Summer 2001 Issue

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STAFF

Editor
Rick Johnson

Associate Editor
Ken Soroos

Associate Editor/Soo News
Jason Korth

Soo News
tom Mastoras

Wiconsin Central News
Galen Fromm

Modeling Editor
Chuck Derus

Contributing Editors
Andy Roth, Guy Kieckhefer, Doug Fleming

Editorial Consultants
Jack Witmer, Gregg Condon

Technical Consultants
Stuart J. Nelson, Wallace W. Abbey

Commercial Accounts
Joe Lallensack

Advertising Manager
Burnell Breaker

Back Issues
John Strenski

Summer 2001 Issue Hightlights

Excursion to the past

Photo essay

By Steve Glischinski

Ever since Soo Line 4-6-2 No. 2719 was restored to service in 1998, I had hoped to put together a charter photo train with this well proportioned Pacific. A first attempt at doing so took place in August 1998, when I helped Goodheart Productions put on a charter when the engine was in Osceola, Wisconsin, for the Osceola Steamfest that year. But the weather was horrible that day, and some operating problems prevented us from doing what we’d liked to with the engine.

Another chance came during the summer of 2000, when 2719 was stationed in Spooner, Wisconsin on the Wisconsin Great Northern (WGN). WGN operates about 14 miles of former Chicago & North Western trackage, and does a good business-hauling tourists. I arranged with Greg Vreeland of the Wisconsin Great Northern, and Dave Peterson, President of the Locomotive & Tower Preservation Fund, which owns the engine, to charter 2719 on October 3, 2000. The idea was to have the engine pull a train that looked like a local from the 1940s. Greg owns the three ex-DM&IR heavyweight passenger cars we used, which look fairly similar to the old Soo cars 2719 used to pull. About a dozen photographers, from as far away as California, South Dakota, Indiana, Illinois, and of course Wisconsin and Minnesota paid from $100 and up for the day of riding and photography. Each rider also got an opportunity to ride the cab.

Another goal was to keep the group to a manageable number, to create more room for everyone to get good shots, and to allow for more photo stops – the fewer people you have, the quicker you can load the train and get moving again. We gambled that the weather would be good on the day chosen — Tuesday, Oct. 3, and as it turns out, the morning was sunny, but around noon it clouded over. Of course, the day before it was perfectly sunny the entire day. The evening of October 2 we held a night photo session in the Spooner yard, and many of the shots turned out excellent - the Northern Lights even came out for a few shots!

Rugby Junction

Part two: the autumn years

By Reid Van Sluys

If the first two decades of the Twentieth Century represents Rugby Junction’s zenith, then undoubtedly the two decades following the First World War represent its nadir. In the 1920s and 30s, Rugby’s decline was both steady and complete.

That decline was attributable to a number of reasons. Foremost among them was the enormous impact of the internal combustion engine. At the time of the First World War and shortly thereafter, Henry Ford and the legion of fellow automobile manufacturers who followed him, made it financially possible for an individual with even a modest income to own an automobile. Ford’s revolutionary assembly line methods (quickly copied by other auto makers) succeeded with the mass-produced Model T and other inexpensive automobiles. No longer just the toy of the idle rich, an automobile quickly became a much sought-after commodity. Almost overnight across small-town Wisconsin, the family horse was consigned to the rendering plant while tens of thousands of autos took to the paved—or otherwise—highway. As a consequence, the traveling public soon abandoned the short-haul passenger train, streetcar, and interurban. Abetting this exodus was the meteoric growth and improvement of Wisconsin’s intercity highway system and a period of unprecedented post-war economic growth that lasted until the stock market crash of October 1929.

By the mid-1920s, Rugby Junction was described in Polk’s Wisconsin State Gazetteer in the following manner:

“RUGBY JUNCTION: Population 25. On CM&StP and MSt.P&S.St.M Rys. In Washington County ten miles south of West Bend, the judicial seat and two miles north of Richfield, the banking point from whence is its rural delivery. Henry J. Borman (Proprietor of the) Hotel.”

