Category Archives: Trains!

Pretty much every little kid loves trains. It seems to be a thread that runs true from a really early age until it’s just not cool to like “little kid” things anymore. That is, until you reach retirement age, when you’re allowed to once again allowed to pursue your interests with child-like abandon.

Southern Portal, near King Street Station, Seattle, WA

For those of us in between, liking trains is akin to playing Dungeons & Dragons or Civil War Reenacting. Society seems to think that such things are reserved for the socially-awkward geeks living in their parents’ basement, without lives or girlfriends. What I don’t really get is why this happens.

Trains are pretty awesome. Kids know it. Our elders know it. Why don’t most of us know it?

Take Carkeek Park, for example. It’s a great beach park just north of Seattle. A north/south rail line runs up along the coast, under a pedestrian overpass, as it hugs the coast of Puget Sound. When the train is coming north, you can see it from about a mile away. When it’s running south, you catch your first glimpse when it’s about four miles distant. This gives beach goers time to drop their pails and shovels, and scurry up the banks to the overpass.

On sunny weekend days, there can be as many as thirty people crowded onto the footbridge waiting for train to go by. All of these people are either kids or the kids’ parents. But last weekend, it was kids, the kids’ parents, and me. Others walked by, of course. Teenagers and adults into their forties paying little mind to the three-quarter of a mile long freight train rumbling beneath them.

A sunny Saturday at Carkeek Park, Seattle

The kids, though – they were jumping and screaming, “there’s a train coming! come watch the train!” When the engineer blew a short blast for a greeting, he was received with cheers and giggles from the kids. The parents were, of course, happy that their children were happy, but would they have been up there on the bridge if they didn’t have children? Probably not.

When these kids who were yelling and huzzahing for the train get older, they will, like most of us, lose that pure bliss that the passing train brought them. Why? We still find happiness in other things. It’s not like something clicks off when we reach fourteen or fifteen (or even younger) that no longer allows us to feel joy. But our love for trains casually diminishes until we find ourselves at a crossing, cursing a slow-moving line of boxcars that’s keeping us from whatever incredibly appointment we just can’t miss.

So what happens? And why didn’t it happen to me? I am notorious for my “old man” hobbies. I like trains, old highways, and the Civil War. Most of the adults who like these things are several decades older than me. I’m not saying that I think something is wrong with me. I know I’m not damaged. It’s the rest of the world. I’m fine, I still like trains.

I got a thing about trains...

It’s everyone else who is messed up here. It’s everyone else who secretly steals glances of a freight as it passes, hoping that the half-smile creeping over their mugs goes unnoticed. When these folks let loose a string of four letter words as the lights flash at the crossing, they’d never admit to pausing just a second to admire the 150 ton engine rolling mere feet from their front bumper.

What I’m saying is that maybe we never lose our love for trains. Maybe we just hide it. And if we all have it, and are all hiding it, why don’t we all just be honest with each other and come clean.

When studying history, you’re always learning new stuff. Often, you take learning new things for granted. It’s a rare event, however, when you find out that something you have always “known” is wrong.

Right now, I’m reading a book about the railroads in the late 1800s (Rival Rails by Walter R. Borneman). It, of course, touches upon what is probably the single most famous event in railroad history: The Driving of the Golden Spike.

The story goes likes this: A transcontinental railroad was being built so that you could ride across America to California all on the rails. “On May 10, 1869, officials of the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad met here to drive four symbolic spikes (two gold), celebrating the completion of the first transcontinental railroad.”

But that’s not quite true. On May 10, 1869, the officials of those fine railroads did indeed meet at Promontory Summit, Utah and four golden spikes were driven into the ties. But this railroad wasn’t exactly transcontinental.

There was a 1,500 foot gap over the Missouri River between Counsel Bluffs, Iowa and Ohama, Nebraska. The Union Pacific Railroad had to ferry freight and passengers across the river. There was also a similar gap between Sacramento and Oakland, California, but that would be spanned a few months later.

A bridge across the Missouri was built in Kansas City by the Hannibal & St. Joseph Railroad on June 30, 1869. The Union Pacific line crossed the river by ferry nearly 200 miles north of here.

The Union Pacific’s gap (and thus the Transcontinental Railroad’s gap) across the Missouri River would finally be spanned in January of 1870. This fix, however, was only temporary as the tracks were laid across the ice. When the ice broke up in March, they went back to ferrying. They repeated this the next two years as well.

What is known today as the Transcontinental Railroad was not actually transcontinental (by rail) until March 22nd, 1872 – nearly three years after the Golden Spike ceremony.

During those three years, a true transcontinental railroad was built.

On August 15, 1870, the Kansas Pacific completed their line from Denver to Kansas City (and onto the east thanks to the aforementioned bridge). Heading west from Denver, passengers would take the Denver Pacific to Cheyenne (Wyoming) where it would link up with the Union Pacific and head west to California. Thus, New York (via Chicago) to California all on rail – no boats.

The day before completion of the Kansas Pacific route, only 10.25 miles of track needed to be laid to connect the two lines. The superintendent of the Kansas Pacific Railroad had heard about the Central Pacific’s record for laying track as they sprinted towards Promontory Summit (10 miles and 56 feet of track laid in less than 12 hours). He was determined to beat this.

That morning, (according to the story, anyway) he placed a barrel of whiskey at the midway point and whichever track laying team reached it first got the whiskey. The two crews went to work. At 2:53pm, the rails met at Comanche Crossing. The record was beaten, coming in at 10.25 miles of track in 9 hours.

Yes, it was a roundabout route, but it was all by rail. So the first Transcontinental Railroad was not connected at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869, but in Comanche Crossing, Colorado Territory (later named Strausburg, Colorado) on August 15, 1870. And don’t you let anyone tell you different!

I visited Promontory Summit in 2008. You can see the photos here. Someday I’ll get to Comanche Crossing.

I used to be a little ashamed about my love for trains. These days, I guess I just don’t care. I don’t mind who knows that given half a chance, I’d stay overnight in a caboose.

This was, of course, not just some broken down caboose on some sidetrack, this was a refurbished caboose at Red Caboose Getaway Bed & Breakfast in Sequim, Washington – a town known more for its lavender than for its trains.

Needless to say, I took a ton of pictures and most of the story can be told there.

All you need to know is that I was fairly ecstatic to be spending the night in a caboose.

Here are the pics!