Clem, Pond Interviews [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:15:27 Hal Riegger: The following, as with Bill Klem.

00:00:16:00 - 00:00:20:17 Hal Riegger: Yeah. Go ahead.

00:00:20:19 - 00:00:21:27 Bill Clem: Well, if you ask me to head.

00:00:21:29 - 00:00:26:04 Hal Riegger: Over to Steve and give. You ran. A steam locomotive is here?

00:00:26:06 - 00:01:01:02 Bill Clem: Yes. No, of course. On. It was free again because of bridge restrictions. The u p m. We did run some bigger power up and were very open. Lawson and the MP did drum on the, w three times steam locomotives. Mix down from came to us, but the branch lines again because of bridge restrictions. They were not allowed.

00:01:01:05 - 00:01:07:20 Bill Clem: They maybe the WWW1 or up last McArthur engines.

00:01:07:23 - 00:01:10:08 Hal Riegger: What were those road type.

00:01:10:16 - 00:01:15:07 Bill Clem: those would be, two, eight tubes. Oh.

00:01:15:09 - 00:01:16:10 Hal Riegger: That’s the Mikado.

00:01:16:12 - 00:01:26:21 Bill Clem: Yeah. Well. Yeah. Mike. All right. Know the Union Pacific? We’re calling them Mikado. Until the war. In the war, then they changed. And MacArthur’s because the Japanese application.

00:01:26:23 - 00:01:27:17 Hal Riegger: Sorry.

00:01:27:20 - 00:01:53:21 Bill Clem: And, we did use their locomotives. All interchangeable. In other words, you do when they. You might have a nuclear engine the next day, an empty engine. we’re up on the headquarters branch. You might have a, U.P. engine on the head of the Indian helper. but you might have two poles on the up. The Greenville branch was.

00:01:53:24 - 00:01:55:17 Hal Riegger: Where these coal are all fired.

00:01:55:18 - 00:02:32:16 Bill Clem: Okay, all the Union Pacific engines, with the exception of two MacArthur’s, were all boiled, fired engines. MacArthur, they had, I believe, is a 21 to 21. And I’m trying to recall, were coal fired engines up in the Northern Pacific. Only had about 80 assigned down here exclusively. The Su switch engines. I believe there are only three welders, class W well, burners.

00:02:32:19 - 00:02:59:04 Bill Clem: And, out of necessity, we had they had to be used. Well, they didn’t have to be, but they’re used, almost exclusively at headquarters branch because of, fire hazard going up for work, you know, to Edwards, you know, for something very seldom did they use a coal burning engine, especially during the hot summer months on the headquarters branch.

00:02:59:04 - 00:03:00:03 Bill Clem: Yeah.

00:03:00:11 - 00:03:04:03 Hal Riegger: where did your coal come from?

00:03:04:05 - 00:03:33:25 Bill Clem: Most of the coal, was a run on coal from, from the mines around Ellensburg, Clallam and Ellensburg. no, the civic loses, and there was a little bit of, Montana coal from Berkeley Coal, I think it was called there. It was a real nice cool to use on hand burn engines, because it was kind of a nut sized coal where by the rosin coal was quite a bit finer.

00:03:33:25 - 00:03:45:17 Bill Clem: Coal mine was still very cool. But, then of course they did add the Rosebud coal. The Montana, but it was strictly lignite coal and any.

00:03:45:19 - 00:03:47:08 Hal Riegger: Other very good stuff, as it.

00:03:47:11 - 00:03:55:19 Bill Clem: Were. Vermont had an important engine and ruled by coal. He didn’t straight up for till he got to where he’s going.

00:03:56:11 - 00:04:04:00 Hal Riegger: was no say. Were any of these steam locomotives, automatic fired or hand fired?

00:04:04:03 - 00:04:08:27 Bill Clem: Okay.

00:04:08:29 - 00:04:33:12 Bill Clem: The W’s there again. I think they’ve done these. They only had two Stoker fired hands down here in the U.P., the two murderers will still be fired. The rest of them down their roll and part, ended with a class S four, which would be a ten Wheeler for six. All four. So they had quite a few s bores here on the north side of the wall and fire.

00:04:33:15 - 00:04:51:21 Bill Clem: And And the several WS were closed down. You might get one of them hand fired. I don’t recall, I think the switch engines were all on fire with.

00:04:51:21 - 00:04:56:07 Hal Riegger: On what what type were the switch engines.

00:04:56:10 - 00:05:00:17 Bill Clem: Going to take it backwards? Well, lines of, coal fired engines.

00:05:00:17 - 00:05:01:10 Hal Riegger: What were they?

00:05:01:10 - 00:05:03:11 Bill Clem: What, that was all. Six oh.

00:05:03:13 - 00:05:05:17 Hal Riegger: Six. Yeah.

00:05:05:20 - 00:05:09:00 Bill Clem: Almost all the steam switching. 0600 six hours.

00:05:11:20 - 00:05:23:03 Hal Riegger: But you’re as large as the McArthur went up. Grantsville. Yes. What was the tonnage roughly of that locomotive.

00:05:23:06 - 00:05:34:24 Bill Clem: I think that’s true. Seems to me it was the way the time runs smooth.

00:05:34:26 - 00:05:47:29 Hal Riegger: My asking the right kind of question. That’s fine.

00:05:48:18 - 00:06:16:00 Bill Clem: second, some division eastward. the first engine was 500 tons, which were 500 ton. I can remember when we were, we were dumping gravel up on the, the subdivision up, up the mountain. And we had 15 girls gravel into three engines to get the 15 cars up them. but they cost me way roughly 100 ton for cars.

00:06:16:03 - 00:06:23:14 Bill Clem: We had three, mikes. Max, you take up those 15 cars up from three.

00:06:23:14 - 00:06:35:07 Hal Riegger: To 15 cars up. Right? And they were 510. And that would be, 100,000. Wouldn’t it?

00:06:35:09 - 00:06:36:29 Bill Clem: 500 times two.

00:06:36:29 - 00:06:38:01 Hal Riegger: Thousand from a.

00:06:38:03 - 00:06:48:19 Bill Clem: Million, million, 10,000,000 million pound. I didn’t realize they were heavy. Well, no, we’re talking about trillion tonnage.

00:06:48:22 - 00:06:50:01 Hal Riegger: What do you mean, a trillion?

00:06:50:03 - 00:06:58:08 Bill Clem: You ask how much they could take up with you. I’m not giving you the weight of the engines. Oh, yeah? Training tonnage.

00:06:58:08 - 00:07:04:06 Hal Riegger: Oh, I see, but it took three of those to haul 500 tons up.

00:07:04:09 - 00:07:06:12 Bill Clem: No, 15 cars, which would.

00:07:06:12 - 00:07:07:28 Hal Riegger: Be about 1500 cars.

00:07:08:04 - 00:07:15:00 Bill Clem: But one engine, one bike would all 500 tons of them. would you buy 110 cars?

00:07:15:02 - 00:07:17:06 Hal Riegger: Yeah. Okay.

00:07:17:18 - 00:07:18:29 Bill Clem: okay.

00:07:19:01 - 00:07:24:29 Hal Riegger: You don’t know what the weight of the locomotive was, do you? That’s all.

00:07:24:29 - 00:07:27:00 Bill Clem: Right. Yes, I got it downstairs.

00:07:27:02 - 00:07:28:02 Hal Riegger: That’s all right.

00:07:28:13 - 00:07:36:01 Bill Clem: I don’t recall. I do, I, I, I got a lot of, I don’t, I don’t have to look that up.

00:07:36:03 - 00:07:43:12 Hal Riegger: So then lots of times you have 2 or 3 locomotives on the train going up to Grantsville.

00:07:43:15 - 00:08:22:18 Bill Clem: Was very seldom, very seldom that you didn’t have, a helper steam days. but, I could remember, oh, the Northern Pacific train from Spokane to Lewis, and they called it the highball. Yeah. Train 661 or 662. And they would run 2 or 3 sections of that train. The Lewis was right out of the war, and they’ve run several section of that train to Lewiston to pick up the lumber and the grain and home to Spokane, and then to go east or west, as the case may be, from Spokane.

00:08:22:20 - 00:08:43:24 Bill Clem: And, they would have two class three engines. On the head in that train. And then we put a temporary helper on a Lewiston, and he would shove the train up the whole, which is just inside of Moscow, Idaho, up top of the Kenrick Mountain. And,

00:08:43:28 - 00:08:45:05 Hal Riegger: That’s between Troy and.

00:08:45:05 - 00:08:52:18 Bill Clem: Moscow. That would be between, Kenrick and Howell. Troy is between Troy, between Howell and Kennedy.

00:08:53:23 - 00:09:16:27 Bill Clem: And we’ve been many as three helps in one day with, the steam engine up there just to shove those trains up the mountain. But then everywhere you go, everywhere we went down there, we had a helper who was a regular assigned helper on the Edward Long Branch up there. I mean, the two steam engines. That was normal 101 on the rear end.

00:09:17:02 - 00:09:24:00 Hal Riegger: What, when they cut out, as helpers, they didn’t go back.

00:09:24:02 - 00:09:40:26 Bill Clem: None of the headquarters branch because they went all the way through. So they’d go all the way through the headquarters. mainly because the summit of the mountain on the forest subdivision is seven and a half miles from headquarters. So you have.

00:09:40:26 - 00:09:41:21 Hal Riegger: To you have to get back.

00:09:41:21 - 00:09:48:05 Bill Clem: Yeah, 34 miles to the summit. Then you get seven miles down, and then you still got to come up with the loads again, right?

00:09:48:12 - 00:10:02:10 Hal Riegger: Right. Yeah. was there any particular oh one question. How much difference do you know if you know, what’s it between 1 and 3 class.

00:10:02:12 - 00:10:09:15 Bill Clem: A lot of difference in the power.

00:10:09:17 - 00:10:23:13 Bill Clem: I, the w three was a much heavier locomotive and the more attractive effort and,

00:10:24:01 - 00:10:24:21 Hal Riegger: let’s.

00:10:24:23 - 00:10:25:09 Bill Clem: Get one here.

00:10:25:09 - 00:10:34:16 Hal Riegger: It just was a heavier, more powerful engine. right.

00:10:34:19 - 00:11:00:26 Bill Clem: Back here again, a little personal aspect of this. I can’t tell you when exactly. I would say about 1948, my first trip was the engineer on the road. And you were in search engine. But my first road trip was an engineer. I was the engineer on the second engine of the train from Spokane to Lewis, and the engineer.

00:11:00:26 - 00:11:29:17 Bill Clem: And the first one was my dad. my, my wife’s father was a conductor, and he spent a lot of his time on the passenger train. Then between Spokane and Lewis, there were two trains each way each day at that time to Spokane. Lewis. And he was on one of those trains at that time. I was the fireman on that particular run.

00:11:29:19 - 00:11:41:03 Bill Clem: But 1946 seven, I was a fireman on that run between Spokane and Lewis, and those were all hand fired engine, the classic four, which was

00:11:41:20 - 00:11:42:28 Hal Riegger: just say e4.

00:11:43:04 - 00:11:43:15 Bill Clem: Q.

00:11:43:18 - 00:11:44:21 Hal Riegger: Q four.

00:11:44:22 - 00:11:49:10 Bill Clem: It was the only 2200s which were a.

