Today dawned a bit hazy, as we got underway to visit the O gauge layout of Eric Michaelson.  He has built a playroom out behind his home, and filled it with a layout that features numerous animated scenes.  There is an animated film set, complete with exploding gas station.  A man tries to buy a new car and starts kicking the tires.  The match company makes matches and loads the boxes on a flat car.  For all the rest, you’ll have to wait to see the segment.  One really neat item about this operation was the fact that he fitted both ends of the layout on motorized lifts that were modified garage door openers.  So you just press a button and the whole end section of the town rises up for access.  I don’t think I have ever seen that before.  There really is a lot of small detail and animation in this operation.  Eric likes to do these little scenes, and said that he actually likes making the animations more than having the trains run.  We finally got the interview completed right after lunch.  This is a departure from our normal manner of shooting this portion first.  The back yard neighbor just had to trim his bushes about the time we wanted to start this morning, and refused our requests to hold off for ten minutes.  As Eric said, we only had a day of the guy.  He has to live with him all the time.  Eric built the layout building by adding on to a children’s playhouse.  He did it so that it resembles some of the structures you would find at Disneyland or Knott’s Berry Farm.  We managed to finish in mid afternoon, and bid our farewells.  This was a nifty layout, and one that you have to see numerous times to find all the details.  There was always a new little vignette of people around a campfire, or someone swimming, or something.  One down and eight to go.  Tomorrow is a travel day.  Later.  We drove down to Hollywood and Rodeo Drive after dinner.  Traffic is just brutal.  Even at ten on a Tuesday night, it was heavy.  I think I read someplace that the average commute time in the LA area is something like an hour and eighteen minutes.  I don’t think you could pay me enough to live out here.  The price to pay for constant sunshine is just too high.  Plus it takes forever to get places.

I think that we should always build into our departures a “getting lost” factor.  (These are the days before our trusty GPS).  While this didn’t occur, we certainly thought that we were lost, as we headed out into the California countryside.  The Western Railway Museum turned out to be a nice operation outside Suisun (pronounced si-soon’) City.  The visitor’s center was only about four years old, and was designed to look like an updated version of an interurban terminal.  The museum has about 25 restored cars, with an emphasis on streetcars and interurbans that were from the area, and secondly that were involved in western railroading.  Our host, executive director Phil Kohlmetz, turned out to be a former Illinois native, who wound up as the head of the museum.  He did a nice job on camera, and we started to work the line.  There were plenty of run-bys, with a train going out each hour on a twenty mile run.  They had an assortment of wooden and metal cars, and a very nice restoration shop.  One thing about this line that that found so fascinating was the ferry system.  The line is part of the Sacramento Northern, which in its heyday, ran from Chico down to Oakland.  To cross Suisun Bay, the cars were driven onto a ferry, and then run across the bay.  It took about ten to fifteen minutes, and the passengers never had to leave the cars.  The service ran for about forty seven years.  There is nothing left of the operation now, but some old pilings.  It was one of only a handful of operations of this sort in the United States.  The ride runs through old California fields, and one interesting note was the Shiloh Church, seemingly in the middle of nothing.  The church was built by local farmers around the turn of the century, who wanted something closer to attend on Sundays.  Another interesting (and annoying) thing was that fact that we were serenaded all day by C5A’s doing touch and goes at nearby Travis Air Force Base.  Passenger traffic was light today, so we shall capture more people on the Saturday runs.  We concentrated on the cars and the scenery, as well as the flat artwork.  Late in the day, Phil had us stop at Veronica's, a small old-time corner bar in Birds Landing, which is out in the middle of nowhere and probably not even on the map. The place looked like time had bypassed it.  We had a quick libation, and headed back to the motel.  We’ll finish this one tomorrow.

