Elizabeth and I had talked about going to Summerail 2022, an event that neither of us had ever been to before. We found out that it was to occur on August 13th this year. Elizabeth looked at the Age of Steam Museum's website and realized that their monthly Ferroequinologist tour was held the third Saturday of the month, which was just a week after Summerail. We booked a ticket for that and then the planning started. The Ohio Railroad Museum was open the day after Summerail and a ticket on the Lebanon, Mason and Monoroe was running a steam train using Jeddo Coal 85 as their guest steam engine, so we decided to visit and ride. The Huntington Railroad Museum in West Virginia was planned for the next day, followed by the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum and the two incline railways in Pittsburgh. August 16th we would ride the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad before riding the RTA Cleveland Light Rail and Heavy Rail. I wanted to go to the site of Berea Tower and Elizabeth booked us the Goodtime Harbour Tour.
August 19th would see us visit two places that I had been to before, the Warthers Carving Museum and the Dennison Railroad Depot Museum. The following day would be the Ferroequinologist Tour before we drove to Terre Haute, Indiana. After a few depots, we would visit the Monticello Railroad Museum and ride behind recently-restored Southern Railway 401. The next two nights would be at the Depot Inn and Suites in La Plata, Missouri then more stations and completing Iowa's covered bridges before a stay in Council Bluffs on August 23rd. After taking pictures of depots we would follow the BNSF line to Alliance for the night. More new Wyoming depots would take care of that day before travelling to Pocatello, Idaho on August 26th and the rest of the stations in Utah. August 27th's highlight will be a tour of the Rio Tinto Bingham Copper Mine before following the Union Pacific to Milford and staying in Mesquite, Nevada before driving home on August 28th.
The trip startsAfter a good breakfast and our Internet duties, we departed the apartment and drove to Ralph's gasoline station where we filled up the car. Elizabeth then drove us north on CA Highway 57 to east CA Highway 91 to Interstate 215 and Interstate 15 over Cajon Pass to Barstow, where we ran out onto the desert and I started the picture-taking.
BNSF 7941 East with the Pisgah Crater in this picture. Pisgah Crater or Pisgah Volcano is a volcanic cinder cone in the Mojave Desert between Barstow and Needles, California. Pisgah Crater is in the Craters category for San Bernardino County. The volcanic peak is about 2.5 miles and had a historic elevation of 2,638 feet. Although mining activities have reduced the peak lit bit, but had a severe environmental impact. But many geologists believe that Pisgah Volcano is the youngest vent of four cinder cones, and may have been active more than 2,000 years ago. Though many others believe the last eruption could occur around 30,000 to 50,000 years ago. The volcano is basaltic, a reliable commonly used potassium-argon for dating purposes would be difficult anyway. A similar nearby Amboy Crater is interbedded with Bristol Playa sediments that are somewhere 100,000 years old.
Unknown BNSF train east of Ludlow.
BNSDF 6948 West at Ash Hill before we lost the tracks. Elizabeth drove to US 95 exit where I started my driving, taking us east to Kingman where we filled up on petrol and went to Jersey Mike's for our linner. I then drove through some major rainstorms as we crossed the Arizona Divide and Elizabeth then took over as we continued eastbound through Williams and Flagstaff and out onto the desert.
Two eastbound and one westbound BNSF trains before we arrived at Winslow on a rainy evening. We watched one of the Perry Mason movies from the 1980's and 1990's that MeTV shows on a Sunday evening before calling it a night.
7/8/2022
We arose and did our Internet duties before Elizabeth drove us to Denny's for breakfast before she started driving us to Belen.
Interesting cloud formation.
BNSF 7046 west of Rio Peurco.
Belen Santa Fe station built in 1909.
Belen Harvey House built in 1909. We went to the next railroad display in town.
Santa Fe Gas-Electric motor car 190 built by American Car and Foundry in 1910. Santa Fe wanted a car that could pull a train of five standard (heavyweight) cars at main line speeds on the Kansas City to La Junta part of the railroad. M.190 was not intended to be a branchline puddlejumper, but more of an early version of a light duty, internal-combustion mainline passenger locomotive, an evolutionary step on the way to the Burlington's Pioneer Zephyr, Union Pacific's M.10000, and eventually the E-units.
To carry the weight of the engine, steam generator, water and fuel, EMC and Pullman settled on the 90 foot articulated carbody design, which put a second truck with an extra pair of traction motors up front where the weight was. Santa Fe reportedly didn't like idea of the articulated design nor one of its side effects - the need to truck-mount instead of body-mount the brake cylinders. Truck-mounted brake cylinders were unusual for the time, but are standard practice today.
The car remained an oddball on the roster and did not actually see much of the kind of service for which it was designed. M.190 tested with five cars on various parts of the system, including Los Angeles to San Diego, but in its first regular assignment (Kansas City-Topeka-Emporia) it was usually only called upon to pull three. By 1937, it had been taken off the "passenger main" and shuffled down to Texas for the run from Amarillo down the unsignaled Plainview District to Lubbock.
1937 was also the year that the Super Chief was streamlined. EMC's designs had made a quantum leap in just five years, from boxy, distillate-powered M.190 to the sleak red and silver diesel-powered E1's pulling the Super. From 1936 to 1955, M.190's usual assignment was the Amarillo-Plainview-Lubbock run. It did stray some after World War II and before it was dieselized in 1949 and the old Winton engine was replaced with a surplus marine 12-567 salvaged from a Navy Landing Ship-Tank. In 1956, the Albuquerque shops refurbished the car, painted it in red and silver warbonnet, and sent it to Clovis to power the train from there to Carlsbad and back. This service, the last Santa Fe "motor" run, lasted until 1967.
M.190 joined the Santa Fe historic collection stored in the roundhouse at Albuquerque then in 1986, the collection was sent to the California State Railroad Museum in Sacramento. Neglect and exposure to the elements took their toll over the next 20 years, and in 2007, CSRM deaccessioned the car and "gave" it back to the state of New Mexico.
Santa Fe Gas-Electric motor car 190.
Santa Fe Gas-Electric motor car 190 trailer 2543.
BNSF 5648 West just west of Mountainair with CSX ES40DC 5462 and BNSF Grinstein SD70MAC 9650 in the consist.
Santa Fe Mountainair station built in 1908. From here I drove through some heavy showers to Vaughn.
BNSF 7964 East through Vaughn with BNSF Warbonnet GE C44-9W 674 in the consist.
Santa Fe Vaughn station built in 1908.
Mid-train DPU was Norfolk Southern AC44C6M 4265 in the consist. More rainshowers were encountered on the way to our next station in Fort Sumner.
Santa Fe Fort Sumner station built in 1908.
BNSF Southwest Division emblem. I drove us the rest of the way to Clovis where we had dinner at K-Bobs Restaurant before I drove us to the Holiday Inn Express where we spent the night.
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