00:11:49:12 - 00:11:52:05 Bill Clem: Four six.

00:11:52:08 - 00:11:53:01 Bill Clem: 462.

00:11:53:06 - 00:11:55:19 Hal Riegger: 80624.

00:11:55:20 - 00:11:56:18 Bill Clem: 6462.

00:11:56:20 - 00:11:57:23 Hal Riegger: Sifford.

00:11:57:26 - 00:12:18:07 Bill Clem: Yeah, but they were a good yeah, it was a small Pacific. A real small percentage is what it was. But they were all hand fired. And that was, it was quite a long job. It was a 148 actual miles from Fort Campbell. Louis and by rail. And, then, of course, I. Lewis another Kennewick. You had your mountain.

00:12:18:09 - 00:12:30:26 Bill Clem: Great. And Kennewick up through, to the top of the hill. You started shoveling cool there. Never. You didn’t stop there. You got the top, which would take you more, little less an hour to go up there.

00:12:31:00 - 00:12:31:17 Hal Riegger: Yeah.

00:12:31:19 - 00:12:51:13 Bill Clem: And the other one is, let’s say her father was a doctor. Now, as a fireman on the train one night, my dad got a job as the next engineer. So my dad is an engineer, my father in law for a conductor, and my brother in law was a great all the same train was.

00:12:51:14 - 00:12:52:26 Hal Riegger: Pretty much a family affair.

00:12:52:27 - 00:12:55:24 Bill Clem: It was at that time in.

00:12:55:27 - 00:13:04:24 Hal Riegger: How many tons of coal would you shovel between Kendrick and the Troy, or wherever the car?

00:13:04:27 - 00:13:13:27 Bill Clem: I would imagine, the, the passenger train. I would imagine the two, two and a half.

00:13:15:08 - 00:13:19:19 Bill Clem: When the movie train was here, we put six tons of coal.

00:13:19:19 - 00:13:22:04 Hal Riegger: In movie train. Well, they’re making that break.

00:13:22:05 - 00:13:53:15 Bill Clem: Aren’t bad. Yeah, he had a little steam engine. The regular fireman was called back to Denver because of the death of the family. was ever warm. the locomotive was running it almost exclusively. Anyway. He was a retired U.P. engineer. next up, we came up here and we had an engine watchman, or he had an engine watchman that took care of the engine.

00:13:53:15 - 00:14:20:04 Bill Clem: Right. And we kept the steam up. And so I just had to make sure everything was okay at night. A lot on the old movies. And so you got to let this engine watch them play more in this particular day going up the mountain. And we had all the factory cars on the train just move the train, so forth, and, and the helicopters were all in position, ready to take pictures.

00:14:20:04 - 00:14:41:16 Bill Clem: This thing going up the mountain. We’re going to have my, the coal sack and the died because of lack of steam. And they ran out of steam. So, I was on the locomotive and I told the boilers, and now you, when we leave and you start shoveling and I don’t stop, you just keep shoveling. But I never wore this.

00:14:41:16 - 00:15:06:09 Bill Clem: I was very he liked to make that engine, but make a lot of molten steam. And he he was not really using the engine too efficiently. I mean, because it was for shelter, it was not. I mean, he could that was reason for it. But nevertheless, I, I took out my coat and got down on my t shirt almost.

00:15:06:09 - 00:15:09:25 Bill Clem: And this was in, in the snow underground.

00:15:09:25 - 00:15:10:29 Hal Riegger: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:15:11:01 - 00:15:34:00 Bill Clem: So I started, I started shoveling coal and we got the steam up all the time. The helicopters must be over the radio. The director screaming, get that thing moving. This goes gold. So pretty soon we got the train moving again, and I shoveled for the other rooms that took us about an hour and 15 minutes. We put in the six tons of coal, so I jumped in.

00:15:34:00 - 00:15:36:16 Bill Clem: That was still do it, but I did anyway.

00:15:36:18 - 00:15:57:13 Hal Riegger: You know, it’s funny, whenever, there are rail fans wanting to take pictures or they have run bys, which I think are funny. Anyway, there just are clouds of smoke and they, you know, apparently this is the idea of what it’s supposed to look like when it trains. Really going somewhere. This is,

00:15:57:15 - 00:16:25:02 Bill Clem: By the same token, during that movie, the the actually the cylinder dogs on the locomotive were put there to fill the water during the the initial start of the, the train to open the cylinder cocks so that they do not have the water to cylinder cylinder head or something silly. The open cylinder cocks and you have the steam coming out, you know, and but they movie people, they think that’s great too.

00:16:25:04 - 00:16:44:18 Bill Clem: And, but you never see a train with the cylinder doors open going down the track. It just hasn’t done that. But boy, when they wanted to film, they kept on put steam, put steam, and they’d open up the cylinder dogs and they would be coming out, going on the track miles per hour. Well, it’s just enough. I mean, there’s not according to Hoyle.

00:16:44:18 - 00:17:02:02 Hal Riegger: No, they’re movie people. They don’t know what’s going on half the time anyway, were there any particular, incidents, where you didn’t actually do repair, but you supervised repair? Didn’t you?

00:17:02:05 - 00:17:05:22 Bill Clem: Yes. Well, the diesels actually did a lot of down there, too.

00:17:05:22 - 00:17:27:10 Hal Riegger: Did? What happened? I’m trying to get some of your personal experiences. well, let’s take 1702 that, that got dumped in the water somewhere. I don’t know, what was the story on that? How did that happen? And what was done to it to to repair it and all that?

00:17:27:13 - 00:17:32:18 Bill Clem: Well, his goal right.

00:17:32:20 - 00:18:00:20 Bill Clem: Now, I told you before Thanksgiving, I don’t know what year a dog can’t remember it. I could look it up was sport, but I know it was a Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. Actually, it was a Monday night because early Tuesday morning and I got a call about, 230 in the morning, and they said they were having air troubles, trouble getting air through the train for for the night.

00:18:00:20 - 00:18:03:18 Bill Clem: Longer. The night longer.

00:18:03:20 - 00:18:05:17 Hal Riegger: They’re coming from headquarters.

00:18:05:19 - 00:18:13:18 Bill Clem: But night longer. As the train made connections that afternoon with the two trains from headquarters as well as one from camp I.

00:18:13:20 - 00:18:14:02 Hal Riegger: Oh, yeah.

00:18:14:02 - 00:18:41:21 Bill Clem: And this train we started out of work, you know, and he would bring the load from all three trains, the headquarters local, the JP local and the cameo local. He would bring the whole three trains into Lewiston and then he would pick up the empties emotionally. We’d go back to our people the same night. So the empties would be available for those three trains the next morning, out of our penal.

00:18:42:03 - 00:18:54:27 Bill Clem: this particular night lives, as I say, I got a call about 230 in the morning. I went down there and lo and behold, they had, 180 cars. You were calling nine.

00:18:54:29 - 00:18:56:10 Hal Riegger: Hundred and 80.

00:18:56:12 - 00:19:28:00 Bill Clem: And, it was pretty rough on, leakage. the train line, because it was such a long train and and the cold weather. So, anyway, finally with, we had 2 or 3 coming out there and assault with radios, we finally tracked down the leaks and got, train line pressure on the caboose sufficient to bring a legal test, which we did.

00:19:28:02 - 00:19:37:10 Bill Clem: And, the boy we got out of town with, the lap time was almost.

00:19:42:06 - 00:19:49:15 Bill Clem: By that time, it was almost 5:00. We called morning, and he. Yes, it was getting late at 435 in the morning.

00:19:49:15 - 00:19:53:19 Hal Riegger: What is, minimum pressure legal in the caboose.

00:19:53:22 - 00:20:08:03 Bill Clem: Okay. In other words, on that train with us, the rules states that you must have within 15 pounds of standard pressure, and the standard pressure was 75 pounds. So they had to have the 60 pound train line.

00:20:08:06 - 00:20:10:13 Hal Riegger: Okay. So go ahead. You were going out.

00:20:10:17 - 00:20:32:28 Bill Clem: So anyway, they finally left home and I was thinking that there’s no way that the train was going to get there. You know, any trouble at all. There’s no way they get to work. You know, whatever. A lot of hours of service for the federal law. So I drove Garfield home and, had a company car. I did not have a real car.

00:20:32:28 - 00:21:01:18 Bill Clem: Real really? I just had a highway car. And I started to deep off, you know, until, waiting for them to come in with. I had already won. And pretty soon I heard Mayday, mayday, mayday, we’re on fire and we’re in the river. And so I got to the radio and finally got through to them, and they said, at milepost.

00:21:01:20 - 00:21:30:13 Bill Clem: 22, just east of Park. And they had hit a rockslide down in the river. Now, they had five GPS lines on the train that night. And they say that 180 cars and, I called the section one of our female got 11 people. And we’re going to give motor car land and headed down the track to where this train was in trouble.

00:21:30:15 - 00:22:00:16 Bill Clem: And it was a tremendous rockslide. I would say the rocks were as large as a locomotive. And he had come around the corner about, 20, 20 miles an hour. When the headlight picked up the rock to dynamite the train brakes in an emergency, we had no chance to stop. And, the lead locomotive actually climbed the rocks, turned over on its side, and went down with the nose in the river.

00:22:01:03 - 00:22:21:16 Bill Clem: there was no fireman, but the head brakeman and the engineer. head brakeman got out pretty good shape. The engineer had to swim around the front of the engine and the cold water to get out or get out of the mess, and we turn it over first in the loop, oil to oil. And everything it did gets that one locomotive on fire.

00:22:21:18 - 00:22:36:03 Bill Clem: The second unit was derailed and pointed towards the river. and the third building was partially derailed back.

00:22:36:05 - 00:22:56:25 Bill Clem: About 90 cars just about halfway back. There were 5 or 6 log cars that were jackknifed from the force of the collisions that were. We, had to blow.

00:22:57:04 - 00:23:08:04 Bill Clem: dynamite those rocks out of there. And, I’ve got some pictures of that 72 great big boulders still stuck in the doorways and windows and everything else that we got in here, even.

00:23:08:11 - 00:23:11:23 Hal Riegger: Right. The third ones I could use can and I’ll.

00:23:11:23 - 00:23:13:15 Bill Clem: I’ll see if I can find them.

00:23:13:15 - 00:23:16:05 Hal Riegger: And they’re going to be one wrecked picture in the book.

00:23:16:08 - 00:23:16:25 Bill Clem: Okay.

00:23:16:26 - 00:23:17:20 Hal Riegger: But,

00:23:17:22 - 00:23:51:11 Bill Clem: Okay. Well, then, this doggone thing was, Lost. I’m thinking the. We finally had to build a platform which is in the. Just out of a rock cut and went straight down the river. Almost. We had to build a platform so that we could try to reach out to the record truck and lift the front of that second locomotive up to put it back on the track.

00:23:51:12 - 00:24:15:14 Bill Clem: First locomotive we didn’t have to worry about because it was done with its nose moving out of the way and, incidentally, I am still a little bitter, but as much point that I’m a little there because of the Coast Guard and Wall, people came up and they find the river water polluting the river because of the slight oil sheen.

00:24:15:25 - 00:24:17:20 Hal Riegger: Don River ways.