We all had a very grim night last night.  None of us slept well.  This is not quite understandable, as the hotel was great, it was quiet, and we were all pretty tired.  I woke up at six, and thought I’d go for a walk to try to shake off the cobwebs, and promptly fell asleep until 8:30.  He headed back out to the Western Railway Museum to finish off the segment.  Today there would be more passenger traffic, and we could put the operation in the best frame possible.  We shot several more of the streetcars, as opposed to the interurbans, and got people entering the new visitor’s center and touring the shops.  The museum has a core of about 100 very active volunteers who spend their time working on the cars, both in restoration duties, and as motormen and conductors.  Plus there was a huge archive of material for traction in the area.  The museum has several cars not necessarily native to the area, such as a Melbourne car, and a Crandic Route car from the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City line.  That was a nice car, with a hint of an art deco look.  It would have been running, but it had a burned out motor.  I got to peak into deep storage, where the museum has the first Western Pacific freight and passenger steam engines.  They will e restored as static displays in the new car barn, along with period rolling stock.  The museum has chosen to stick specifically with traction, and has thus carved a nice little niche for itself even though it is so close to the California State Railroad Museum.  Phil and his staff were great to work with, and we generally had an easy time, once we decided just where to focus the segment.  If you are ever in the Bay area, this museum is worth a look.  It is pretty impressive. 

Another cool, grey day greeted us at the Niles Canyon Railway shops.  And as predicted, the fog burned off by 11, and the rest of the day was sunny.  We did the interview with Jack Starr, President of the Pacific Locomotive Association, in front of their refurbished Baldwin.  John and Gail sprayed the yard, and we headed on down the line to get some of the pickup shots that we missed yesterday.  We took out the center cab loco and the caboose. I really want to buy and restore a caboose.  I just love those things.  All I need is a piece of property large enough to install it.  We did things like the old square telegraph poles, which are remnants of the original telegraph line for the transcontinental railroad.  We finally located the ranch foundation of a bandito that used to operate in the area.  The bridges have the original construction date burned into the steel – in the case of the picture, 1906.  It is interesting to note that while the hills all are a golden brown and look so soft and velvety, they really have grasses that cling and stick in your clothes and socks.  We finished with the railroad and headed over to the Museum on Main Street in nearby Pleasanton.  We shot more interview, and some old photos.  Everybody at the Niles Canyon Railway was very helpful, and we couldn’t have gotten the job done without all their support.  So if any of you are reading this, Thank You.  Then it was head out ahead of the rush to get up to Sacramento.  Traffic was heavy, and what should have been an hour’s drive turned into two hours.  But here we are, in Sacramento.  Gail and I went to the Virgin Sturgeon for dinner.  The restaurant is a bit of a Sacramento institution, as it used to be a hangout for Jerry Brown.  Built on a raft in the American River, it is serviced from shore by a discarded aircraft jet way.  John stayed home and did laundry.  We got back and I also did some as well, and discovered, to my dismay, that I lost a pair of zip off pants.  I have the legs, but not the rest.  Damn!  Tomorrow we start segment number five.

We loaded our gear and drove off into a gorgeous morning.  It was in the low 70’s, with bright blue skies, and fragrant flowers.  Our shoot today is with Shirley Burman, who is the wife of Richard Steinheimer, the famous railroad photographer.  Richard’s health has been failing, and so he was unavailable for the interview.  But Shirley is a photographer in her own right, and is working on chronicling the story of women in railroading.  The only odd thing about the shoot was that all – and I mean all – of her images are on the computer.  Or at least are in albums in such a way that they lent themselves to scanning.  She had a new G5 with a fairly high resolution scanner, and so much of the day was spent either locating images, or scanning things into the machine.  We have about 4 gig worth of visuals to go with the segments, and I hope it is enough.  On the tape side, we shot barely a third of a tape.  So it should be a real joy for both the producer, and for the editors.  Well, this is the digital ages, so some accommodations have to be made.  We ended our day in Grass Valley, high in the foothills of the Sierras.  Property values are still high by Midwestern standards.  We went over to nearby Nevada City for dinner.  The town is cute, and definitely geared for the tourist trade.  Now the usual – TV, a book, and bed.  Five down and four to go.

Today was a driving day.  We had to run from Grass Valley, California, to Baker City, Oregon, which according to MapQuest, should take us about ten hours.  And that is about what it took.  We were helped by the fact that the Western states generally see the light on speed limits, and even on the two lanes roads, the speed limit was 70.  This meant that we could run at 80 with relative safety.  There were people going a lot faster, though.  I commented that the hardest thing for me when I get back to Wisconsin is to drive slowly again.  The scenery was grand.  We started high in the Sierra Mountains, and headed to Truckee, then down to Winnemucca, and up US95 to near Boise and Baker City.  Along the way we were treated to grand vistas, with sun, spotty distant rain, cloudbursts, and just endless land.  It’s a trip I’d highly recommend.  So here we are at a restored majestic hotel in Baker City.  It’s a nicely refurbished Grande Dame, with chandeliers, and wainscoting.  The dining room has a colored glass mosaic over it.  The only hassle for the next couple of days is that there is supposed to be a bike race.  I’ll write more as it develops.  But for now, I plan to finish my book and turn in.  Of interest, is the Antlers Hotel.  It is billed as “Absolutely Modern.”  Now closed and boarded up, it apparently has a huge poltergeist problem.

