbing down from the MacNeill club car, I stepped back on to the gravel and caught glimpse of the last car. Behind it lay a track comprised of light rails laid by convicts through mountainous, river-abundant terrain, having requiring restricted bridges, small tunnels, tight curves, and varying grades. Behind it lay a story of the Murphy Branch, which had provided the lifeline to the Great Smoky Mountains’ isolated communities, facilitating their growth and development, and connecting town to town. And behind it lay the ultimate connection-the one from soul to soul.

Opening the door, I stepped into the Bryson City depot.

Written by Robert Waldvogel

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Monson Railroad

September 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Construction

The slate underlying what became the town of Monson, Maine had very low ionizable mineral content, and was well suited for manufacture of electric switchboards. Quarrying commenced in the 1860s and slate finishing operations began in 1870. Slate was shaped into sinks, bathtubs, tabletops, chalkboards, roof shingles, and headstones. Transporting these heavy slate products was difficult in any weather, and became nearly impossible when spring thaw turned the roads to slush and mud. The Monson and Athens Railroad Company was chartered 1 November 1882 when the standard-gauge Bangor and Piscatquis Railroad (later part of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad) bypassed Monson by six miles. The railroad was built with 30-pound rail in the summer of 1883, reached Monson on 4 September, and opened for business on 22 October.

Initial equipment consisted of two wood-burning locomotives from Hinkley Locomotive Works and two box cars, fourteen flat cars, and a combination from Laconia Car Company. The main line was promptly extended down a five percent grade to the Monson Slate Company approximately one mile beyond the Monson village depot. A car shed for the combination and a two-stall engine house were built near the depot with a passing siding and a turntable. The turntables were a bit small for the locomotives, although they proved useful when a wedge snowplow arrived a few years later. Monson train crews found it much more convenient to run the locomotive in reverse for six miles than to wrestle it around on the turntables.

Early Common Carrier Operations

Four daily round trips were scheduled to meet each of the standard-gauge trains.

The Monson train crew consisted of an engineer, a conductor, and a fireman who doubled as brakeman. The train crew shoveled snow by hand for the first winter, and then fabricated a butterfly pilot plow in 1884. Athens was dropped from the railroad name on 18 February 1885, and the Monson Railroad requested legislative authorization to extend the main line sixteen miles south from Monson Junction for connection with the standard-gauge Sebasticook and Moosehead Railroad (later the Maine Central Railroad Harmony branch.) Legislative approval was granted, but funding was never available for the extension envisioning conversion to standard gauge railroad all the way to Monson. The railroad acquired a wedge snowplow in 1888 to improve reliability of winter service. Both locomotives were converted to burn coal about 1900. A coal transfer shed was built at Monson Junction, and the woodshed at Monson was henceforth used for storage of coal. Portland Slate Company built a new mill on the Monson Main line in 1904, and six new flat cars were built by Laconia Car Company in 1905 to handle loadings from the new shipper. The additional traffic encouraged the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad to build a new freight transfer siding at Monson Junction in 1904.

Monson Slate Company Ownership

Monson Slate Company had been purchasing Monson Railroad stock for several years, and gained control of the railroad in 1908. Conductor Harold Morrill, who had started working for the railroad as fireman in 1884, was promoted to superintendent; but he continued to act as conductor through 1938. Track was extended with 2 miles of 35-pound rail to Eighteen Quarry and Forest Quarry on Monson Pond in the summer and autumn 1909. The Monson combination car carried 11,466 paying passengers in 1912, but superintendent Morrill observed that an automobile garaged in Monson was offering public conveyance and taking approximately 25 paying fares per week from the railroad. Both of the old Hinkley locomotives had serious boiler leaks, cracked cylinders, and/or broken frames since 1905; but they soldiered along until a new Vulcan locomotive arrived on 20 February 1913. Hinkley #2 never ran again, and #1 ran only on the rare occasions Vulcan #3 needed repairs. In 1916, the railroad purchased two used flat cars from Boyd Lumber Company, and built two new spurs on the main line for loading lumber and wood. The railroad also purchased a couple of hand car trailers which could carry broken slate scraps from the quarries for use as ballast along the line. Within a few years, the Monson railroad became the only railroad in Maine with completely rock-ballasted main line.

