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\u2026 A few of you may even have attended\u2026 If you didn\u2019t you missed a wonderful time\u2026 if you have never attended a railroad history symposium you might not understand what you missed\u2026<\/p>\n
Andrew and I traveled together\u2026 We were the Official Pacificng Delegation\u2026 Andrew spent the night in the new Casa de Hees guest room (the first to do so)\u2026 Team Pacificng left San Mateo a bit before 8:00 am\u2026<\/p>\n
We traveled east\u2026 across the bay\u2026 across Altamont Pass\u2026 across the Central Valley\u2026 crossing Tioga Pass (there is little or no snow in the Sierra not Nevada mountains\u2026 this is a drought year\u2026 )\u2026 stopping in June Lake to inspect the restored Bodie & Benton flatcar\u2026 the flat car is well restored\u2026 the trucks stand-in\u2019s\u2026 but in general a very good effort\u2026<\/p>\n
We arrived in Ione Pine about 3:00\u2026 had pizza and a pitcher of beer\u2026 The gathering started Thursday afternoon over pizza\u2026 people dropped by\u2026 some ate\u2026 some sat and talked\u2026 everyone checked in and picked up their badges and the information packet with schedule\u2026 We don\u2019t need no stinking badges but we had them if it turned out we needed them\u2026 we saw and spoke to friends\u2026 then made our way to the Quality Inn at the south end of town to check in and make plans\u2026<\/p>\n
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\u2026 (personal observation\u2026 this is a good project\u2026 they are spending more on preservation and a permanent home than on the restoration to operation\u2026 a really good sign\u2026 donations to help them are well spent\u2026)<\/p>\n
The Lone Pine Film Museum is surprising\u2026 lots of good displays\u2026 some on old westerns, some on newer westerns, some on science fiction\u2026 one display on Tremors\u2026 complete with giant deadly earthworm monster\u2026<\/p>\n
Back to the motel\u2026 sitting about in the room, looking at photos\u2026 there might have been beer\u2026 there may have been visitors\u2026 there was conversation\u2026<\/p>\n
The next day (aka Friday) we get up\u2026 see people we know at breakfast at the motel\u2026 head out to the film museum parking lot to gather\u2026 then off to the north to explore right of ways and mines\u2026<\/p>\n
We start a cut associated with the Tinemaha reservoir bypass\u2026 then up to Zurich and south following the right of way to Beneme\u2026 where the bypass began, site of a wye, the tail of which served a mine\u2026 We backtracked to Zurich where we ate lunch before heading south\u2026 to Mock\u2026site of a marble and aggregates mine\u2026 There the formal program ended\u2026 instead of immediately heading back, we visited Keeler to search for the turntable site and generally explore\u2026 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\u2026 ) then programs at the film museum (movies made near here and Cerro Gordo\u2026) We might have shared a beer afterwards at Jakes\u2026 (Jakes is the local Clamper bar\u2026 the owner might be a volunteer with the locomotive 18 project\u2026 support your local railroader\u2026) Coker might have been there\u2026 Then time for bed\u2026<\/p>\n
The next morning\u2026 up again\u2026 (this is not a bad idea\u2026 not getting up is not a good option) then gathering at the film museum parking lot\u2026. This time headed for the mining\/ghost town of Cerro Gordo\u2026 up 8 or so miles of dirt road off the paved road\u2026 with a gain of 5,000 feet\u2026 Here we are honored guests\u2026 with full access\u2026 this is the thing you find at such a meeting\u2026 our group gets access to places you otherwise don\u2019t\u2026 There are stories\u2026 don\u2019t ask about baby miners\u2026 we might propagate a lie\u2026 then back down the mountain\u2026 first gear territory\u2026 back to town and the motel\u2026 then to dinner\u2026 this time at the Merry Go Round\u2026 a Chinese resterant without Chinese waiters and with some of the best Chinese food I have found\u2026 I had hot and sour soup\u2026 Andrew had cheese won-tons and a stir-fry\u2026 you need to eat here if in the vicinity\u2026 really\u2026<\/p>\n
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\u2026\u00a0\u00a0 Afterwards Andrew attended the board meeting and as his driver I got to attend too\u2026 then back to Jakes for a drink\u2026 this time with Brian Norden\u2026 then to bed\u2026<\/p>\n
The next day\u2026 the gathering started at Lone Pine Station on the Jaw Bone\u2026 there was a C&C hand car shed and a long stock car nearby\u2026<\/p>\n
Afterward the group headed to the site of Black Rock as in \u201cBad Day at Black Rock\u201d\u2026 afterward folks dispersed\u2026 Andrew and I drove a sandy dirt road to Owenyo\u2026 where we found others who had driven the paved road\u2026 and one of our number who found the transfer trestle pit with his van and was thoroughly stuck\u2026 we pulled his van out\u2026 exploring along the way\u2026<\/p>\n
Then, done with the meeting we found a burger in Lone Pine and headed north\u2026 we tried to visit Laws, but found it closed, the entrance chained and a sign saying \u201cclosed on mother\u2019s day\u201d<\/p>\n
We had never heard of a museum closed on Mother\u2019s Day\u2026. 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\u2026. There was a rumor of a box car body in northwest Bishop\u2026 Andrew had spotted it on Google Earth, but had not brought the details along\u2026 we made a half hearted search then headed north up 395\u2026 to Lee Vining then East over the Sierras and home\u2026<\/p>\n
Now home\u2026 I find myself with more research projects\u2026 I want to know about the SPng line relocation around the Tinamaha Reservoir\u2026 and the wye at Beneme and the mine at the end of the spur made by the tail of that wye\u2026\u00a0\u00a0 We have still not found the Keeler turntable\u2026 since home another map showing Keeler without turntable, this dated 1906 has shown up\u2026 but the invoice for repairs by the V&T shops still haunts us\u2026 and photos of the Owenyo turntable show no ring rail as would be typical of a C&C turntable but not a SP turntable\u2026<\/p>\n
So, the conference was a success\u2026 because of the tours and explorations, because of the presentations and information shared, and particularly because of the friendships\u2026<\/p>\n
Randy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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\u2026 A few of you may even have attended\u2026 If you didn\u2019t you missed a wonderful time\u2026 if you have never attended a railroad history symposium you might not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49,"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions\/49"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.pacificng.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}