00:24:18:06 - 00:24:35:17 Bill Clem: and if some other river, an automobile or a truck with the river, they sure as hell wouldn’t be finding anyone know if this was an act of God. And for river serve. But nevertheless, the river was fine because of all the oil and water, and it was not extensive. The fishing game took no exception to do it.

00:24:35:17 - 00:24:44:24 Bill Clem: As far as fish killing, but nevertheless, we finally got the,

00:24:44:26 - 00:25:06:26 Bill Clem: Got other locomotive. We worked up there all night, and we, And the next day, we finally got that dog hunting back on the track. This the second one of the. Yeah. And, the rental truck wouldn’t. So we couldn’t use it the way it turned out because it was too hazardous. We were going to dump it over the bank.

00:25:06:28 - 00:25:25:22 Bill Clem: So it was just like we were afraid to dump it over the bank. This big record truck with the boom on lips a little more luck. We couldn’t use that. We had new jets and we would jacked and slide, jack and slide and finally got that locomotive slid over to the track and and got it out of there.

00:25:25:25 - 00:25:39:01 Bill Clem: And, the last day we worked is known about 15in. And we had one heck of a time. Even better things just no getting that mess up there. Well, you know, yeah. Look to our field.

00:25:39:03 - 00:25:42:15 Hal Riegger: How how’d you get the, Jack a lot of cars back?

00:25:44:03 - 00:26:00:18 Bill Clem: what, do you send? Another locomotive out of Lewiston, and he pulled the rear portion of the train back as far as, Arrow Junction. I believe he took the full back arrow to get it all the way through. Then, we,

00:26:00:21 - 00:26:23:27 Bill Clem: Hired a private contractor to move the D9 cab, and he went up the track about one mile from pick up to one of these cars were derailed. And with the D9, he, Winston, Sheldon, Holden, to clear the track. Get those out of the way. The track was repaired and then this locomotive, Lawson, called the rest of the train back door.

00:26:23:29 - 00:26:40:19 Bill Clem: So, then we finally, got everything out of the way and, repaired track is what we got. The right side cleared up, and we were back in business again.

00:26:40:22 - 00:26:45:26 Bill Clem: That weekend. But it was Thanksgiving weekend, so we were pretty well closed down anyway.

00:26:45:26 - 00:26:50:08 Hal Riegger: And you got rid of the 1702 out by that? No, no.

00:26:50:08 - 00:27:19:09 Bill Clem: You’re 1702. We’re not out until next the next spring. it was good. We had to, we loaded two big boom trucks. I mean, big, big trucks, on flat cars. Then we had to build ramps for them and unload them at the of derailment. We also had three denying carts up there trying to pull that. They leveled off a space.

00:27:19:10 - 00:27:41:02 Bill Clem: Donner tried to pull that 1702 back of the river back towards you, parallel with the track, with the truck to move over and pick it up. Now the wheels and trucks were up under the sink, so that would constitute probably at least 15 tons, at least 15 tons of the weight of the locomotive, maybe a little bit more.

00:27:41:03 - 00:27:46:04 Bill Clem: Not even, oh, yeah, I would say that a lot more than that.

00:27:46:06 - 00:27:50:03 Hal Riegger: Yeah, yeah. Because ordinary freight car truck is, what.

00:27:50:05 - 00:28:16:21 Bill Clem: 5 or 6, I think a 15, probably 15 dump truck. Yeah. Might be more like, I can’t remember now. but anyway, it had to be. There’s all kinds of ways but 125 times. And this brought down a considerably less than 100 tons when they had to live. But at one time they had the 3D9 cash flow with the big winches on ten winch that locomotive up and it just pulled cash backwards.

00:28:16:24 - 00:28:49:11 Bill Clem: We brought up two locomotives, Lewiston and I was on the locomotive myself and we set the brakes on the more was and anchored the names of the locomotives, you know, and all the two locomotives up the track. So I standing the rails when when the G nine ready to pull, I put the two locomotives in reverse and helped to.

00:28:49:17 - 00:29:05:23 Bill Clem: And we finally pulled up 1702 about the drink got parallel. Then they picked it up. Well, of course they picked up the trucks and set them on the track, and then they picked up the the body and the body and put it on to the trucks.

00:29:05:27 - 00:29:06:27 Hal Riegger: Right.

00:29:08:27 - 00:29:33:15 Bill Clem: we’ve had the read another one on the headquarters branch. This was a case of this is one of the empty oil burners, number 1648. And they were going up the headquarters branch and they get a slip up. We’re up the slide hill that I looked up along the track, and the locomotive turned over and left side two slid down into the hole.

00:29:33:17 - 00:30:10:15 Bill Clem: I did that’s a cone slide. I’ve got the other side of that one right on the hole. I took one of the bins and we went by and had two repairs. We had, another bad one, and I think it was in 1953. they had, if I recall, 3 or 4 steam engines involved in a snowplow. And there was a fatality involved there, though there were the passenger train was up from Culver’s Craig Park somewhere, and, the snow was very bad.

00:30:10:18 - 00:30:32:22 Bill Clem: And so they sent out a, and the freight train was up there to the local Greenville was up there somewhere, the simple snow plow up or with a wedge ball saloon or car on the wedge with two locomotives, the caboose. He got up there and he picked up the passenger train and and they picked up the, the local all.

00:30:32:22 - 00:30:58:04 Bill Clem: So we had two trains close to the two that were engines with the head all together. They were carried up through the country and in Idaho they derailed the or tardy rail, but they weren’t aware that it was derailed. The snow is too deep. It stayed on the track till they got to the first switch. Greenville. Then the everything went kaput, turned locomotives over and killed.

00:30:58:05 - 00:31:02:28 Hal Riegger: You mean all the way from, Craig? When I got to Grange Hill, that was off the track.

00:31:02:29 - 00:31:04:02 Bill Clem: Oh, no. From fan, I.

00:31:04:02 - 00:31:05:22 Hal Riegger: Said, well, fan.

00:31:05:24 - 00:31:07:11 Bill Clem: Fan, I know it was all to.

00:31:07:11 - 00:31:09:18 Hal Riegger: Track. That’s about how far from the Grange field.

00:31:10:00 - 00:31:13:07 Bill Clem: six miles.

00:31:13:10 - 00:31:40:08 Bill Clem: Thick as far as that’s concerned. But, we had a steam rotary snowplow we used for years and years, and, we had an engineer on the road. We we had a fire and was oil fire. They had a fireman and a rotary man. We had an engineer and a fireman on the, pusher to diesel pushers. And, we were up there trying to get through snow cut, probably 15ft deep one night.

00:31:40:10 - 00:32:03:27 Bill Clem: And that was over on the highway that, walked up and down to the cut to watch them. And that was as I was watching them, the snow plow started sideways. Well, I ran down the bank. The engineer was not aware of it at all. He couldn’t see a thing on that broken plow, and I ran down there and hollered out and shoved off here, do you real shut it off?

00:32:04:00 - 00:32:16:24 Bill Clem: So he shut that thing off, and we were pretty bad. It was way off the track, but it was in the cut, the deep snow, and we just had a almost a tunnel cut through or.

00:32:16:27 - 00:32:21:28 Hal Riegger: Yeah, those little cuts up high. They’re they’re sort of deceiving. But that’s where you run into trouble is.

00:32:21:28 - 00:32:42:24 Bill Clem: All of that. and I told the engineer and the pusher, I said, you start twisting back, open up the diesel. If you can get moving. Don’t stop. I don’t care what happens. Don’t stop the line. Holler at on the radio. Doggone. He finally got that. The real plow started back. Went right back to where it came from.

00:32:42:25 - 00:33:07:13 Bill Clem: Here was just a big snow bank. It couldn’t go anywhere backwards except stay right next to the track. And as soon as you got through the cut, I hollered on the radio to stop and pick the wheels right next to the rail. We forged it on. When they land, so. And, and the snow on the Greenville branch normally takes two, three inches of snow to further cuts, and you don’t very often get a heavy snowfall up there.

00:33:07:15 - 00:33:14:01 Bill Clem: But on the headquarters branch you get 6 or 8 leaves. No good. Don’t blow. That’s a different thing to do.

00:33:14:04 - 00:33:17:27 Hal Riegger: Did you have to do a lot of snow piling up towards headquarters and.

00:33:18:00 - 00:33:42:28 Bill Clem: Almost every year you were up there with, not only the Rotary Club, but you had a spreader. you take this, Jordan spreader up there with wings on it to clean up the log yards and make room for log loading and because headquarters, you had 4 or 5 tracks and the JP, you had 4 or 5 tracks, and you had to use them all, and consequently, you had to.

00:33:43:05 - 00:33:43:11 Hal Riegger: Keep.

00:33:43:11 - 00:33:47:09 Bill Clem: Moving, keep moving that snow or getting rid of it.

00:33:47:12 - 00:34:05:28 Hal Riegger: You know, the other this, this, this. Switching back to, to the Moscow arrow area. I came down there the other day and I was looking at the tracks, particularly, but, wondering if there was any traffic down there. And I saw them. No, as far as Kendrick, but they must be running down there now.

00:34:06:00 - 00:34:07:11 Bill Clem: I think once or twice a week.

00:34:07:11 - 00:34:21:27 Hal Riegger: You can’t. Yeah, yeah, I was under the impression that they didn’t use any of that line at all, but they do. But, What, what what about their kind to abandon that line or something? You know.

00:34:21:29 - 00:34:44:10 Bill Clem: I think that the general consensus. I don’t know exactly what the deal will be there. actually, I believe Moscow was you got Troy and Kendrick and Julia. There is a pretty good sized storm, Julia. That did give them some business. And that might be the salvation there. I don’t know.

00:34:44:15 - 00:34:50:01 Hal Riegger: But, there’s some some talk about chemistry wanting to get that.

00:34:50:04 - 00:34:51:00 Bill Clem: Not really.

00:34:51:00 - 00:34:52:02 Hal Riegger: No,

00:34:52:05 - 00:35:09:20 Bill Clem: But if it were to be salvaged, that would be the ideal situation to go for Marrow Junction as far as general with Cameron for a cruise, you know, that would be the ideal situation. Rather than have to have them come down the mountain just to get one car and go back up again to.

00:35:09:23 - 00:35:14:02 Hal Riegger: Would that mean significant business for me to go up there?

00:35:14:04 - 00:35:26:02 Bill Clem: No, no, I don’t think that would be that. But there again, Kendrick, if I recall, is loose grain growers had the elevators. Kendrick. If I remember now, I’m.

00:35:26:02 - 00:35:27:16 Hal Riegger: Not sure about that. Yeah.

00:35:27:16 - 00:35:30:24 Bill Clem: And also, Juliette.

00:35:30:29 - 00:35:32:00 Hal Riegger: Delia.

00:35:32:03 - 00:35:39:22 Bill Clem: So most grain growers is almost exclusively trucking now with a big barge facilities on the river.

00:35:39:22 - 00:35:45:16 Unknown First, without.

00:35:45:18 - 00:35:51:07 Hal Riegger: Well, you know, I’m trying to. What? Not this is interesting.

00:35:51:10 - 00:35:52:25 Bill Clem: Well, there again.

00:35:52:27 - 00:36:02:26 Hal Riegger: What sort of, any unusual problems and maintenance or repair of steam locomotives that you recall?