The rain from last night passed, and we were greeted with blue skies and bright sun.  The Sumpter Valley Railway is about thirty miles south of Baker City, through Boulder Canyon and on a high alpine meadow.  It is a remnant of the Sumpter Valley Line that ran – at its height – from Prairie City to Baker City, hauling first lumber and then gold and pretty much anything else that could be hauled in the area.  The line ceased operation on 1947.  In 1971, a group of volunteers decided to resurrect the line, in an effort at historical preservation.  They located two of the Mikado’s that originally ran on the line.  These were up on the White Pass and Yukon.  The White Pass donated the locos, which were in sad mechanical shape, though with decent boilers, but the locos had to be gone by a certain time.  That accomplished, the volunteers set about literally rebuilding the railroad.  They started at McEwan Station, and commenced laying narrow gauge track.  The line has now expanded to a five mile run to Sumpter, modern shops and out buildings, and the addition of the largest wood fired narrow gauge Heisler geared loco still in operating condition.  The Heisler was the mainstay of the operation, while the Mikado was restored.  That restoration was completed in 1994, and it is now the jewel of the railroad, hauling about ten thousand passengers each year on summer weekends.  Plans are in place for expansion in both directions for double track with end loops, to make a dogbone run, and the railroad expects to have this completed within three years or so.  The head depot agent, Taylor Rush, did a very nice standup.  It turns out he is only 19, and has been a volunteer since he was 12.  The railroad has a policy f letting younger people in, and getting them into great activities early on.  In this way, they have managed to capture and hold onto the younger people who can do so much for an organization.  So the plum jobs don’t necessarily go to the seniors.  They go to the best people, regardless of age.  One of the really cool things was that all of us got some stick time.  I have run diesels before, but never a steam loco.  Now I can say I’ve run both.  It was very neat.  Very.  It was a long day, and we are again back at the hotel.  Tomorrow should be runbys and people.  The volunteers went out of their way to help us out.  It’s a nice operation, and definitely should be added to your travel plans if you want to see steam in action in Eastern Oregon.  Oh.  But bring mosquito repellent.  The dredge ponds are a perfect breeding grounds, and the little critters are nasty!

Saturday found us once again at the Sumpter Valley Railroad.  These people really get a lot of credit, as they have built a very nice operation from literally nothing.  It would be fun to be a part of such an endeavor.  We rode the rain, and got shots of people, on the crowded first train, and then stayed in Sumpter for the duration of the passenger stay.  While there, we looked in on the gold dredge that had torn up the valley.  It is really terrible what this monstrosity did to the valley, all in the name if gold.  It was a digging machine and sluice box, all in one, and worked its way across the valley floor, pulling out gold, and leaving piles of gravel in its wake.  Those piles are still evident today, almost a century later.  I’m not a tree hugger, but this thing was pretty bad in my mind.  It was on the order of the pressure mining that sliced through the landscape.  But we did a number of runbys, and then said our goodbyes to a great group at the Sumpter Valley Railway.  We then faced a five hour drive to Portland.  It turned out to be a lot easier than I thought, and we just drilled along I84, arriving about 8 PM.  The views along the Columbia River Gorge, and as you come across Deadman’s Pass are just breathtaking.  So here we are in the heart of Portland, start segment number eight on this trip.

