Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
Tehachapi's Online Community News & Entertainment Guide
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If your grandfather, father or possibly an uncle had been standing on the depot platform at the right time on the right day in early June of 1922, they would have been witness to the most unusual train to pass through our town. It was dubbed 'The Prosperity Special' by the president of the Baldwin Locomotive Works when it began its cross country trek over ninety years ago. This is the story of that most unusual train. As the second decade dawned in the twentieth century, the world was in disarra...
I would like to thank all five of the readers out there that have missed my presence in The Loop newspaper. It has been a long year fraught with numerous stumbles, hurdles and other maladies of life. As we begin a new year, I hope that everyone gets younger, thinner and more financially independent in 2016. For the Christmas issue of The Loop newspaper in 2014, I wrote a little poem titled 'A Train Set For Christmas'. It should be recited out loud in the rhythm and cadence of 'The Night Before C...
Water is one of those things that many of us take for granted. It's there when you turn on a faucet, makes your grass green, as well as your garden grow and every so often it even falls out of the sky. It has even been known to carve rather large holes into the earth while travelling its chosen course. At times it is a scarce commodity in California. This tale will tell how water took one major west coast town out of the booming transcontinental railroad picture. The completion of the...
As a species, human kind has been infatuated with the manipulation, division and various forms of measuring time since the invention of the sun dial. Of the earliest known true mechanized devices, clocks have reigned supreme. It should logically follow that as America's fledgling railroads crawled from the playpen of their infancy to becoming a viable force of the industrial revolution, time would become a valuable participant in their maturing and growth. As they grew up the railroads would...
The myriad of post-war baby boomers that had the pleasure of growing up in Southern California will begin to salivate at the mere mention of that magic two-word name of one of the finer non-drive-thru hamburger palaces that flourished and faded here. While there are scarce few still scattered around the southwest, almost completely gone is the giant pudgy little guy named Bob holding high his famous "Big Boy" hamburger. Carl, Jack, the clown and a king made it too easy to grab a burger without...
Most of us remember JFK’s assassination and coverage of his funeral. The image of his two year old son saluting as his father’s casket slowly passed is an iconic moment in American history. Millions of Americans watched via television as one of the two most popular presidents in the history of our country was laid to rest. The other one was laid to rest one hundred and fifty years ago this month. In 1865 millions of Americans watched Abraham Lincoln take his final journey home on a train. Con...
When I was first invited to write train related articles for The Loop several years ago, I had no idea what to expect or how long I could be productive. Having an ancestral background of railroad riders and workers willing to regale their accounts of riding the rails certainly does make my job easier. There is also an urgency to commit these wondrous stories to print lest the last generation to use trains as their primary form of transport be silenced by time. Grandpa Frank, his daughter...
If your grandfather, father or possibly an uncle had been standing on the depot platform at the right time on the right day in early June of 1922, they would have been witness to the most unusual train to pass through our town. It was dubbed ‘The Prosperity Special’ by the president of the Baldwin Locomotive Works when it began its cross country trek over ninety years ago. This is the story of that most unusual train. As the second decade dawned in the twentieth century, the world was in dis...
Well, here we are in a brand new year with hopefully a brighter outlook on just about everything. The first month of this fresh year is well on its way out and by the time you read this we will be dodging Cupid’s arrows, or hiding in plain sight to be struck by same. February is not a popular month for weddings, but it is a wonderful month to be reminded of love due to Valentine’s Day. The promise of spring is just around the corner and there is still enough winter left to cuddle up with your sw...
There was once a time when one of the most commonly asked for toys from Santa was the electric train set. Many older Christmas photographs depict some sort of train set up and running right there, under the tree on Christmas morning. To that end I humbly dedicate the following poem, and wish each and every one of you a wondrous and happy holiday season and a better year to follow. A Train Set For Christmas Twas the morning of Christmas And there under the tree Was the train set I begged for...
As a group, I would hazard a guess that ex-military, or perhaps fishermen, tell the best darn stories of their exploits. Since I grew up within the storytelling influence of Grandpa Frank, I was weaned on stories of the railroads. My only regret would have to be that I was much too young to fully appreciate all of the wondrous stories that gentle man had to tell. Over the years most of these stories have stayed safely tucked away within the confines of my now aging cranium. Before some malady co...
Somewhere along the line when I wasn’t paying very careful attention, I woke up just a precious few months shy of having been here for sixty years. Most of this life has had some form of a connection to trains involved with it, which makes it pretty easy to relay the stories to you as I reflect upon them myself. Sometimes I feel the pain of the miles and the years, but I must admit that waking up here in Tehachapi every day makes it worth it and surely beats the alternatives. In past articles I...
As a youngster so many years ago, I could easily follow along with the melody of Johnny Mercer’s Oscar winning song of 1946’s Judy Garland musical, ‘The Harvey Girls’. For those of us that were smitten with Dorothy from Kansas and her little dog Toto, Susan from Ohio and all of her singing cohorts were actually based on a group of brave and independent women that were largely responsible for bringing civilization to the west, the Harvey Girls. The post civil war migration west involved two pri...
It is no secret to many of us in the great state of California that the proposed high speed rail system could very well be called a colossal ‘Browndoggle’ without getting too many fingers wagged in one’s face. Alas, it is neither my job nor inclination to editorialize the pros and cons of such matters in the brief 700 words I have been allowed in my favorite small town paper. Let’s just say, for the sake of brevity, that California’s high speed rail system becomes a reality, what will this brav...
If cable were ever to be set up in such a way that allowed one to pick your ten favorite channels, Turner Classic Movies would be a keeper for both myself and my lovely bride, Linda. A few evenings ago we were enthralled by the early post war antics of another film noir bad boy escaping the scene of the crime by train. The film was ‘Born to Kill’, starring Lawrence Tierney and Claire Trevor. Catching the west bound City of San Francisco in Reno to escape different aspects of the same mur...
There has been more than one occasion that I have fielded the inquiry of where the ideas for articles originate in my somewhat disorganized but yet complicated mind. Good, bad or indifferent, this is the process. Before we get started, a little background info would be of great assistance. I was born in 1955 to mostly native Californians in Riverside, a rail shipping giant in the citrus industry and one of the first major stops for all Union Pacific passenger trains leaving Los Angeles for point...
By the time this article appears in the Loop, we will be but only a few days away from every true train geek’s favorite national holiday, May 10. This year will mark the one hundred and forty-fifth anniversary of the ceremonial driving of the “Golden Spike” at Promontory Point Summit in the then Utah Territory. This story will end a little differently than what you remember. As the Transcontinental Railroad was approaching completion, David Hewes – San Francisco contractor and close friend...
I have been told on more than one occasion by my soon to be sainted mother, that – as a child – I had the unique ability to simultaneously astonish her and be the chauffeur on the ride to crazytown. Returning from a cross country trip in the summer between Second and Third grades, I would let my parents know when we were in the vicinity of any railroad tracks that we had crossed, driven along side of or been anywhere near the previous time through; whatever part of the country we happened to...
Earlier this week my son, Chris, called and invited me to have lunch with him. Seems that these days, or Tuesdays to be precise, lunch at the Apple Shed involves all you can consume BBQ and Buffalo wings along with their soup and salad bar. This did not take much persuasion on his part. Plus, I am finally old enough to get senior discounts. (I will never forget the utter feeling of despair when I received that first fateful piece of mail from AARP many years ago.) While sitting at the table...