00:36:02:29 - 00:36:29:11 Bill Clem: No one to bad. they had a very excellent maintenance as far as, the canvas prairie and the former US foreman down here was just a he was just a natural born mechanical man. And he was he was exceptional. Except. And, however, he, retired quite some time. He lives in Pasco, Washington now.

00:36:29:14 - 00:36:32:07 Hal Riegger: Oh, I know her. Her banks.

00:36:32:09 - 00:36:56:28 Bill Clem: Yeah. Banks. And, his replacement for one of his replacements was this Ellen Patterson, who’s now retired. Is there was another good real good that’s problem. And the money bar was well taken care of all the way through that. All the way through there. And really you did not have too much problem, especially with the steam engines when you.

00:36:57:01 - 00:37:08:11 Bill Clem: Because when they came in here, Mr. Banks, well, he, he had developed time here. Yeah. And everything right on the button on those things. And they were excellent condition.

00:37:08:14 - 00:37:23:28 Hal Riegger: You know, the, the story of, when he went up, not too long ago. Well, I maybe it was a while back, on the first railroad to get an old locomotive and bring that. That’s in South Dakota somewhere or something.

00:37:23:28 - 00:37:46:23 Bill Clem: Well, that was, you know, 684 it was the Northern Pacific locomotive and one time. Yeah. And they sold the those first round. Yeah. And then for scrap and so forth. And the Northern Pacific decided they wanted the locomotive. So they lined up the loose remote forces under the direction of Mr. Banks to go prepare that locomotive for a woman.

00:37:46:25 - 00:38:20:20 Bill Clem: And they burned down the hill to Lewis, and then they worked it over some more to get it in suitable operating positions for towing is concerned. And, we went to Spokane. And I don’t remember if they what they did. I just come to mind that they loaded us on a flat car, got back to Saint Paul, and then they really worked it over, repainted it, and they now used as an exhibition locomotive.

00:38:20:22 - 00:38:21:26 Hal Riegger: Is it operable?

00:38:21:26 - 00:38:29:04 Bill Clem: No, no, no street runs. But for a long time it was sitting on Pasco run banks, I believe.

00:38:29:06 - 00:38:38:03 Hal Riegger: When was that that that was taken out of those first.

00:38:38:06 - 00:38:47:22 Bill Clem: Well, it had to be before

00:38:47:24 - 00:38:49:19 Bill Clem: Let’s say the early 50s.

00:38:49:22 - 00:38:50:25 Hal Riegger: Early 50s.

00:38:50:27 - 00:38:52:06 Bill Clem: Early 1950s.

00:38:52:09 - 00:38:59:26 Hal Riegger: And herb was in charge of that whole thing started. Yes. Yeah.

00:38:59:28 - 00:39:19:03 Bill Clem: There again, I have cold sled, the six, 84 and hundred one sitting beside the big Valley locomotive, but should look like a little thing. I could tell you that. No. No maintenance. Right. I can tell it now. I guess,

00:39:19:05 - 00:39:26:26 Bill Clem: The those first railroad finally got a hold of. I believe they were all Plymouth locomotives. the Plymouth diesel engines.

00:39:26:29 - 00:39:33:19 Hal Riegger: You know, the ones that I have now. You mean before them? No no no no no no, they were all Plymouth. These are GS now, aren’t they?

00:39:33:26 - 00:39:36:23 Bill Clem: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Yeah, they got a.

00:39:36:24 - 00:39:39:17 Hal Riegger: Pretty. It’s worth. Yeah I’ve seen a picture of those.

00:39:39:17 - 00:40:05:10 Bill Clem: They were kind of looked like a I just turned to thing. They had the. You know I get those are steam engines. Unbelievable. Anyway the two of them. Yeah I guess I, I’m, I’m sure I, I don’t I won’t say no. It’s funny, I can’t remember this, but we haven’t delivered on the canvas. Pretty on the mountain going down.

00:40:05:10 - 00:40:17:27 Bill Clem: I guess it was. And they had to they sent over to this first railroad, got their two engines and they came down and pulled the train. On the train back for us to, up the mountain.

00:40:17:29 - 00:40:20:03 Hal Riegger: Because you didn’t have any model power on the other.

00:40:20:03 - 00:40:30:15 Bill Clem: Side. We didn’t have anything up there. but they brought locomotives over. But they were not multiple controlled.

00:40:30:18 - 00:40:33:28 Bill Clem: That’s what I think they were diesel. I can’t I just can’t quite remember.

00:40:34:00 - 00:40:46:00 Hal Riegger: Well, they did have a, I’ve seen pictures of them before. They got these GE center cab things. They had some of that little cab one I in the motor. yeah. They were kind of funny looking.

00:40:46:02 - 00:41:08:29 Bill Clem: Right. Well, this guy, he worked hard to throttle open. He wa he tied the file open on one and ran back. Got on the other one that I. I’ll tell you, he was kind of set up. He had ropes and strings and everything else. Wire running from one of the other tried to control the the throttle on C, but it was kind of it was it was quite a set.

00:41:09:00 - 00:41:10:12 Hal Riegger: I did the job all right.

00:41:10:15 - 00:41:14:28 Bill Clem: They finally got it up there. They didn’t think a few cars at the time, but they got it up.

00:41:15:01 - 00:41:17:06 Hal Riegger: Yeah, yeah.

00:41:17:09 - 00:41:23:10 Bill Clem: Mainly I think they’ve helped it several times on various derailments, minor and other ones.

00:41:23:10 - 00:41:30:23 Hal Riegger: Well, the motto on that is always keep some motor power on the upper up hand side. There.

00:41:30:26 - 00:41:36:02 Bill Clem: I probably never could get enough power to, run what we had. Hardly.

00:41:36:09 - 00:41:42:11 Hal Riegger: Is he operating again, though, you know. But he got all those box rail box cars off.

00:41:42:17 - 00:41:51:08 Bill Clem: I, I, I don’t know that, I guess. Yeah, I know he had him on there for a long time, and he got into quite a fight.

00:41:51:11 - 00:41:55:21 Hal Riegger: Well, I heard he got pretty good rent out of that.

00:41:55:23 - 00:42:07:10 Bill Clem: Oh yes. But the trouble is he was trying to bet on the line. And so ICC says it must not be wrong with the line. You get cars. But they were in quite an argument.

00:42:07:17 - 00:42:14:21 Hal Riegger: Sort of like, you know, if you’re listed as a common carrier, you better start carrying on. Yeah.

00:42:14:24 - 00:42:16:03 Bill Clem: Yeah. We,

00:42:16:05 - 00:42:24:18 Hal Riegger: How long is Joe Lux on the.

00:42:24:21 - 00:42:44:13 Bill Clem: Oh, there’s two of these already, though. This is this is got some of the local people in there, Did you get anything from the local paper? on the. More than that, they’ve got a story. And then this person later on here. Well, but but, I think,

00:42:44:15 - 00:42:50:01 Bill Clem: It was a late 50s, I think early 60s. I, I was gone.

00:42:50:07 - 00:42:52:11 Hal Riegger: Is he a very approachable man or.

00:42:52:17 - 00:42:55:16 Bill Clem: He’s a heck of a guy. He’s a heck of a nice guy.

00:42:55:19 - 00:42:58:28 Hal Riegger: He was. I want to go see you. I want to get a hold of him if I can.

00:42:58:28 - 00:43:00:13 Bill Clem: Oh, he’s a heck of a nice guy.

00:43:00:15 - 00:43:01:22 Hal Riegger: Go ahead.

00:43:01:24 - 00:43:06:09 Bill Clem: Actually, quite often. We’ll always go time working for you. He’s a millionaire.

00:43:06:15 - 00:43:11:06 Hal Riegger: Rancher. Well, I heard that. Yeah, well, I lives up in this part of.

00:43:11:11 - 00:43:29:15 Bill Clem: Yeah. In fact, when you go from Vermont. Craig. My goodness. First when you go up that way. But when you get up. Call just before you turn to go. Do south in those first morning, too. Big brother.

00:43:29:17 - 00:43:33:03 Hal Riegger: Heavier you.

00:43:33:05 - 00:43:37:02 Hal Riegger: Know, I’ve just been there once. I’m trying to remember. Yeah, I guess I know.

00:43:37:09 - 00:43:53:11 Bill Clem: He has purchased one road. Go straight ahead towards cameo and the other road turns left. Goes towards Craig. Yeah. Right there where that junction is, is where is. Big ranch is.

00:43:53:13 - 00:43:58:24 Hal Riegger: What’s your feeling about the CPA? Did did you enjoy it do like it is a railroad company, you know.

00:43:59:01 - 00:44:21:09 Bill Clem: Hey you bet. I am tickled to death to be able to back down here. a lot of work because I was alone. That was the hardest part of the all alone. No, really. I have very good. I couldn’t ask for a better, manager to work for, and but, so many of them in.

00:44:21:10 - 00:44:21:29 Hal Riegger: In Hollywood.

00:44:22:05 - 00:44:28:29 Bill Clem: Right now could have been anyone else. well, probably I would have asked to get out of here a long time ago, but.

00:44:29:05 - 00:44:30:02 Hal Riegger: Really.

00:44:30:04 - 00:44:44:21 Bill Clem: Was, as I go along with John, we have a he was a good man to work for. And, you know, well, need to be able to stay as long as I did.

00:44:44:24 - 00:45:02:16 Hal Riegger: Where everybody says, the cameras. Prayer is a unique railroad because it’s owned by two companies, two railroad companies in Europe. And opinion, what are the things that make it unique where you actually run across this valley business into the railroad?

00:45:02:22 - 00:45:16:17 Bill Clem: Well, for instance, let’s go into the traffic aspects aspect of it, marketing in traffic. you had a union Pacific agent down here. You had a bird know name on there for MP.

00:45:16:20 - 00:45:18:17 Hal Riegger: And, yeah.

00:45:18:19 - 00:45:46:08 Bill Clem: And each of them, of course, is driving to secure just for his own room. Then you also had the Cambridge Bridge down here at the county free agent, as well as all of the officers on the campus. Prairie had to be absolutely impartial. And consequently became a free agent. He was out there trying to get business. All he wanted was railroad.

00:45:46:11 - 00:46:06:02 Bill Clem: Yeah, he but he couldn’t say ship or ship B and that was up there, the two agents. And so in a way it’s kind of funny right there because here you had three agents, one of them was that they were give you the other two a business from your own railroad. But, and it was on a book.

00:46:06:04 - 00:46:32:06 Bill Clem: The rebels were divided on a per mile basis anyway, as far as that goes. but, even the agents on the line, for instance, to go look for agents, had built the stations. They would say, they’d have to ask the shipper how they wanted to go. You know, which way they could not say ship or ship them.

00:46:32:06 - 00:47:06:18 Bill Clem: They couldn’t do it. They were prohibited also from showing any partiality as far as, which railroad them ship apart and, You’d be, on the locals of Greenville or Kamini, wherever you want. You had to separate your your cars. You had them keep your cars one block and you, you cars another block. And some cars would go in empty cars would go down river to pass, go through a period.

00:47:06:25 - 00:47:31:09 Bill Clem: Others go to Spokane. You pick three actually had three separate blocks. Who? That who? That tree on the impound lot was used to line them up. Well, then they got to where the well then. And this yard did all the segregation as far as switching the cars off in separate blocks were the direction in which you were going to go.