We are all very tired.  I was just freezing this morning.  Perhaps I am coming down with a cold.  I definitely need some uninterrupted rest.  We located that Washington Park Zoo with no trouble, and were greeted by our contact, Carissa Raleigh.  She showed us around and introduced us to the train crews, including Jeff Honeyman, who will be our on camera spokesman.  We decided not to shoot him until tomorrow, and instead concentrated on the packed train rides, and number of people in the place.  It was a beautiful day, and people turned out in droves.  In fact, as I write this, I just want to be alone with some quiet.  It really was rather nerve wracking.  But about the trains.  The Zoo has three train sets – The Zoolander, which is a 30 inch gauge duplicate of the GM AeroTrain, a very nice steamer, and a boxy diesel, The Oregonian.  The steamer and the Zoolander were custom built for the zoo, back in the 1950s.  The reason for the AeroTrain look was that a survey was taken of school kids, and they had all just seen the General Motors foray into the world of lightweight railroading.  The windscreen, was in fact, from a Buick.  The story of the railroad is rather interesting, as it sort of became the tail that wagged the dog.  In the 1950s, the city wanted a new zoo.  And at that time, zoos were more of an amusement attraction than an animal preservation organization.  The directors of the zoo were railroad buffs, and decided to include a 30 inch gauge railroad within the area of Washington Park.  The first line was the “Zoo Loop” but this was expanded to run into the woods to connect the Rose Garden.  Bids were let for equipment, and the Zooliner was the first train on the twisty, curvy line through the woods, followed soon by The Steamer.  Both locos were constructed for around $19,000 each, a bargain even then.  The Board invited all the important people of the time to be on the BOD.  So there are letters of acceptance from the likes of Harry Truman, Walt Disney, J. Edgar Hoover, and many other notables.  It was fun thing, with “stock” shares sold a $1 which allowed two rides at the Oregon Centennial.  Fifty thousand “shares” were sold.  Speaking of the Rose Garden, it was jammed.  With the weather being so nice, there were a lot of people.  Carissa said that people get sucked into this kind of weather, move out to Portland, and then realize that just like Seattle, it rains most of the year.  We did runbys until late in the afternoon, and then headed back to the hotel.  We had dinner at the Portland Grill, which was on the 30^th floor of the US BanCorp Building.  The views were spectacular.  And the food was good was well.  We are all tired, and going to bed.  On another note, I turned on the TV this morning and found the news anchor to be a guy we used to work with.  Maybe we can hook up.

We started the day early today, so that we could get a little less light on the Rose Garden.  The place is really beautiful, with many different varieties laid out in a large, pleasant garden that overlooks the city and both Mt. Hood and St. Helens.  We tried to get into the Japanese Tea Garden, but the cultural group that ran it was unwilling to give us a half hour to shoot some general material without a lot of prior notification, so we shot a little bit from a public area, and will write them out of the script.  Their loss for a great deal of free, perpetual publicity.  Then it was back to the museum for Jeff Honeyman’s standup.  He did well, gave complete, cogent answers, and we completed the A roll.  Then it was to try to find animals that were awake.  And there were a lot of them.  Except for the grizzly, who was doing what I like to do in the sun – take a nap.  But the polar bears were active a playing, and the wolves were very friendly to one of the zoo keepers, who got them to howl for us.  We shot the RPO portion back at the station.  In a portion of the segment, a little girl was supposed to mail a card by putting it into the mail slot on the Zooliner.  Gail had a card to mail but it turned out the thing was too wide to go into the slot.  Who would have thought?  The Zoo train crew set us up on the tail end of the Oregon Express, and ran the Steamer behind us.  It was a little hairy, as we had to be careful to stay out of the way of the steamer coasting on the downgrades, the work to stay ahead of it on the upgrades.  The steamer has a great bark.  It sounded really great.  We managed to get everything together, and said our goodbyes to the Zoo employees.  Their help and hospitality was much appreciated.   We then hustled around looking for some open high shots of the town, and ended up on the mountain with some high priced homes.  The houses are great, and sometimes go down four stories in the back.  Very impressive.  But I wonder how long one has to live here before you aren’t lost?  Everything twists and turns and is so hidden that I got disoriented very quickly.  Perhaps a navigation device is a necessity.  So this segment is complete.  Tomorrow we run up to Tacoma for the final segment of this road trip.

