Some of you may have been aware that the SPng Historical Society held its annual meeting (Dennis will say… “not an annual meeting, a conference”) last weekend… A few of you may even have attended… If you didn’t you missed a wonderful time… if you have never attended a railroad history symposium you might not understand what you missed…
Andrew and I traveled together… We were the Official Pacificng Delegation… Andrew spent the night in the new Casa de Hees guest room (the first to do so)… Team Pacificng left San Mateo a bit before 8:00 am…
We traveled east… across the bay… across Altamont Pass… across the Central Valley… crossing Tioga Pass (there is little or no snow in the Sierra not Nevada mountains… this is a drought year… )… stopping in June Lake to inspect the restored Bodie & Benton flatcar… the flat car is well restored… the trucks stand-in’s… but in general a very good effort…
We arrived in Ione Pine about 3:00… had pizza and a pitcher of beer… The gathering started Thursday afternoon over pizza… people dropped by… some ate… some sat and talked… everyone checked in and picked up their badges and the information packet with schedule… We don’t need no stinking badges but we had them if it turned out we needed them… we saw and spoke to friends… then made our way to the Quality Inn at the south end of town to check in and make plans…
Later that evening our group gathered at the Lone Pine Film Museum for programs on the history and preservation of SP 18 in Independence CA… (personal observation… this is a good project… they are spending more on preservation and a permanent home than on the restoration to operation… a really good sign… donations to help them are well spent…)
The Lone Pine Film Museum is surprising… lots of good displays… some on old westerns, some on newer westerns, some on science fiction… one display on Tremors… complete with giant deadly earthworm monster…
Back to the motel… sitting about in the room, looking at photos… there might have been beer… there may have been visitors… there was conversation…
The next day (aka Friday) we get up… see people we know at breakfast at the motel… head out to the film museum parking lot to gather… then off to the north to explore right of ways and mines…
We start a cut associated with the Tinemaha reservoir bypass… then up to Zurich and south following the right of way to Beneme… where the bypass began, site of a wye, the tail of which served a mine… We backtracked to Zurich where we ate lunch before heading south… to Mock…site of a marble and aggregates mine… There the formal program ended… instead of immediately heading back, we visited Keeler to search for the turntable site and generally explore… then back to Lone Pine for a shower and dinner (at The Grill, where we shared a table with the infamous artist and railroader, John Coker… ) then programs at the film museum (movies made near here and Cerro Gordo…) We might have shared a beer afterwards at Jakes… (Jakes is the local Clamper bar… the owner might be a volunteer with the locomotive 18 project… support your local railroader…) Coker might have been there… Then time for bed…
The next morning… up again… (this is not a bad idea… not getting up is not a good option) then gathering at the film museum parking lot…. This time headed for the mining/ghost town of Cerro Gordo… up 8 or so miles of dirt road off the paved road… with a gain of 5,000 feet… Here we are honored guests… with full access… this is the thing you find at such a meeting… our group gets access to places you otherwise don’t… There are stories… don’t ask about baby miners… we might propagate a lie… then back down the mountain… first gear territory… back to town and the motel… then to dinner… this time at the Merry Go Round… a Chinese resterant without Chinese waiters and with some of the best Chinese food I have found… I had hot and sour soup… Andrew had cheese won-tons and a stir-fry… you need to eat here if in the vicinity… really…
Then back to the film museum where there was an annual meeting and my talk (snore) on valuation survey maps, followed by a presentation on the Jaw bone line by Phil Serpic on the Jaw Bone… Afterwards Andrew attended the board meeting and as his driver I got to attend too… then back to Jakes for a drink… this time with Brian Norden… then to bed…
The next day… the gathering started at Lone Pine Station on the Jaw Bone… there was a C&C hand car shed and a long stock car nearby…
Afterward the group headed to the site of Black Rock as in “Bad Day at Black Rock”… afterward folks dispersed… Andrew and I drove a sandy dirt road to Owenyo… where we found others who had driven the paved road… and one of our number who found the transfer trestle pit with his van and was thoroughly stuck… we pulled his van out… exploring along the way…
Then, done with the meeting we found a burger in Lone Pine and headed north… we tried to visit Laws, but found it closed, the entrance chained and a sign saying “closed on mother’s day”
We had never heard of a museum closed on Mother’s Day…. So we loaded our measuring tapes, cameras, and tripods and implements of destruction back in the Jeep, and drove off in search of other railroad artifacts…. There was a rumor of a box car body in northwest Bishop… Andrew had spotted it on Google Earth, but had not brought the details along… we made a half hearted search then headed north up 395… to Lee Vining then East over the Sierras and home…
Now home… I find myself with more research projects… I want to know about the SPng line relocation around the Tinamaha Reservoir… and the wye at Beneme and the mine at the end of the spur made by the tail of that wye… We have still not found the Keeler turntable… since home another map showing Keeler without turntable, this dated 1906 has shown up… but the invoice for repairs by the V&T shops still haunts us… and photos of the Owenyo turntable show no ring rail as would be typical of a C&C turntable but not a SP turntable…
So, the conference was a success… because of the tours and explorations, because of the presentations and information shared, and particularly because of the friendships…
Randy