This population probably represents Rugby’s peak. From there, it was all downhill—fast.

As the traveling public abandoned the Soo Line’s local trains for the convenience of their personal automobiles, the company was forced to examine its operations between Rugby Junction and Milwaukee. In the early 1920s, the Soo discontinued the practice of forwarding first class coaches and sleeping cars into and out of Milwaukee, requiring passengers to transfer across Rugby’s platform. With fewer fares being collected, it was inevitable that the railroad would be forced to petition Wisconsin’s Public Service Commission for permission to scale back the number of trains traveling between the two points each day. By April of 1928, the remaining survivors among the local eastbound scoots were limited to train No. 204/218 (daily; departing Rugby at 6:05 a.m.) and No. 206 (daily except Sunday; leaving Rugby at 5:35 p.m.). Westward, two offerings were also available: train No. 203/217 (daily; leaving Milwaukee at 7:35 p.m.) and No. 205 (daily except Sunday; departing Milwaukee at 10:50 a.m.).16 Representing a fifty percent cutback from its pre-war level, even these reductions didn’t stop the hemorrhaging from passenger losses that the Soo Line was forced to mark in red ink in its ledger books.

With the reduction in the total number of passengers trains using Rugby, the Soo Line eventually embarked on a program to defer or minimize the amount of maintenance performed there. In October of 1923, the Soo Line’s bridges and buildings department rebuilt the original 1886 coal shed and coal derrick hoist house, retiring ninety feet of the western-most portion of the former. Material salvaged from the retired portion of the coal shed was used to repair the remaining 20 x 78-foot section, and the railroad reported a total labor and material cost of just $1,170.

After the cessation of passenger service in 1938, Rugby’s importance to the railroad was considerably diminished. One by one the structures that had so faithfully served both the Wisconsin Central and Soo Line were retired and torn down.

The first to go was the passenger waiting shed, torn down in the fall of 1938. During World War II, the seventy-foot steel girder turntable was pulled up and sent to Ashland where it was reportedly reinstalled there. The brick enginehouse, now only eighteen years old, was retired in January of 1944 (by this time, the daily Milwaukee-bound freight was hauled by N-Class light Mountains that ran from North Fond du Lac). The railroad solicited bids for the salvage rights to the building since it contained material that was otherwise unobtainable due to wartime rationing. According to engineering department records, the railroad sold the enginehouse to Harrison P. Laubenheimer of Richfield, who, incidentally, was Washington County’s surveyor at the time. Another note mentions that H. Plath salvaged the enginehouse doors, windows and other millwork. After the enginehouse was knocked down in August of 1944, Mr. Laubenheimer salvaged a large portion of the distinctive red brick and had it trucked to the family homestead in the village of Richfield, where it was reportedly re-used in the building of a large fireplace and brick wall. The brick wall is quite distinct and still exists today. Unclaimed brick, mortar, cinder fill and debris from the razed enginehouse was used to partially fill the turntable and inspection pits. The track leading to the enginehouse, as well as the leads, were removed by the railroad’s sectionmen. It’s also believed that the hotel and lunch room that had sat vacant for several years was torn down during the Second World War.

Experiences of a new Engineer on

The Laker

By Ron Kaminen

I originally hired out on the DSS&A in August of 1956 and was assigned to the extra board in Marquette, Michigan. After two years in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1959, I returned to Marquette to work. During the winter of 1960 I worked mostly hostling, and yard jobs in Sault Ste. Marie. After the DSS&A-Soo merger in 1961 most rail traffic was rerouted to Chicago instead of St. Ignace. As a result of this diversion, I decided to transfer to Schiller Park, Illinois. I worked the fireman’s extra board there until the summer of 1962. Knowing I didn’t want to live in a big city, I decided to transfer to Shops Yard in Fond du Lac in the fall of 1962. The C&NW strike had just ended and the fireman’s extra board could not be increased, so the roundhouse clerk told me to check with the Trainmaster at the yard office for a job. Needless to say, Trainmaster Dablow said, “Yes, we could use some switchmen.” I spent the rest of the winter on the switchman’s extra board. It seems like the only time I was called to work was when the temperature dropped to 25° below zero!