00:47:31:11 - 00:47:36:13 Hal Riegger: Did you find an actual practice that was real impartiality or.

00:47:36:15 - 00:47:47:27 Bill Clem: Or was it Mr.. Or would it just department and there was there was just no way they would not condone. Whatever.

00:47:48:00 - 00:47:50:01 Hal Riegger: It’s a tricky situation.

00:47:50:03 - 00:48:17:14 Bill Clem: Right? We come down here at the merger on the Great Northern side. And of course those guys, they never really been on the Greenville Branch, for instance. But is it? Oh well, we’ve handled trains on 3% between down into Nelson, British Columbia and that 3% grade in this I put up there since then and pay particular attention to the trackage.

00:48:17:20 - 00:48:19:22 Hal Riegger: Up up to Nelson in.

00:48:19:22 - 00:48:21:11 Bill Clem: The Nelson Beasley. Yeah, yeah.

00:48:21:11 - 00:48:22:13 Hal Riegger: Did you used to go up there.

00:48:22:14 - 00:48:26:02 Bill Clem: No, no, no, no I see I have been up there since then just to. Yeah.

00:48:26:05 - 00:48:30:06 Hal Riegger: Look that’s that’s probably some pretty familiar with now.

00:48:31:04 - 00:48:56:20 Bill Clem: but you know, one fellow, took him up there and as we went up the mountain and we went up the mountain, There’s about milepost 17 where you can look up and see the upper level track about the switchbacks. And he said, well, before that, I told him about this, this first railroad. Yeah, up on top, 40 mile railroad.

00:48:56:20 - 00:49:18:04 Bill Clem: They looked at things as that. And then this first rival that there. And I kind of gave him a load of baloney and, you know, all the top too. Well, the further up we went and finally done all of that, that’s what we were going year. And so anyway, he changed his mind in a hurry. And, he told me, you know, what to do with the I’ll make it.

00:49:18:06 - 00:49:40:00 Bill Clem: He’s the you’re going to be here to come down the mountain. Look behind you. When he saw the play, you know, you want somebody to ride with it. Oh, on this particular day, we had probably about 40 cars and two Jeep names. And I had warned him about stopping with the train bunched here again, we had retaining valves set on the cars.

00:49:40:03 - 00:49:44:04 Bill Clem: We stopped.

00:49:44:07 - 00:50:05:08 Bill Clem: And, he got off the locomotive. Just good. run the stretch. I don’t know about that time the retaining valve started letting it go and then bang, bang, bang, bang. Here goes the. And he’s down on the ground. Well, the engineer had run like heck to, get out of the locomotive to get the brakes out again.

00:50:05:13 - 00:50:09:15 Bill Clem: I was under I mean, I would dump myself.

00:50:09:17 - 00:50:10:09 Hal Riegger: And.

00:50:10:11 - 00:50:15:01 Bill Clem: I said, it’s no secret. Could have happened had you been a little, you know.

00:50:15:01 - 00:50:15:17 Hal Riegger: Right.

00:50:15:19 - 00:50:17:27 Bill Clem: We’ve been alone. You see what have happened there?

00:50:17:29 - 00:50:19:09 Hal Riegger: Yeah.

00:50:19:11 - 00:50:40:01 Bill Clem: A very unusual incident happened 1954, when they had to do a little gas electric cars that will go up and loose, as they call them. Yeah. We ran up to Greenville. No, one of the states. I had an engineer of breaking in on that, on that, gas electric car. You know, again, that was a simple matter. Yeah.

00:50:40:02 - 00:50:57:13 Bill Clem: I mean, it was something like a street car, you might say. Yeah. So we got to Reno, and, I had some business to take care of there, so I told my boss, stay there for him, go to stage, turn the engine on the way. They all ended with him was a conductor. He didn’t have any brakeman. And I was driving down the wide.

00:50:57:13 - 00:51:22:00 Bill Clem: And I’ll pick you up. You pick me up here or people coming back. So we were I mean, back in the original, the main crossing above the depot. No signals there, but I could hear it wasn’t for the crossing. I walked out, looked up there, and by that time a great big lumber truck with a full load of full trailer loaded lumber behind him stopped right across from the train.

00:51:22:02 - 00:51:46:19 Bill Clem: And, I said, oh my gosh. And next thing I could look up there and I could see the engineer jump up the window. That little gas electric car he pulled in slow down to 15 or 20 mile an hour, but he jumped and some. The truck got out of the way and truck crossed and the the gas electric car came down and they just stopped short of the people.

00:51:46:21 - 00:52:01:02 Bill Clem: And the conductor, he got off to his engineer signal. Go ahead, Seymour. And I says, Charlie has his your engineer back there. There he is, locking down the truck. And and that’s kind of funny, isn’t it?

00:52:01:02 - 00:52:02:19 Hal Riegger: They say, yeah.

00:52:02:23 - 00:52:05:01 Bill Clem: You know, over that.

00:52:06:17 - 00:52:09:10 Bill Clem: Yeah. But.

00:52:09:12 - 00:52:18:19 Hal Riegger: Oh, it’s those little gas electrics. they. When did they start to use those? Don’t. How long.

00:52:18:21 - 00:52:20:24 Bill Clem: Before I. Oh, yeah.

00:52:20:27 - 00:52:22:15 Hal Riegger: Then do they ever use our day?

00:52:22:15 - 00:52:32:24 Bill Clem: Sees none of that. the camera spray they use RDC Spokane analyst okay. RDC did come into Lewiston was strictly on the Northern Pacific side.

00:52:33:00 - 00:52:37:28 Hal Riegger: Yeah, okay.

00:52:38:00 - 00:52:59:03 Hal Riegger: Well, boom. yeah. I’ve been talking with Bill Clem and this is July 8th. I believe 8th or 9th of August. Thank you. Bill is train master and road Farm, and, was from the Camas Prairie Railroad.

00:52:59:06 - 00:53:12:20 Hal Riegger: The following is Harold Pond, retired engineer, the Camas Prairie Railroad.

00:53:12:22 - 00:53:16:29 Hal Riegger: Your yard. let me say this is this is Harold Pond.

00:53:16:29 - 00:53:17:17 Harold Pond: Yeah.

00:53:17:20 - 00:53:25:13 Hal Riegger: And you were an engineer, right? Okay. how long? How long have you worked with a chemist?

00:53:25:13 - 00:53:28:10 Bill Clem: Very well.

00:53:28:13 - 00:53:46:03 Harold Pond: I hire down on the railroad track 1928. Really? And I retired, and, on our dispatch circuit for, And we said, well, I’d be.

00:53:46:06 - 00:53:47:06 Hal Riegger: 11 years.

00:53:47:08 - 00:53:57:19 Harold Pond: Yeah. And born in 1905 and may.

00:53:57:21 - 00:54:24:20 Harold Pond: Long are you smoke these? these, Dutch banks for cigars? bank about three a day, then I got on up to about $0.25 apiece, and I told the wife, I said, I can’t stand it. So I finally put in, for about ten years ago. Is there anything else in there that,

00:54:24:23 - 00:54:28:05 Unknown Wanted that one picture of, the.

00:54:28:05 - 00:54:30:11 Harold Pond: Snow engine going through that.

00:54:30:13 - 00:54:37:24 Unknown Snow plow fire that the. Yeah. You sitting there looking at. Right.

00:54:37:26 - 00:54:39:27 Harold Pond: You’re not looking for pictures.

00:54:39:29 - 00:54:44:03 Hal Riegger: Did you work, on another railroad before you came to Canada?

00:54:44:03 - 00:55:05:09 Harold Pond: Sperry on the North Pacific. Northern Pacific. They were all non hired on and on. An Army Pacific where belonged to the Burlington Northern. And then these engine men down here, loaned the camera. Spare him I’d say a lot of them might come here and then.

00:55:05:12 - 00:55:08:24 Hal Riegger: Maybe there were Union Pacific engineer to you.

00:55:08:25 - 00:55:15:17 Harold Pond: Oh, yeah. But this is a joint operation down here. Yeah. Bill didn’t explain that. Well, I know.

00:55:15:17 - 00:55:23:20 Hal Riegger: All of us. Yeah, yeah, and know about that. Is this the one you did?

00:55:23:27 - 00:55:24:24 Harold Pond: Yeah.

00:55:24:27 - 00:55:26:13 Hal Riegger: Well, tell me about that.

00:55:26:15 - 00:55:50:07 Harold Pond: Well, we’re, hopping the high ball out of here. Going to Spokane. Yeah, and I was on the rear end rounding a curve up there, and. Yeah, I’m running for this. The other side of, arrow. Yeah. And, about 230, I guess, in the afternoon. And I noticed the pole gun went off sometime dropping down on the side.

00:55:50:15 - 00:56:13:25 Harold Pond: now the something goes wrong. So the tank was on the wrong, so the engine be next. So I just reached down, dynamited the train. You know what that is? No dynamite. The train. You let me hold it here on the train line. I tapped the brakes and I did that, and, I told the farm off or I start off down again.

00:56:13:25 - 00:56:40:14 Harold Pond: Why? And, he says are going. I come on, get out of here. And I jumped and, you know, he was almost too late, but he finally took after I did, and I jumped and sat down next to the rail. And the engine went along, probably for 150, 100, 100ft. And it just stopped. Well, I don’t sit there.

00:56:40:21 - 00:56:46:24 Harold Pond: And I figured, stop it, just lay down on it side. never. Song. Is there an organ.

00:56:46:26 - 00:56:48:25 Hal Riegger: That caused that, you know?

00:56:49:08 - 00:57:17:25 Harold Pond: no. The, tank wheels got on the ground somehow. no way. I’m not saying, several bouncing, after it was on the ground rather than bouncing on along the track. Yeah. and, but I see that was going on. I knew the engine be next to go, so I had the dynamite get off and and on the funny side to see that was very dire.

00:57:17:25 - 00:57:43:27 Harold Pond: I like this and lay over and the darn wheels started working. You could see the whole world turning. it didn’t bother me at all while I was standing there watching it. Or. Listen, some people uncomfortable, That, the one themselves. what do you suppose your mind would think then? I got scared.

00:57:46:28 - 00:57:52:04 Hal Riegger: well, that was let’s see. That’s, 1948. Yeah.

00:57:52:04 - 00:57:52:24 Harold Pond: Okay.

00:57:52:26 - 00:57:54:05 Hal Riegger: And you were a pusher that.

00:57:54:05 - 00:57:56:27 Harold Pond: Yeah. Showing that right.

00:57:56:29 - 00:57:59:06 Hal Riegger: There would be a caboose behind you.

00:57:59:07 - 00:58:09:00 Harold Pond: Yeah, or at the foot of the boxcar or up here, a caboose. And I was down here shut behind the behind everything.

00:58:09:02 - 00:58:12:29 Hal Riegger: Yeah. And you would, where would you cut off?

00:58:13:01 - 00:58:29:12 Harold Pond: Around how? Up the top of the hill. How long? Yeah, left on top of the grade. Yeah, just this side of Moscow. Once in a while. We’re going to Moscow on the next grab. We’re trying, but usually cut off there. And how? And come back.

00:58:29:14 - 00:58:35:23 Hal Riegger: Is that where the, highway crosses over the track? No.

