I have been working on several railroad write ups for the site… Mostly railroads found in the Mojave Desert, the Daggett lines, with an occasional trip to cement hauling railroads… It has been fun but also frustrating… In general we know a bit about each of the lines, either via Myrick, or a Western Railroader… There is likely something on locomotives owned in the various manufacturer’s lists… The advent of the digital newspaper movement has helped… or not…

It seems as I research each line, there is a piece of information missing, or some piece of “common knowledge” that just doesn’t work… and more research is required… likely something either hard to find or only found off line in a remote archive with limited hours of operation…

Most recently (as in the last two days) I have been trying to write up Old Mission Portland Cement… It has long been on my radar… It’s covered in a 1964 Western Railroader, as well as in Rich Hamman’s California Central Coast Railways… (it appears that much of Hamman’s information was derived from the Western Railroader) The Western Railroader article included a roster of the narrow gauge equipment… one of their Plymouths is in the collection of the SPCRR at Ardenwood… I keep clipping files on the various railroads… Old Mission included… in that file was a note about a 2^nd less known Plymouth… a locomotive not included in the published rosters, which is later used at Plaster City on the US Gypsum railroad.

This second locomotive was purchased in 1936… the issue being that the generally published sources say the plant shut down in 1929, then only reopened in 1941, without the quarry railroad…   I suspect that our common sources have confused the cement plant and its quarry railroad with the California Central Railroad, a standard gauge short line owned by the cement plant and operated by them… a railroad that did shut down about 1931… via Google I have found a history of cement in California that says “The plant operated intermittently”… So now I am planning a trip to the a archive in Hollister which may have local papers and business directories which hopefully will better document the plant’s presumed on again, off again operations…

A write up for the Mahave & Milltown is similarly waiting a trip to the Needles/Kingman area in search of copies of the Needles Eye… the local paper… Research beyond Myrick suggest the railroad had a much longer life than the generally reported 9 months… Most of the exisiting information comes from the Arizona side of the Colorado River… the view from Needles, the railroad’s effective western terminus is missing…

By the way, Myrick is not the villain here… he writes about the railroad twice, originally in 1963 in Railroads of Nevada & Eastern California, then again in his 2010 Railroad’s of Arizona, Vol 6… the later information is much expanded… but the earlier reports seem to better reflect the “common knowledge”

Trips are planned, research continues… comments and thoughts are always welcome.

Randy

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Too often we wait for the next big thing to drive a blog post… Instead this post is an amalgamation of notes and such… Kind of a occasional status report…

First sad news… Recently Bill Barbour long time narrow gauge enthusiast died of a heart attack suffered while working on Nevada Central No 2, the Emma Nevada. He was best known for his association with the Grizzly Flats collection at Orange Empire. He had also authored articles for the Southern Pacific Narrow Gauge Society and was seen driving the first truck delivering the first ties to the then new SPCRR at Ardenwood in 1984 or so. Reports suggest he was inside the boiler of Emma when struck down… we can all hope for such a proper fate…

Regular users may have noticed that the forum has been slow… that the site can occasionally be slow… this in part a server issue, but is also an issue with the template which gave the forum its custom appearance… for now we are using default appearance while Andrew reworks the code… It’s not as pretty but it will work. Andrew continues to monitor it, adjust it, reset and repair it. Though on occasion Andrew can be tied up elsewhere and may not notice the slow downs immediately. If you have any issues, please use the Contact Us page to send us a bug report. Don’t underestimate Andrew’s efforts to make this site what it is… this is the big bad world of the internet and electronic communications….

Even with the work on maintaining the forum, there have been and will continue to be updates… particularly adding write ups on various narrow gauge railroads… In February we posted reports on the California & Nevada Railroad. by John Hall as well as two on Hawaii railroads, the Koolau Railway & Oahu Railway & Land Co. both by Jeff Livingston. I am working on write-ups for the Calico & Daggett, the Borate & Daggett and the American Borax Railroads as well as Old Mission Cement, Andrew is always working on Colusa & Lake and Nevada County Narrow gauge, along with any and all Prismordial railroads. Others are encouraged to submit articles on railroads to be added

Coming soon (“soon” being a poorly defined concept):

Sumpter Valley Railway (w/ Map)

Yellow Pine Mining (Nevada, w/Map)

Copper Creek Railroad (w/Map)

US Navy Pearl Harbor by Jeff L

U.S. Gypsum (w/Map)

Andrew would like to promise Eureka Mill… but history suggests that might be a mistake… but, someday when you least expect it, it too will appear…

Finally, we have two upcoming events… first, on May 3^rd we will have a group visit to the North Western Pacific Historical Society archives and library in Petaluma.   There are currently three of us attending, but more would be welcome. Sonoma Valley seems to be one of the many targets mentioned. A week later, May 8-10 we will join the SPng Historical Societies annual conference in Independence California.

We expect to announce additional events… Railfair at Ardenwood over Labor day looks like a likely target…

Beyond that, we would welcome other’s contributions… The site is valuable because of the information it holds… You can contribute to the information…

Thanks for now… Randy

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Tom Armstrong died in Mid December in Pennsylvania where he had retired several years before.

Here among western railroad historians, Tom was known for his love of, and research on the Nevada California Oregon (NCO) railroad, and its related lines…  He was The expert of record on these lines… a title of honor earned by years of careful and comprehensive research.

Those of us who were lucky enough to meet him, and maybe join him on a trip to explore a railroad right of way, NCO or other, knew him as a kind soul who freely shared his knowledge and research…  and a really nice guy.

Much of his organized research is currently available on Slim Rails .  He had given us photos and other information to post on Pacificng… we were holding that information, waiting  for Tom to write the page on our site… Now, that will not happen and others will have to pick up his torch.  Several years ago he donated some hundreds of pounds of iron railroad castings to the SPCRR at Ardenwood… There is an effort being made by his friends to complete and publish his book on the NCO…

In his real life he was the Rev. Thomas E. Armstrong…  a minister of the Presbyterian Church.  He served congregations in California to Pennsylvania to Ohio.  I suspect he was pretty good at that calling too.

His obituary may be found here

While I am not a Presbyterian, nor a particularly observant Christian, I would like to offer the following from the Presbyterian Book of Common Prayer…  It seems to suit Tom and his memory

Eternal God,
we remember with thanksgiving,
those who have loved and served you in your church on earth,
who now rest from their labors
[especially those most dear to us
whom we name in our hearts before you . . .].
Keep us in fellowship with all your saints,
and bring us at last
to the joy of your heavenly kingdom.
Amen.

Go in Peace… Randy

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In the past few weeks several large websites were hacked and their passwords databases stolen. Since that time, the number of spam postings has increased thanks to this new pool of email addresses. For the time being I have disabled self registrations for the forum. New registrations will have to be activated by the Admins themselves. We do hope that we can roll this measure back to save on annoyances in registering.

We’ve also discovered that email notifications were not working as intended. After making some changes, I seem to be receiving them again. Please help us test this by posting or responding to a message under “Site Technical Issues”.

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