Today was a travel day.  We did a late start, and headed up the road to Seattle, for our next and final subject of this trip, the Puget Sound Model Railroad Club.  I really didn’t have any directions, but had talked to my brother, is acquainted with the Director of the Washington State Historical Society.  The MapQuest directions put me in Olympia, which I though to be strange, as the club is in Tacoma.  But we dutifully stopped, to find that we were at the wrong museum.  The correct one was indeed, in Tacoma.  So we ran another thirty miles up the road, and found the place.  It is right across the street from the Chuhuly Glass works.  We scoped it out, and pre-surveyed for tomorrows shoot.  The club has recreated the Seattle Tacoma area of the 1950s, right up through Stampede Pass.  It is a double decked operation, with a third, lower deck for staging yards.  So we surveyed, talked to security, and generally hope to look like we know what we are doing tomorrow.  Then we again followed our MapQuest directions to the hotel in Renton.  Except that the directions dumped us in north downtown Seattle, near the Seattle Center and the EMP.  If you know the area, this is a long way from Renton.  So thank goodness for cell phones.  We called the hotel and got talked in to the place, which is down close to Burien at the south split of I-5 and I-405.  We will do an early start tomorrow, to get the interview completed prior to the opening of the museum.  My mother and brother drove over to have dinner with me, and then it is off to watch the latest installment of Nip/Tuck, and head for bed.

We were up early and headed down to Tacoma, to the Puget Sound Model Railroad Club.  Located right next to the old Union Station, this is a display within the Washington State History Museum.  The club has between forty to fifty members, and they have modeled the run between the Asarco Smelter in Tacoma and Stampede Pass.  They run as a real railroad, with fast time clock, printed schedules, and a dispatching system.  There are many interesting vignettes on the display.  The group has made extensive use of fake fur for ground cover, and has modeled many buildings with the interior cut away and backed by a plexiglass shield on the layout perimeter.  They have also used DCC extensively, and have cut the massive amount of wire found in a layout, down to some very simple circuitry.  Turnouts, as well as engines, are DCC controlled and addressable.  All the power comes from the track, and virtually nothing else.  The museum buys some of the engines and rolling stock, but the members have to donate a certain amount to the club.  The time period is the 1950’s, and there are four railroads operating here – the Northern Pacific, the Great Northern, the Union Pacific, and the Milwaukee Road.  So you get to see all the great Northwest trains – the Main Streeter, the North Coast Limited, and the Columbia Express.  In addition to being an operating layout, there is also an automatic blocking and control system.  Museum visitors can get four trains running on the layout, all at the push of a button.  We finished the layout detail, and ended up having a longer day than we thought we would.  The audio is going to be a problem, as there  is so much ambient noise from the museum exhibits that it is impossible to really get good sound.  So we are going back tomorrow for sound, and a few short items.  Meanwhile, it is the usual, dinner, bed, movie, book.

The day dawned grey today.  We ran back down to Tacoma, and the final bits of the Puget Sound Model Railroad Club.  The club members all were waiting for us, and we immediately finished the two standup interviews.  The first was with Joe Lecher, the electrical engineer responsible for cutting down the bulk of the layout.  He developed an addressable control that attaches to the switch machines, and allows command control of the units, along with the trains themselves.  This alone cut most of the wiring, as all that had to be run was power.  The second sound bite was with David Nicandri, the Director of the Washington State Historical Society.  He indicated that the layout always ranks in the top five reasons that people come to the museum.  We then did some clean audio, and a dispatch session, that looked to be a lot of fun.  We finished what we needed by mid day, and headed back up to Seattle.  The freeway was once again jammed.  Every time I come out this way I’m struck by the growth of the region, and how the freeway has been unable to keep up with the increased load.  No increase in the number of diamond lanes is ever going to alleviate the traffic.  We packed a few boxes to ship home, and headed back to the motel.  We are anxious to get home.  This has been a long trip.

The Seattle airport was the usual madhouse at 7 AM.  This was not helped by the holiday crowds, and the security lines were lengthy.  Of course, in the “get a clue” department, there was the young man who had multiple piercings, and a locked chain around his neck, that his girl friend had given him a token of affection.  And then she kept the key.  He was really getting a close look by the security screeners.  My seat assignments on United were the tightest I have ever seen.  Everyone in my row was complaining, but the flight attendants could do nothing.  I however, road warrior that I am, was prepared with my handy Knee Defenders.  These are little plastic blocks that slip on the arms of your tray table and prevent the person in front of you from reclining their seat.  I felt their use was called for.  And sure enough.  While the woman next to me had a face full of seat from the person in front of her, I at least had the maximum amount of the minimum space allocated.  And these things are FAA approved.  As usual, out of SeaTac, we were late.  Which made for a tight connection in O’Hare.  In all the times I’ve flown out of the Seattle, I’ve had one on time flight.  But we are home, and resting.  We leave again in a week.

          

Past Underwriters