00:58:35:26 - 00:58:41:01 Harold Pond: There. I haven’t been up there for so long. I found out.

00:58:41:04 - 00:58:43:14 Hal Riegger: The train tried Moscow. Yeah.

00:58:43:17 - 00:58:45:01 Harold Pond: Yeah.

00:58:45:03 - 00:58:51:01 Harold Pond: You didn’t. You got little information on Mac and this one. Man, that driving trailer,

00:58:51:03 - 00:58:55:28 Hal Riegger: You know what this different situation is this year?

00:58:56:00 - 00:59:16:11 Harold Pond: The picture. Yeah. Yeah. I was up there between, between, Cottonwood and Granger. Actually, we own farm about three miles outside of Granger. Yeah. That’s okay. I got one winter, I don’t remember. Oh, here.

00:59:16:11 - 00:59:19:06 Hal Riegger: Here’s the same thing. Yeah, 1940.

00:59:19:06 - 00:59:24:28 Harold Pond:

1. First up. yeah, I know.

00:59:25:00 - 00:59:26:12 Harold Pond: You know, all the snow was.

00:59:26:15 - 00:59:32:18 Hal Riegger: What, what locomotive were you running here on this, when this struck.

00:59:32:21 - 00:59:33:25 Harold Pond: A northern Pacific?

00:59:33:26 - 00:59:41:19 Hal Riegger: Yeah, the know type. we have arrangement. Yeah. Well,

00:59:41:21 - 00:59:45:05 Harold Pond: And, two four, two.

00:59:45:07 - 00:59:46:03 Hal Riegger: One cargo.

00:59:46:22 - 00:59:47:27 Harold Pond: just a logical.

00:59:48:03 - 00:59:57:06 Hal Riegger: MacArthur. mountain.

00:59:57:09 - 00:59:58:16 Hal Riegger: One of the WAC.

00:59:58:16 - 01:00:04:29 Harold Pond: Yeah, yeah, I know the w w w w the one I thought that.

01:00:04:29 - 01:00:05:22 Hal Riegger: Was another.

01:00:05:22 - 01:00:11:12 Harold Pond: One. Yeah.

01:00:11:15 - 01:00:19:12 Harold Pond: And, this was,

01:00:19:14 - 01:00:29:13 Harold Pond: I know that’s Union Pacific, and then we had half the big engines here and half empty.

01:00:29:15 - 01:00:35:11 Hal Riegger: Oh, now, if you were going out to, Moscow, wouldn’t you be using. And then the engine.

01:00:35:21 - 01:00:58:14 Harold Pond: supposed to. Yes, but they’re all available. Big engines. they need an engine bag. They’ll tell you, but they have to have permission from an omnibus to use the same grand going down here from loaded in a carrier. Okay, normally they run an engine, but they’re not supposed to without authority from the opposite company.

01:00:58:16 - 01:00:59:15 Hal Riegger: Way back in Saint.

01:00:59:15 - 01:01:21:19 Harold Pond: Palomino, Omaha. Yeah. Yeah. Get on a wire and go back. But, you know, one year they buying the northern priest. We don’t have. It’s all a revenue loss. There’s an entire division. Yeah, I’m here the next year, the Union Pacific and just rotate, like, oh.

01:01:21:19 - 01:01:23:04 Hal Riegger: That’s the way they work. Yeah.

01:01:23:07 - 01:01:34:11 Harold Pond: The handout agreement. When I first came in here, the, Union Pacific was in here first. Bill didn’t go the other day. The year.

01:01:34:14 - 01:01:36:02 Hal Riegger: Well, I didn’t ask him that.

01:01:36:07 - 01:02:07:14 Harold Pond: But I 90 1902. What do you think? The man here and then went on to, or on the range bill. You pay one hour and the, and the man do, Kendrick and, you’re later. And couldn’t that come down to Arnold? Yeah. Then they saw the revenue. The deal was getting out of here. So they decided to build a road when?

01:02:07:17 - 01:02:22:09 Harold Pond: From there, went do, studies. Yeah. Then they got together and formed this Camas Prairie one company take the revenue one year. Just rolled it.

01:02:22:22 - 01:02:23:25 Bill Clem: I didn’t realize you.

01:02:23:25 - 01:02:33:24 Hal Riegger: Be gone up there in a grange. Yeah. Yeah. And then. And paid the other. Yeah. to headquarters and up to state.

01:02:33:26 - 01:03:06:09 Harold Pond: Yeah, yeah. Well done. Well, I’m just leaving you there. do you build in there and the Grange? Well, yeah. they and he made some some arrangements. You take over the money, I say, in return, they gave them the, the track from last under a period. I set up. And couldn’t go down there. Or do you know, up there.

01:03:06:12 - 01:03:07:28 Hal Riegger: Okay. Yeah.

01:03:08:00 - 01:03:11:08 Harold Pond: I think that might come through here. Yeah, yeah.

01:03:11:10 - 01:03:15:25 Hal Riegger: Yeah. Costs from here down to repair is new territory.

01:03:15:25 - 01:03:21:05 Unknown Yeah, yeah.

01:03:21:08 - 01:03:27:11 Hal Riegger: Did you go up to headquarters and started some song?

01:03:27:14 - 01:03:39:25 Harold Pond: There’s a beautiful red dirt road on a log, going out of water, you know, you know, up to headquarters, only about 40 miles out there. But it’s about 15 hour job.

01:03:39:28 - 01:03:40:18 Hal Riegger: You 15?

01:03:40:18 - 01:04:07:19 Harold Pond: Oh, yeah. The bargain basement long ago. Okay. All right. Way home. I liked the money, so I. I happened. I, and, we all lived. There are people 90%. I was with a and a Roman house. oh. Mason, Jensen’s rolling out. You kept all the railroad men. 90% of all but the train, man. All bugger them.

01:04:07:19 - 01:04:30:09 Harold Pond: Sleep in my caboose. Didn’t want the queen bed, but we all stand over there and with her, and we found out that she was saving silver dollars up. So at the end of the week, why, we’d all pay her off in silver dollars. we’d like to have starved her to death. Yeah, we found out what was going on.

01:04:30:11 - 01:04:35:01 Harold Pond: But anyhow, you get out of there in the morning, probably 80.

01:04:35:04 - 01:04:41:12 Unknown Oh, I was on.

01:04:41:15 - 01:05:07:00 Harold Pond: I would say, if I remember correctly, 80 cars. Oh. But with a hand and engine on the front and the hopper on the back. And, we go up a road on 15 miles head and we take water, I believe. Shove on ahead and rear Albert, take water, the engineer and all around isn’t isn’t about 50 and managed to take off.

01:05:07:03 - 01:05:19:13 Harold Pond: But other monitor you can mount up the old mill and it’s for John. We get upstream for cars and lumber probably about every other day. Then you’d go on up to headquarters.

01:05:19:14 - 01:05:22:03 Hal Riegger: Are you crying out? Yeah. You were take the emptied.

01:05:22:04 - 01:05:48:08 Harold Pond: Yeah, yeah. And they had gone up to, the off the bank on JP. I used to work around there sometimes it set on a dozen empties used at the JP miller. Then we’d go on over to headquarters and back our train and to headquarters on a long track up there and cut off our engines and go down the main track.

01:05:48:08 - 01:06:12:19 Harold Pond: The morning car, or we. The company paid for a cook and the hardware and paid for our home windows. But this Roman used to have pretty nice windows there. So we go in there and sit around, probably take 45 minutes where we only supposed that wanted, but we do that. Do you think about the word.

01:06:12:21 - 01:06:14:18 Hal Riegger: Was there Wired headquarters?

01:06:14:18 - 01:06:23:01 Harold Pond: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Then, we’ll come up the hill.

01:06:23:03 - 01:06:30:19 Harold Pond: I think about 15 coming over long. It was a landmark for two hours when we found 15 cars.

01:06:30:21 - 01:06:32:04 Hal Riegger: But you took a hundred.

01:06:32:12 - 01:06:33:12 Harold Pond: empties empty.

01:06:33:12 - 01:06:35:05 Hal Riegger: And I know. Yeah, yeah.

01:06:35:08 - 01:06:41:23 Harold Pond: Yeah, this was a great. Don’t mean out of headquarters. Yeah. Property one I was saying. Yeah.

01:06:41:23 - 01:06:47:20 Unknown The summit then,

01:06:47:22 - 01:07:11:24 Harold Pond: Then we’d set out to sponsor someone and go back and. Good. Yeah. Another Monte or whatever it was, and bring those up and follow them together there at the summit. come on down. Start. They do not blow all the way down. All right. It was supposed to be an 85 cars down the hill. I came down there on time on 87.

01:07:11:24 - 01:07:15:26 Harold Pond: I didn’t know I had that my. But we got power on it.

01:07:15:28 - 01:07:22:27 Hal Riegger: What could have been the problem there? What could have been a problem?

01:07:23:00 - 01:07:32:25 Harold Pond: Train line too long. Broken two or something? Too much way.

01:07:32:27 - 01:07:34:10 Harold Pond: Then pulling it. What about.

01:07:35:00 - 01:07:37:08 Hal Riegger: brake pressure? Air pressure in the bottom.

01:07:37:10 - 01:07:39:24 Harold Pond: 90 pound air pressure. I mean, but the been.

01:07:39:26 - 01:07:41:21 Hal Riegger: Problem getting that up with a train.

01:07:41:27 - 01:08:04:22 Harold Pond: Yeah, I suppose you’d have to watch you just get your double pump on the engine. Whenever you draw down so much air, you can’t hold it too long. You gotta reverse it to rebuild it so that every your main line pressure went below 40 pounds. You wouldn’t be able to work your brakes. You got way on. Yeah.

01:08:04:24 - 01:08:27:17 Harold Pond: And one that you have a full pressure. 90 pounds on the hill on a planet at 70 pounds. Yeah. But if 90 pounds, and the drain line ever broke and stopped, that’s all. There. Up you set your brakes up. Yeah, but then after you got a good presence at handbrake to heal up my Brawley. no, I’m not on.

01:08:27:17 - 01:08:59:28 Harold Pond: I want my neighbor. I was right here on this side of, right this side of Old Mill. I had a farm on fire. And call me older man. And I was working down there and. A drawbar fell between the cars and broke the hairline. So I told you about an 1800 inches stall or two. I said yard dashes.

01:08:59:28 - 01:09:21:08 Harold Pond: I hate asking, but can you go back in seven and broken fuzes? And there, when she climbed over the side about three Handbrakes breaks back up. He says, I can’t go any farther. There’s a bridge back there. So I did the to the engine. Yeah. What steam and shoved it against the hole. And by that time, was there a probably circuit manager?

01:09:22:18 - 01:09:38:12 Harold Pond: Franklin locked up of mine and helped us out find a couple of. But that’s the stuff you have to look out for, All right, go down there. Hold on a break. drop it up. Drawbar.

01:09:38:14 - 01:09:39:01 Bill Clem: How could you.

01:09:39:01 - 01:09:40:03 Hal Riegger: Drop a German bar?

01:09:40:09 - 01:09:52:03 Harold Pond: I guess I can’t find a rock that just fall down. not very often that happened in this case. I did.

01:09:52:05 - 01:09:57:24 Hal Riegger: Well, you, you said you would take 15 cars up to summit from.