It wasn’t until March 30, 1963 that the fireman’s extra board warranted an increase, and I was placed on it. I was promptly forced to the 10:30 p.m. switch engine at Neenah account no bidders! Working a night switch engine five days per week was better than unemployment, which at that time paid $53 per week. Around the 19th of June, 1963, the DSS&A and Soo Line enginemen’s seniority rosters were merged. I was able to hold the fireman’s extra board. I was placed seven men ahead of where I was originally, because my hire date was August 10, 1956. This was a pretty fast-moving extra board that worked a man almost daily. I thought I was in “hog heaven.”

On July 3rd, seniority lowered the boom on me again. This time it was a shocker! Account no bids, the youngest man on the extra board gets forced to a job that no one bids on. Would you believe it was No. 3, the Laker? There was a small downside to it. Because the layover was at the wrong end of the road, no Fond du Lac men wanted to work it. Since No. 4 did not operate on Saturdays, when we left Shops Yard at 10:15 p.m. on Friday night, we did not return home until Monday morning around 4:30 a.m. Regardless of the downside, this was a great experience for me, and very rewarding. Just imagine, in 1963 the rate of pay for a passenger fireman with three GP9s was only $19.09 per day! But working six days per week or three round trips FDL to Owen, the salary was over $800 per month! I thought I’d died and gone to heaven!

I’d worked with steam generators on the Copper Country Limited and the B&O coach yard job out of Schiller Park, so it was easy to pick up on the Clarkson steam generators of the Soo. The first night at North Fond du Lac I was nervous for my maiden run on a high-speed passenger train! We were called for 11:40 p.m., and I showed up early at the yard office. Being the new guy on the block, I didn’t know too many of the hoggers at Shops Yard either. The engineer that evening, and for the rest of the summer, was Gordon Kingsland. He was a great guy to work with, and knowledgeable about everything. My 1963 timebook shows on duty at Shops Yard at 11:40 p.m. and off duty at Owen at 4:10 a.m.

We got the highball after slowly pulling by the yard office to pick up the new train crew. Remember, this was before radios. We had to listen for the trainline whistle of two blasts. Gordon eased the throttle slowly going around the curve over Lake Shore drive on the mainline to see that the track was clear to the signal at the west end. About half way through the yard, the headlight went on bright and the mars light started turning. [Technically, the Soo’s passenger Geeps were equipped with Pyle National Gyralites as opposed to the Mars-patent lights used on many of the Soo’s F-units, but they were all generically referred to as “mars lights.”] Gordon notched the engines to full throttle and we were off! It was a great sound to hear three GP9s in full throttle on a warm summer night with all the cab windows open. The speed limit in the Soo Line timetable allowed passenger trains to travel at 65 mph. The Third Subdivision restricted the speed between Spencer and Chippewa Falls Yard to 59 mph. 40 mph was a regular speed for freight and for passenger trains over the Gills Landing bridge. This was not a place to be violating the speed limit, with the bridge in moveable position during the summer months. We did see the 70 mph mark on the speed recorder as the train sailed through the open country.

The first stop was Oshkosh. Gordon had all the marks memorized to spot the RPO and coaches on the station platform. This was normal procedure at all the stations. Remember, there was no radio in those days. After the stop, the head brakeman walked up several cars to cut the train two cars behind the engines. I dropped off at the switch just west of the depot at 14th Street. Here we picked up a mail car for St. Paul. We coupled back to the train, made an air test, and highballed. The speed through Oshkosh was 25 mph and with the mars light rotating brightly, surprisingly we never hit any automobiles. Next, on to Neenah for a 25-minute wait! You’ll never believe this, but the time out of Winnebago was 11:25 p.m., and eight miles up the track to Neenah at 65 mph was 8 to 9 minutes. Adding 5 minutes for the station stop would make it 11:39. The departure time out of Neenah was 12:05 a.m., which meant we sat at the depot for 26 minutes!

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