Arrival of the United States Railroad Administration in 1917 began a series of pointed reminders that Monson Railroad’s oil headlights and link-and-pin couplers no longer met federal safety standards. The railroad kept the link-and-pin couplers for another quarter century of operations; but the oil headlights were removed when damaged by derailments. The locomotives thereafter ran without any headlights. Monson briefly considered a Davenport Locomotive Works 2-6-2 (similar to those being built for United States Army trench railways) before purchasing another Vulcan in 1918. Hinkley locomotive #1 was retired when the second Vulcan locomotive was delivered. Elimination of need for a source of spare Hinkley parts encouraged the innovative shop crew to strip old Hinkley #2 of all exterior fittings and attach a snowplow blade. Although the new snowplow was less likely to ride up on snow drifts, it was more likely to derail; so the old wedge plow remained in service.

Map of Monson Railroad

1928 freight tariff (including transfer charges)

rough quarried slate at per carload

slate roofing at .50 per carload

other slate products at per carload

coal or polishing sand at .88 per carload

cement, hay, potatoes, or petroleum products at per carload

pulpwood at .26 to .60 per cord

birch at .20 per cord

lumber at .76 to per 1000 board feet

explosives at 25 cents per hundred pounds

LCL at ten cents per hundred pounds

Decline of Service

The Monson engine house burned on 3 November 1919. Vulcan locomotives 3 and 4 were damaged, and old Hinkley #1 was considered a total loss. A highway truck handled mail and express shipments for 10 days until engine number 4 was repaired. Engine number 3 returned to service on 20 November, and the engine house was rebuilt in June 1920. Under pressure from the Interstate Commerce Commission, Franklin firebox doors were installed on the locomotives, and an automobile headlight was connected to a six volt storage battery to serve as a headlight. Train service was reduced from four to two round trips per day effective 10 October 1921. The Monson Pond quarry extension was abandoned in 1922. The track crew was laid off in 1933, and the train crew became responsible for right-of-way maintenance and freight transfer at Monson Junction. Locomotive #3 was the only operable engine after 1936. Passengers, mail, and express were carried in a Slate Company highway truck when the locomotive required repairs. Passenger service was discontinued on 1 November 1938.

Monson became the last of Maine’s two-foot gauge railroads in commercial operation when the Bridgton and Saco River Railroad was dismantled in 1941. Infrequent flat car loads of crated slate products moved to Monson Junction until 12 July 1943. On that date Monson Slate Company received permission to use a highway truck for common carrier service. The railroad was dismantled during the winter of 1943-44 and the engine house became a garage for the truck.

Linwood Moody found Monson locomotives #3 and #4 in a Rochester, New York, used equipment yard in 1946. The two steam engines were shipped to the Edaville Railroad for restoration, and are still in operation at the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum in Portland, Maine.

Locomotives

Monson Railroad #3 on loan at Phillips in 2007

Monson Railroad #4 seen at the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum in 2006

Number

Builder

Type

Date

Works number

Notes

1

Hinkley Locomotive Works

0-4-4T

1883

1621

Named H.A.Whiting. Scrapped 1919

2

Hinkley Locomotive Works

0-4-4T

1884

1661

Named G.S.Cushing. Retired 1913, converted to a snowplow in 1918

3

Vulcan Iron Works

0-4-4T

1913

2093

Now based at the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum, currently on loan to the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad

4

Vulcan Iron Works

0-4-4T

1918

2780

Now running at the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum

Rolling Stock

Number

Builder

Type

Date

Length

Capacity

1

Laconia Car Company

combination

1883

29 feet

10 passengers

1-2

Laconia Car Company

box cars

1883

26 feet

8 tons

3-16

Laconia Car Company

flat cars

1883

25 feet

8 tons

17-22

Laconia Car Company

flat cars

1905

26 feet

11 tons

23-24

flat cars

1914

28 feet

11 tons

wedge snowplow

1888

24 feet

Notes

Combination car later renumbered #3

Flat cars #3-4 rebuilt into box cars about 1884.

Flat cars #5-8 rebuilt into box cars in 1891. Box car #7 had small windows on one end of the car and one side of the car for use as a work/tool car.

Flat car #9 rebuilt as a snow spreader in 1888.

Flat cars #23-24 purchased from Boyd Harvey Lumber Company in 1916.