01:09:58:02 - 01:09:58:26 Harold Pond: big,

01:09:58:28 - 01:10:03:15 Hal Riegger: Headquarters and then go back and pick up 20 more of that is that what you called doubling the.

01:10:03:15 - 01:10:15:05 Harold Pond: Hell? Yeah. I don’t want to go. Yeah, well, I believe, I don’t remember, but I kind of think about 17 that because out there with the two engines.

01:10:15:07 - 01:10:21:10 Hal Riegger: How long, how many cars would your, signing hold there at, some.

01:10:21:12 - 01:10:49:01 Harold Pond: 40 car Florida? 40 for the Army truck? probably. Probably 20. Yeah, but we did put 20 in there. I guess I’m down to triple the hell. but yeah, when they built up at headquarters with about two groups of probably didn’t put 40 in there and then about for the third trip, I’d pick it up and buy them all in there and pull them all out.

01:10:49:03 - 01:10:56:21 Harold Pond: And they dropped the caboose down on the back and it for probably 60 cars.

01:10:56:23 - 01:11:04:21 Harold Pond: You don’t want to up there. They were loading if we ever got there.

01:11:04:24 - 01:11:09:07 Hal Riegger: Once last year just briefly going up this week ago.

01:11:10:18 - 01:11:40:23 Harold Pond: once or a few years ago before we got basins that we before 54, probably 52 or 3. They were loading some lumberjacks or loading a car poles on that passed track up there the summer and there look nice little break going out of there. So they wanted to move this car ahead at about two third loaded and they didn’t have to work the handbrake or something.

01:11:40:25 - 01:12:04:12 Harold Pond: But anyhow they started going again. You know, at that time both of went a stream regrouping on down headed down on the big girl that down there to boards. You could probably go home, work for two. There’s a break going over a car coming from here. But anyhow, going down there and a jump to track here on a curve.

01:12:04:15 - 01:12:34:04 Harold Pond: Everything car and just cleared the track. Nice little. Oh, and, heard freight was coming up probably an hour away. Coming up to get that. They had to get a mat on matching gear. Sometime second, they, they did call. I cab tried, they did call. And there’s an output room and, only spurred about three miles an hour.

01:12:34:04 - 01:12:46:17 Harold Pond: Jumped the track. But anyhow, they ordered them to get out and try to track the railroad. So they didn’t, a lot of luck would have it. They’d get that far down.

01:12:46:19 - 01:13:09:14 Hal Riegger: Oh, boy. When you think back on, on your stint with Camas Prairie, are there any outstanding events that you think of, particularly when you think of the railroad? In your experience, what comes to mind first and, and in particular thing.

01:13:09:16 - 01:13:41:09 Harold Pond: Stands out only one night on a night logger. We couldn’t hear it on our panel. We get out of here eight, nine, 10:00 at night, sometimes 7:00, and, usually have about 80 on a car behind us. And, go on a must have been about 11, 11:00. Yeah. At night. Snowing pretty bad. Yeah. And I knew every curve and every rock around a already.

01:13:41:12 - 01:14:03:09 Harold Pond: I always looked on the special curves over a little road, and there’s a kind of a cliff on the left hand side where a lot of rocks come down, and sometimes a small jump. But. But the other night I got a little bit tired. I just turned it over to Bob before we made this curve. And I go on, Bob, you take a profile.

01:14:03:11 - 01:14:07:26 Hal Riegger: With this, with the steam, or this.

01:14:07:29 - 01:14:08:23 Harold Pond: Is. Yeah.

01:14:08:26 - 01:14:12:12 Hal Riegger: There’s this line of 1702 that went over the bank.

01:14:12:12 - 01:14:34:24 Harold Pond: Oh, yeah. Oh 719. Oh, I don’t like to say I’m wrong, but, look at this. Looks, I and you take your boss and I just sat down and looked out through the front window, start the beat Hill. And I saw a shadow and I little right. I knew something was wrong. That’s a bomb. Dynamite or logger.

01:14:34:26 - 01:14:58:19 Harold Pond: We did. And we stopped and prayed. And about as far as from here to that door, from a nice big rock the size of this table, laid right in the middle of the track. And just like a wedge folded down this way, and we come on our our speed. And if that we’re gonna to burn the car. I just kind of shadow promptly upon turning it down a bit.

01:14:58:22 - 01:15:12:02 Harold Pond: You get the feeling that things. Yeah. You know, when you run these engines, you’re ruining the power of dealer. You run through your rear end, and. And it’s hard to explain.

01:15:12:05 - 01:15:18:19 Hal Riegger: Yeah, I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah, that’s nothing that’s in the book. You just have to.

01:15:18:23 - 01:15:20:12 Harold Pond: Yeah.

01:15:20:28 - 01:15:21:10 Hal Riegger: right.

01:15:22:04 - 01:15:46:10 Harold Pond: another that I would. I was firing before I shot up running. You know, I was firing a while ago. That would give her a hell of a fine little small German on that you get along well with. And a small train. That’s not it. And the water was in the spring of the year. The water was running high and we went over a little bridge.

01:15:46:13 - 01:16:14:06 Harold Pond: You ever forget it? Right beside land on our land and up there and then. I’m not right now. About halfway between Akron, Auburn got it about milepost 1314 on Highline. Okay. Yeah. But anyhow, we went over that this bridge. Right. And cats and dogs. And I was standing on one side leaning this, and this was a campfire.

01:16:14:09 - 01:16:39:01 Harold Pond: And I just found that leaning over the seat box like this and the rest. And for a minute I felt one sided and dropped down. Yeah. The so far I thought about it, bill, I said, before we go back over that, right. I said, let’s get the section out and inspect the issues are on it and what trouble, I says.

01:16:39:01 - 01:17:01:04 Harold Pond: I felt an engine go down. I said, did you think? And they said, no. I said, I’m gonna have 11 inspected before we go over. So the next morning when we got down, one over here is a big red flag right in the middle of the track, coming up on the red shoes and washed up. we were there 29 hours and paramount mistake.

01:17:01:05 - 01:17:16:07 Harold Pond: And it was over Christmas. Good. Our first year. I don’t think we started,

01:17:16:09 - 01:17:20:02 Hal Riegger: Did you, did you like working for Ziggy?

01:17:20:04 - 01:17:29:24 Harold Pond: Very much? Yeah. could have gone back to Spokane, but, No. I’m here. We didn’t have any of these red lights or semaphores or command, but just.

01:17:29:27 - 01:17:31:22 Hal Riegger: Tell trainer I have a dog.

01:17:31:27 - 01:17:50:28 Harold Pond: Trainer. Bird was a good. No long run involved. mostly they like, and. But I am just tired. I’m not seniority. No, I’m. Good night. Job. So I I’ve done at night logger.

01:17:51:00 - 01:17:54:06 Hal Riegger: Okay. Did you do any, yard switching?

01:17:54:08 - 01:17:55:06 Harold Pond: A lot of them.

01:17:55:08 - 01:18:02:20 Hal Riegger: But I don’t know anything about that. what’s sort of involved there. And they.

01:18:02:22 - 01:18:24:22 Harold Pond: We put our on a farm. Now, I’m going to tell you a little story about this night logger, aka Bellefleur and the morning just about this time of the year. been on the. Yeah, I did about 15 hours, and I pulled this guy in the morning. I pulled into the yard there, and for all I know, the stop for the switch.

01:18:26:02 - 01:18:48:19 Harold Pond: shortly after the break, one through the switch and I came on and, I fell asleep, on my right hand side there, just dragging the logs. And there, if I hadn’t walked up, I’ve gone through and hit that during the logs. But the luck would have. I just woke up in time to get myself my bed time.

01:18:48:21 - 01:18:56:01 Harold Pond: Slow down or stop for that switch. It was going. I never left and after that, on the job.

01:18:56:03 - 01:18:57:18 Hal Riegger: I just never.

01:18:57:18 - 01:18:58:09 Harold Pond: Won.

01:18:58:12 - 01:18:58:28 Hal Riegger: The state.

01:18:58:28 - 01:18:59:20 Harold Pond: One damn.

01:18:59:20 - 01:19:00:02 Hal Riegger: Time.

01:19:00:06 - 01:19:16:22 Harold Pond: I just got close. I got a sled name on it, logs and killed myself. And. But anyhow, you ask about switching day or switching. I had a pretty decent job.

01:19:16:24 - 01:19:18:28 Hal Riegger: That’s always daytime or is at night.

01:19:18:28 - 01:19:48:24 Harold Pond: So in the morning, eight hours a day. I was lucky I had the 7030 switch, and I’m down here for 2 or 3 years and, I’d get home around 230 in the afternoon and all it and very nice. Never go out in town. You carry your lunch and home same bed, everything. And, usually have a pretty good bunch going around.

01:19:48:26 - 01:20:16:05 Harold Pond: You have the same rules. One time on our first one, switching, on the northern circuit, Mark water, had met Market Lawn about a month, and the compounded engineer, Bill Johnson, says. Good. He says, do you want to try this? All right, all right. So I got all the local small coal coal burn, a little smaller yard.

01:20:16:05 - 01:20:34:14 Harold Pond: And I got over there, took the second to the switch and get me inside the pickup. I figured I was picking next morning, the switch when it came out. You should hear this is where you run. I don’t get nothing. yeah, he says for a price. That one. I give you a son to kick him there, he says.

01:20:34:14 - 01:20:35:28 Harold Pond: Careful.

01:20:36:01 - 01:20:38:15 Hal Riegger: You mean, what do you mean, kick?

01:20:38:15 - 01:20:45:19 Harold Pond: Right on wide on it. Then I cut the car off from the car. I’m sorry, coach. yeah. And friendly.

01:20:45:22 - 01:20:46:21 Hal Riegger: You were too gentle.

01:20:46:21 - 01:21:08:09 Harold Pond: And so when he told me that, I thought, well, we’re doing a whole bunch of my, my responsibility. I might have cut it off. And his baby. So the next night when I get back in time, I let them have. That’s all it was. I was,

01:21:09:00 - 01:21:10:29 Harold Pond: yeah.

01:21:13:03 - 01:21:26:08 Hal Riegger: where? The trains, I suppose they were much longer. And you have many more cars to work with when you were engineer than now. Is that it?

01:21:26:10 - 01:21:38:12 Harold Pond: Yeah, business as well. I’m about 60, 75% it. Good. Oh, yeah. You ought to walk out there and see that roundhouse. Now, have you ever been out there?

01:21:38:14 - 01:21:44:26 Hal Riegger: I haven’t been into the roundhouse. I’ve just been out there. I’m going to be around there some more.

01:21:44:28 - 01:21:52:20 Harold Pond: But, a few four years ago.

01:21:52:22 - 01:22:15:28 Harold Pond: I don’t know, but it seemed like they had the personnel out there of about, 150 and the car department and the roundhouse, officers are banks around on was farm or the following. The park, is tops, but it’s got long. Just like a vegetable.

01:22:16:20 - 01:22:18:00 Hal Riegger: who’s that.

01:22:18:02 - 01:22:21:19 Harold Pond: Big roundhouse farm on out here? Banks.

01:22:21:21 - 01:22:25:04 Hal Riegger: Oh, yeah. I met her boss. Sarah.

01:22:25:06 - 01:22:27:09 Harold Pond: Put Tom?