^ a b Moody(1959)p.34

^ Moody(1959)p.33

^ Whitney(1989)p.5

^ Jones(1998)p.3

^ Moody(1959)p.37

^ Jones(1998)p.7

^ Whitney(1989)p.10

^ Barney(1986)p.30

^ Jones(1998)p.136

^ Jones(1998)p.20

^ Barney(1986)p.30

^ Jones(1998)p.20

^ Moody(1959)p.36

^ Jones(1998)p.21

^ Whitney(1989)p.10

^ Jones(1998)pp.24-25

^ Jones(1998)p.26

^ Jones(1998)p.29

^ Jones(1998)p.20

^ Jones(1998)pp.31-32

^ Jones(1998)p.35

^ Whitney(1989)p.11

^ Jones(1998)p.37

^ Jones(1998)p.38

^ Whitney(1989)p.11

^ Jones(1998)pp.31-40

^ Jones(1998)p.50

^ Jones(1998)p.37

^ Moody(1959)p.33

^ Jones(1998)p.50

^ Jones(1998)pp.50-53

^ Whitney(1989)pp.36-37

^ Jones(1998)pp.56-57

^ a b c d e f Whitney(1989)p.12

^ Jones(1998)p.69

^ Jones(1998)p.99

^ Jones(1998)p.79

^ Jones(1998)pp.87-88

^ Jones(1998)p.93

^ Jones(1998)p.105

^ Jones(1998)p.9

^ Whitney(1989)p.10

^ Whitney(1989)p.79

^ Barney(1986)p.30

References

Jones, Robert C. (1998). Two Feet to the Quarries: The Monson Railroad. Evergreen Press. ISBN 0-9667264-0-5. 

Barney, Peter S. (1986). The Kennebec Central and Monson Railroads. A&M Publishing. 

Moody, Linwood W. (1959). The Maine Two-Footers. Howell-North. 

Whitney, Roger A. (1989). The Monson Railroad. Robertson Books. 

External links

Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum

Categories: Defunct Maine railroads | Two foot gauge railways | Slate industry | Narrow gauge railroads in the United States

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Through Oregon’s Hood River Valley with the Mount Hood Railroad

September 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

When the sky’s impenetrable misty white and gray quilt, draping the silver Columbia River, had torn apart and revealed an illustrious blue, the daily excursion train from Hood River to Odell, operated by the Mount Hood Railroad, began to accept passengers from its historic depot.

                The Oregon and Washington Railroad and Navigation Company (OWR & NC) Craftsman-style railroad depot itself, constructed in 1911 and now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, had replaced the original 1882 Queen Anne-style building and facilitated growth of the town’s thriving fruit, timber, and tourism industries.  The 120-passenger waiting room, considerably larger than most concurrent public facilities, had featured a men’s smoking room and both ladies’ and men’s toilets.  Since 1987, it has served as the Mount Hood Railroad’s headquarters.

                Pulled by the dark red, yellow, and turquoise-painted diesel-electric engine #02, today’s train complement had included open-air car 1056 designated “Lookout Mountain,” snack car 1080, passenger coach 1070 “Katharine,” and caboose 1040.

                An initial jolt, signaling car coupling tension, preceded the almost imperceptible backward glide of the train from the Hood River station, as it inched up the shallowly-inclining track past the dining car rolling stock and over the black, wrought iron Hood River-spanning bridge.  The river, once the location of the Lewis and Clark expedition, appeared a dark green flow of life whose white-exploding rock divisions, characteristic of life’s own necessary path deviations and a person’s protests as a result of them, had been sun-glinted.

                Penetrating denser vegetation, the track paralleled the river whose small rapids metamorphosed the water into turbulent white fury.  The Mt. Hood National Forest formed the density in the distance.

                It is from this forest, in essence, that the Mount Hood Railroad had emanated.  The Lost Lake Lumber Company, whose Columbia and Hood River location had initially provided significant economic and employment contribution to the Hood River community, had begun to decline when log transfer from the forest to the actual sawmill had become increasingly difficult, and an ultimate sale of it seemed the only lucrative exit.  Utah lumberman David Eccles, who had purchased the failing concern, had remedially advocated the construction of a dam, which would have facilitated lumber transport by means of log flotation, but three local businessmen thwarted the effort by quickly obtaining a 99-year lease on the intended site and announced construction of their own 35-foot, power-generating facility.

                Eccles, who had equally used short-line logging railroads to transfer lumber to his other sawmills, circumvented the countermove by relocating the mill 16 miles up river and laying track to connect the two sites by rail.

                Construction of an east side route, which would channel the pending railroad through area fruit orchards, would ensure its viability as both a passenger and freight line, and the 150-strong workforce, living in six, strategically-positioned camps, drove the first stake in April of 1905.  Seven months later, in November, the first locomotive had traveled as far as the Hood River Bridge, and by February of the following year, the Japanese track-laying crew had extended the line as far as Odell, destination of today’s excursion train, 8.5 miles from its origin.  Dee, location of the new sawmill, had been reached one month later, although the eventual 22-mile stretch to Parkdale, gateway to Mt. Hood, had only been opened to the public in 1910.

                The present diesel-electric engine had been the ultimate in design technology to have plied these rails, the first two locomotives having been 37-year-old, Union Pacific-acquired Baldwin Consolidation 2-8-0 units which had been retired in 1916 and 1917, respectively, and had been intermittently replaced by two similarly second-hand powerplants until the first newly-acquired Baldwin 2-8-2 had arrived.

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                Reducing speed and still moving in a backward direction, the Mount Hood train operating the May 2008 run approached the dual-tracked switchback, which would ultimately allow it to pull its meager chain of cars in a forward direction.  One of only five remaining US switchbacks, it had originated as a turntable.  Because the initial steam engines had to trail their steam emissions behind them over their cab boxes and therefore always had to pull their cars in a forward direction, the turntable had facilitated this earlier technology until the 1950 diesel engine replacements had obviated its need.  The original, 13-car switchback had been expanded to encompass 18 cars with the Union Pacific’s 1968 acquisition of the railroad.

                Backing on to the single spur, and clearing the switchback “fork,” engine 02, now poised to commence its climb in a forward, car-pulling direction, reinitiated movement, penetrating the dense lodgepole pine of the Hood River Valley.

                Approaching Highway 35, the train followed the 14-degree-curved track, the line’s sharpest, traversing the wooden railroad trestle and paralleling Whiskey Creek, once the location of applejack production.  Moving in a southerly direction, it ate a considerably steep gradient.

                The concession car, featuring an arched ceiling with periodic light fixtures; old fashioned, wallpaper-adorned wooden sidewalls; brass lamps; and two- and four-seat wooden tables, sported a center snack bar and counter.  My purchased continental breakfast on the 10:00 a.m. run included hot cinnamon rolls dipped in vanilla frosting and cranberry juice.

                During the ten-year period between 1906 and 1916, the current tracks had supported intermodel service when conventional rail cars had been linked to a White-designed rail-bus whose original wheels and tires had been retrofitted with flanged steel units to accept the rails.  After the acquisition of a second, newly purchased sightseeing vehicle, the railroad had operated four daily round-trips between Hood River and Parkdale.  The succeeding, 30-passenger Mack jitney, with an upholstered, Pullman-resembling interior, had provided 13 years of service until its 1935 fire destruction at Summit Station.  Extensive refurbishment ultimately earned it a place on the National Historic Register.

                Threading its way through peach and cherry orchards, the present-day, four-car train moved past carpeted hills whose bases had been woven with brown and green tapestries proudly guarded on either of their sides by tall, dark green needle pine sentinels.

                Periodically piercing the late-morning with its metallic, hair-raising whistle, the vintage train lumbered through the town of Pine Grove, now 5.6 miles from Hood River at a 608-foot elevation, lurching and clanking on its longitudinal axis.  The sky, barely marred by a few cotton puffs, had transformed into an intense blue.

                The smooth, inverted, bowl-shaped Van Horn Butte, beyond Pine Grove, had been one of the small volcanic vents from which lava had flowed to form Mt. Hood, forcing the Columbia River to move to its present more northerly location in the Hood River Valley.  Mt. Hood itself, wearing its silky, glistening white shawl of snow, loomed in front of the locomotive.

Views from the cupola of the caboose, which trailed the three passenger cars, revealed their locomotive-mimicked, spring-loaded reactions, as if they had comprised a long, iron tail, penetrating the sometimes thick pine and orchard vegetation on the single track toward the snow-draped mountain silhouette.  The air, although crystal clear, exuded the aroma of distantly burning firewood.

New Creek, which had been used to power the Hood River Valley’s first sawmill and served in that capacity for a quarter of a century, passed under the track.

Mohr, 6.8 miles from Hood River, had been named after the family which had planted the area’s first orchard.

Pursuing the single track, which presently multiplied into three, the Mount Hood train crept into Lentz Station, which had originally been called “Sherman Spur,” and disconnected its diesel engine.  Moving past the now motionless cars on the side line, it reattached itself behind the caboose.  So configured, it would push the train the final mile to Odell, its destination.