01:22:27:12 - 01:22:28:16 Hal Riegger: Yeah, some.

01:22:28:19 - 01:22:33:14 Harold Pond: Yeah, some. It would be a principle man if we had all these bananas.

01:22:33:14 - 01:22:36:03 Hal Riegger: He gave me some photographs. He had?

01:22:36:03 - 01:22:36:20 Harold Pond: Yeah.

01:22:36:23 - 01:22:54:14 Hal Riegger: Yeah. He’s down in Pasco now. Oh yeah. You know, I had a letter from him her banks. Yeah yeah. His wife was not well. And he moved to Pasco because he said the climate was better. And then they have relatives there.

01:22:54:16 - 01:22:56:12 Harold Pond: I never knew that.

01:22:56:15 - 01:23:01:19 Hal Riegger: Yeah I don’t know when. But sometimes since last summer he moved there.

01:23:01:21 - 01:23:02:27 Harold Pond: I never knew that.

01:23:03:03 - 01:23:07:09 Hal Riegger: Yeah. Yeah I could find the letter. I may.

01:23:07:17 - 01:23:10:17 Harold Pond: it doesn’t matter, but he was a hell of a fine pilot.

01:23:10:19 - 01:23:12:27 Hal Riegger: I heard everybody says so.

01:23:12:28 - 01:23:37:20 Harold Pond: I know that there is a guy that instructed me on this, there was a dog of ours. Yeah, and I went to Spokane. I was up there pregnant, and I drove down here. I didn’t know anything about it. Yeah. So, the examiner up there, I don’t know if you’re just trying to a catch on me or something, but you said all these, explain all you know about those in the air.

01:23:37:22 - 01:24:01:18 Harold Pond: I said, what do you want to know about it? He said, go ahead, darling. So I started it. I went all the way through. I would not cross from the past in the at anytime. I heard that, heard some others back. And I said, shut up, I run, I’m going in. So I’ll give banks credit for them.

01:24:01:18 - 01:24:01:27 Harold Pond: Yeah.

01:24:02:00 - 01:24:06:25 Hal Riegger: Well, everybody I’ve talked to just has a lot of praise for her.

01:24:06:25 - 01:24:35:02 Harold Pond: Banks, you wrote me, 2 or 3 years ago. Wrote me a letter. Yeah, just a personal letter that anyone to anybody would be proud to have would be able to show you. You know, I could I could talk to. One goodbye and look for that. But I don’t know the empire door. but I didn’t need anything like that, you know, just show my commands.

01:24:35:02 - 01:24:46:01 Harold Pond: Donna, I know when I was down here. Anything. What? Wrong on an engine? I go right in it. Yeah, I really enjoy it. In a wonderful power.

01:24:46:03 - 01:24:57:22 Hal Riegger: Well, you know, you asked. You said he was just a vegetable. No, I wouldn’t say that because he talked. I talked with him some last year, and, it seemed all right to me.

01:24:58:00 - 01:24:59:28 Harold Pond: good.

01:25:00:02 - 01:25:16:12 Hal Riegger: Well, he he would dwell on certain things sort of over and over again, but that’s, you know, when you get a little older, that happens anyway. But the letter he wrote me was just as clear. yeah. And that would be all. And last February, glad.

01:25:16:12 - 01:25:44:10 Harold Pond: To hear that. Yeah, there’s about a month ago, I heard that first time I’d been around for several years and and I don’t know better. I didn’t get through my story under 50 personnel out there but know they’ve but, three, two, two machinist on days at a farm I’m out there at. So I guess it just one machinist and the car department used to have a personnel.

01:25:44:10 - 01:25:52:04 Harold Pond: Possibly. Just guess it might be 3540 now. Now they’ve got all the time of six.

01:25:52:07 - 01:26:10:08 Hal Riegger: Well, look, Harold, in the days of steam, wouldn’t it have been necessary to have more people available to service steam locomotives than diesel? So just just the fact that the one is steam and one is diesel, neither.

01:26:10:10 - 01:26:12:08 Harold Pond: Guess that is correct. Yeah.

01:26:12:08 - 01:26:17:02 Hal Riegger: There’s some the driving personnel is not totally due to the best.

01:26:18:06 - 01:26:19:26 Harold Pond: 90%. What is.

01:26:19:29 - 01:26:20:19 Hal Riegger: 90%?

01:26:20:19 - 01:26:30:15 Harold Pond: Oh yeah. So in the okay. Yeah. You know, of steam engine, they used to, have a long number. Washer.

01:26:30:17 - 01:26:30:28 Hal Riegger: Yeah.

01:26:31:04 - 01:26:32:13 Harold Pond: Clean the bar or something.

01:26:32:15 - 01:26:32:25 Hal Riegger: Yeah.

01:26:32:29 - 01:26:46:03 Harold Pond: That run up and brush through those fluids, man. Then it seemed like it took more arm machinist to hand. But how it works. Yeah, that was hard work on the steam. And a long time, I guess.

01:26:46:05 - 01:26:57:06 Hal Riegger: I think I think that’s the reason why they went to reason. And if, if there was major work on this or whatnot, they set up to have there somewhere anyway. Yeah, yeah.

01:26:57:08 - 01:27:12:14 Harold Pond: I sat down here, on the Union Pacific. I guess you went to have their job there. I went someplace, I mean, do you see engines? Did? Yeah. Then they used to go to, Livingston. To where? Livingston, Montana.

01:27:12:15 - 01:27:13:04 Hal Riegger: Livingston?

01:27:13:08 - 01:27:38:13 Harold Pond: Yeah. Okay. Then I finally got Livingston. I don’t understand the, the common, now, I don’t know where to go, but then they have engine that bill art. But in the river. That’s everything. Okay. I I’m glad to hear you. Was up there for a year. Let me remind you. Nowhere. But I thought that was a good idea.

01:27:38:16 - 01:27:43:22 Harold Pond: Got that happened between Art and socket. Unpacked.

01:27:43:25 - 01:27:54:26 Hal Riegger: I’m not supposed to tell any of the people in the office down there, but, I rode the train up yesterday on 1702.

01:27:54:28 - 01:27:56:13 Harold Pond: Rode it out for two hour.

01:27:56:13 - 01:28:16:25 Hal Riegger: Up to, while I went as far as Ferdinand on that, very good young engineer on there, too, I will say. I thought he had, train. What’s his name? Jerry. Craig. Dave. No, no, he’s only been here about three years young.

01:28:16:27 - 01:28:22:16 Harold Pond: He was one of those fellows that went to that school to learn. Man, they broke man. Well, that’s good.

01:28:22:16 - 01:28:22:25 Hal Riegger: I don’t.

01:28:22:25 - 01:28:29:05 Harold Pond: Know, he had a fireman, you know, as far as, Bird man. Yeah. How did you come back?

01:28:29:07 - 01:28:39:28 Hal Riegger: Oh, by car. but he. I’ve never, frankly, I’ve ridden locomotives, but.

01:28:40:02 - 01:28:41:05 Harold Pond: Yeah. Yeah.

01:28:41:16 - 01:28:48:11 Hal Riegger: I’m not running the the handle that is Gen Z. There was just like you were working with the passenger train.

01:28:48:11 - 01:28:50:04 Harold Pond: That’s good. Yeah, I might a cars.

01:28:50:11 - 01:28:53:08 Hal Riegger: I’m all about 45.

01:28:53:14 - 01:28:58:04 Harold Pond:

1. Yeah, I’ve lived in business. Put them up, you know. Yeah.

01:28:58:06 - 01:28:59:20 Hal Riegger: They only run up once a week.

01:28:59:20 - 01:29:16:23 Harold Pond: I’d say a year not too long ago. A year ago or more. I last. I used to have probably weekly up there. Yeah. And before that it was still a problem. Yeah. But then I did cut her down to about two trips a winter.

01:29:16:29 - 01:29:17:18 Hal Riegger: Two trips.

01:29:17:18 - 01:29:20:23 Harold Pond: Now and one one. I’m glad to see that.

01:29:21:00 - 01:29:40:12 Hal Riegger: Well, these were, except for a couple of, lumber, finished lumber, whatever those things are called. Not the bulkhead flats. Well, I have a couple of those that had these with, invasion in the log in the mail. Yeah. but all the rest of them are grain hoppers on their work now.

01:29:40:13 - 01:29:47:01 Harold Pond: You went over that long canyon bridge and now go through that tunnel one.

01:29:47:03 - 01:29:48:23 Hal Riegger: Oh, I went all the way from.

01:29:49:01 - 01:29:50:01 Harold Pond: the one through town.

01:29:50:07 - 01:29:52:25 Hal Riegger: And I was like, why all the way up to first.

01:29:52:27 - 01:29:57:11 Harold Pond: Down through that, tumbled down one. Did you have to hold anything over your nose?

01:29:57:18 - 01:29:59:13 Hal Riegger: Which is that the harsh word?

01:29:59:16 - 01:30:00:29 Harold Pond: Yeah. The horseshoe tunnel.

01:30:01:01 - 01:30:15:29 Hal Riegger: Yeah, yeah, yeah I was well I this is what I was to, That was so loud. Yeah, yeah, I took a bunch of pictures on the way up there, but they’re not supposed to know that down there.

01:30:15:29 - 01:30:23:05 Harold Pond: Because they all know our diamonds are okay. Nobody knows. Now who who was the conductor?

01:30:25:04 - 01:30:28:28 Harold Pond: Dan Brooks. Oh, Danny Brooks.

01:30:29:01 - 01:30:41:19 Hal Riegger: No damn waves. Oh, no. Oh, he’s. Oh, he said he’s been here since about 1970, I don’t know.

01:30:41:21 - 01:30:53:15 Harold Pond: Oh, yeah. I retired the. 72, 72 the shorter Dan White. Yeah. I found him looking kind of.

01:30:53:17 - 01:31:13:19 Hal Riegger: Well, he had white hair, sort of reddish blond hair was long. I don’t know how to describe a nice looking man. His teeth were a little bit prominent. Hair? Yeah. I’d say in his early or mid 30s.

01:31:13:22 - 01:31:16:01 Harold Pond: Yeah.

01:31:16:04 - 01:31:25:22 Hal Riegger: I, he’s in the phone book here, and he’s, I would call. Well, no, probably not.

01:31:25:25 - 01:31:34:12 Hal Riegger: Even look at this thing and see if it’s still. Still doing anything. Yeah. Still.

01:31:35:19 - 01:31:53:08 Harold Pond: your dog talking about dog. this job switching around here? Yeah. several years ago, I retired a few men on a rep track, and we had to get over there whenever we get down to the root track and then a clearance.

01:31:53:10 - 01:31:58:00 Hal Riegger: No, I’m asking you a question. I don’t know what is a rip track, a rip track?

01:31:58:00 - 01:32:01:07 Harold Pond: It’s hard to repair. They just can’t.

01:32:01:10 - 01:32:04:25 Hal Riegger: Rip repair ribbon. Is that where it gets ripped?

01:32:04:26 - 01:32:20:06 Harold Pond: Track. That’s a repair for all the cars. But any cars in there? Neat breaks or shoes or anything goes on a rip track down here, that’s for sure. Cracked. Probably track mind over ten cars, but anyhow,

01:32:20:09 - 01:32:28:29 Hal Riegger: Let me before you go ahead, let me change. This is just at the end.