Gently prodded forward, the dark green coaches almost imperceptibly inched over the silver rails horizontally supported by the dry, wooden crossbeams, passing the track switch and reintegrating themselves on the single spur.  Re-establishing speed, the train clanked past the wood-scented lumber yard in the crystal, pine-laced Pacific Northwest air toward the multiply-shaded green tapestry covering the mountains ahead and Odell, the end of today’s run and once almost the end of the line’s track.

When the Diamond Fruit Growers had centralized their operation in Odell, eliminating the Dee-to-Parkdale stretch of track, the Union Pacific Railroad had estimated that it could garner a 0,000 profit in exchange for its smelted steel, a decision consistent with its 1986-1987 strategy of divesting itself of 87 of its feeder line railroads.  But Hood River County saw the move as nothing short of a loss due to the railroad’s inability to continue to make its economic contribution.

A newly created rail company, the Mount Hood Railroad, had been touted as the Union Pacific’s successor and shares were purchased by the fruit and lumber companies lining its route, which had significant stakes in its continued operation.  Bus transfer from Parkdale, its terminus, had equally facilitated passenger travel to Timberline Lodge, a National Historic Landmark, thus enabling the railroad to link two of Oregon’s most major tourist attractions: Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge.

The Union Pacific acquisition, however, carried one stipulation with it: the local Hood River Group, eager to retain service at the end of the line from Dee to Parkdale, would either have to buy the entire 22-mile track from Hood River or forfeit the opportunity to retain the railroad’s economic contribution to the valley.

After significant effort, agreement, and capital, the purchase transaction had been consummated on November 2, 1947, and the Mount Hood Railroad, the very concern on which I rode today, had been born.

Rotating its wheels with ever-decreasing power, engine 02 nudged its short, historic passenger coach chain into Odell parallel to the concrete strip serving as its platform at 11:15 a.m., now 8.5 miles from its origin at a 712-foot elevation, and screeched its brakes only yards short of the main road-imbedded track.

Named after William S. Odell, who had settled here in 1861 after traveling from California, the current, single-street town, featuring a small supermarket, church, and gas station, had initially served as a gathering place for Native Americans and had later been used as a Hudson’s Bay Company trail between the Dalles and Ft. Vancouver.

Descending the three steps from coach 1070 to the street-level, I looked back at the short train of open and enclosed cars and cabooses which had transported me from the Columbia River today and somehow knew that the journey had represented its more than a century of geographical journeys and rail line evolutions.  The tracks, having been operated by the Oregon and Washington Railroad and Navigation Company, the Union Pacific Railroad, and the present Mount Hood Railroad, had transported lumber, freight, passengers, and tourists.  The line had been short, but its history had been long.  Like life, it would continue, as long as a purpose had been found for it.  Unlike life, it had been able to determine what that purpose had been.

Walking from the platform toward the tiny town of Odell, above whose surrounding pine tree tops the majestic, snow-covered peak of Mt. Hood triumphantly rose, I disappeared into the train-deposited crowd.

A graduate of Long Island University-C.W. Post Campus with a summa-cum-laude BA Degree in Comparative Languages and Journalism, I have subsequently earned the Continuing Community Education Teaching Certificate from the Nassau Association for Continuing Community Education (NACCE) at Molloy College, the Travel Career Development Certificate from the Institute of Certified Travel Agents (ICTA) at LIU, and the AAS Degree in Aerospace Technology at the State University of New York – College of Technology at Farmingdale. Having amassed almost three decades in the airline industry, I managed the New York-JFK and Washington-Dulles stations at Austrian Airlines, created the North American Station Training Program, served as an Aviation Advisor to Farmingdale State University of New York, and devised and taught the Airline Management Certificate Program at the Long Island Educational Opportunity Center. A freelance author, I have written some 70 books of the short story, novel, nonfiction, essay, poetry, article, log, curriculum, training manual, and textbook genre in English, German, and Spanish, having principally focused on aviation and travel, and I have been published in book, magazine, newsletter, and electronic Web site form. I am a writer for Cole Palen’s Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York. I have made some 350 lifetime trips by air, sea, rail, and road.

With upwards of 30 shortline operations between North & South Carolina, there is never any shortage of interesting sights to be had for those looking beyond the Class One happenings. Here, from June 2007, you will see personal faves Carolina Southern (CALA), Aberdeen Carolina & Western (ACWR), Lancaster & Chester (LC) & South Carolina Central (SCRF). Highlights include a heavy L&C grain train on Richburg Hill…and the legendary track conditions of the CALA.

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