A Surviving "Cute" Library

Give Andrew Carnegie his due, he bought nice libraries.

The old penny pincher, who made millions on the backs of thousands of abused steel workers, had an attack of conscience  in his declining years and gave a huge chunk of his fortune to thousands of local communities. In 1901 Ogden got $25,000.

Not entirely free, of course. The communities had to come up with operating funds and a location. Still, it was a great deal.

Those libraries tended to represent public architecture of the day -- Romanesque, sturdy, imposing. This is a LIBRARY, after all! Not some cheap honky tonk.

Sadly, most of the Carnegie libraries are gone -- it has been a century, after all. Brigham City built its new library on the site of the old, saving only the facade. Ogden's went when the new one was built in the 60s.

Then there's Garland.

That city's Free Carnegie Library (Carnegie wanted them free for all to use -- damn socialist!) was built and dedicated in 1914 and, by the miracle of being in a town that hasn't grown much, thus keeping expansion pressures at a minimum, has survived looking pretty much the same.

I drove up Thursday to take pictures of it with my large format and pinhole cameras (film still to be processed) but shot some with the digi too because it's just a darn cute little library.

The library director, Danielle ("call me Dani") Rasmussen is justifiably proud. She brooks no talk of ever replacing it. Even real improvements come with some regret -- last year they removed the old boiler and installed a modern furnace, and she's sad that she lost all but two of the original ornate steam radiators.

The last renovation, before she took over, included a modern suspended ceiling "and one day one of the tiles was loose and I looked up in there and there's crown moulding!" she said. "Crown moulding! How beautiful!"

So she's plotting against the suspended ceiling.

The library keeps short hours -- it's closed Monday, doesn't open until 1 p.m. Still, there were half a dozen kids from the area waiting outside when it opened, and even after I'd hung around for an hour, timing 5-minute pinhole exposures, there was a steady flow of people. She's got a computer section, an audio visual area with a lot of VHS tapes, and the most gorgeous children's area I've seen taking up much of the basement (which I did not take a picture of, sadly), space that was freed up when the old massive boiler went.


The selection of books is small, but looks basic and I'm guessing inter-library loan handles special wants. She's got reading programs,  Wheat and Beet Days activities, summer stuff for the kids, and other things going on.

I love their toilet. No, seriously. Every chance to remind muggles of literature.

Danielle, like Weber Librarian Lynnda Wangsgaard, is adamant that the library is a hugely important community center, not just a place to find a book to read.

She's currently going nuts trying to come up with ideas to celebrate the library's 100th anniversary next year. Maybe monthly observances? Ideas

Andrew Carnegie, in the library foyer

are welcome. She does want to recreate the original dedication photo.

Meanwhile, if you want to see a real, old fashioned (but nicely modern) library, something that would warm the cockles of even Andrew Carnegie's calloused heart, go take a look. Go west of the 4-way stop that is the center of town. It's on the right, just past the dead drug store, opposite the dead movie theater.

A bright island of life and literature.

"Doc" from the movie "Cars" visits Union Station

How cool is this. Ogden's Union Station has a real movie star visiting!

If you've ever seen the Disney movie "Cars," you know there's a star of the show called "Doc," the old Hudson that teaches the new brash kid how to drive in a race and win. The character was voiced by Paul Newman.

Paul Newman is not visiting Union Station. His being dead is just one problem with that.

"Doc" is, of course, just an animated character, but the Hudson-Essex-Terraplane Historical Society has created an exact replica of him out of a 1951 Hudson Hornet that is currently touring the nation. For the next month, at least, the car is visiting Union Station, staying in the Browning-Kimball Car Museum.

Here's the really cool part: You can touch the car.

Heck, sit in it, turn the wheel, fiddle with the knobs, kick the tires. One kid even honked the horn, scaring the bejeebers out of everyone. The owners want you to see what cars of the 50s were like.

I must stress: This is the ONLY car in the museum you can touch. All the rest are off limits unless you are naked.

Hudson has a proud history. Information from the society says the company was in operation from 1909 to 1957 and was, at one time, the third largest automobile company in America. Hudson Hornets won NASCAR three years in a row -- which is why Doc, in the movie, may look big and slow but knows his stuff.

Steve Sherwood, one of the volunteers in the car museum, said his uncle owned a 1949 and 1951 Hudson and really loved them.

As I looked at it, I was reminded of other cars of that era -- big and round and solid. My dad bought a used 1954 Ford as a second car when I was in  high school, and this Hudson is similar, with all the chrome on the dash, the big bumpers, the cloth seats and enormous headroom. Really a fine ride.

This one even has a button on the floor just to the left of the clutch pedal. Some cars had starter buttons down there, but this one is for the high-low beams on the headlights. Steve showed me the starter button on the dash.

This is a great and fun addition, even if temporary, to the museum so don't dawdle.

Sherwood said it's already turning heads. "One little kid went over and went all around it, looking and looking," he said. "And then when he left he said 'Good-bye!"

The author in the 1951 Hudson Hornet

You got your government spending cuts, so shut up already.

Someone posted this on Facebook about the September air show in Wendover this year. 

Dear Air Show Fans,

It is with deep regret that we notify you of the cancellation of the 2013 Historic Wendover Air Show this coming September 21st. Due to the current economic sequestration, the various branches of the military have been forced to cease their support of air shows as a part of their budget cuts. This, along with other sponsor constraints, we feel that we cannot deliver the caliber of show that you have come to expect from Historic Wendover Airfield.

Experts have said that this economic issue may be short lived, so we have decided to continue planning for 2014. We will have more details in the coming months on a specific date. In the meantime, we want offer our sincere appreciation for your support over the years. We are so grateful that you attend year after year, traveling great distances to support this great historic airfield. We are also thankful for our performers, our military and our wonderful crew of volunteers who have made our little show so spectacular.

Please take the time to write to your elected political leaders and let them know your thoughts on how they can better manage this financial crisis and the effect it is having on the military and the citizens of this great country.

Sincerely,
Board of Directors Historic Wendover Airfield

Several commenters complained, worried about Wendover's economy, bitter that government just cuts things that are visible to force folks to raise taxes. 

My response: Everyone wants to cut government spending -- seems to me spending money to watch airplanes fly around -- government money for entertainment? A government subsidy/welfare for a locally-run air show? -- really is a good place to start. I wish people were getting this upset over cuts to Head Start and seniors Meals on Wheels programs. Apparently a lot of folks feel that educating children and feeding old people is a waste of money, but spending so we can watch airplanes fly around and feel good about America is worth it.

I dunno about you, but I feel just fine about America without having some military jet do a summersault for me.
I'd feel better about America if is used the cost of flying that jet -- I've heard the figure of $20,000 an hour -- to feed some old folks here in Ogden, but I still feel fine enough about America to donate food to the Food Bank to help the old folks.

As to the economic impact of these cuts on Wendover, and other places, hey -- when I wrote newspaper columns I pointed this out over and over and over and over and was derided as a goddamn liberal who "just wanted to see more government spending, government spending doesn't create jobs, we did it all on our own we don't need no goddamn goverment blah blah blah."

Well, you got your cuts. You got less government. 

Shut up and be happy.

Brigham Young: Personal Fitness Coach? Sort of ...

Union Station’s history library is a treasure trove of a lot more than just railroad stuff.

Sure, the tiny rooms on the station’s second floor  have lot of that, even some train-related children’s books. Over the years people have donated vast collections of pictures of trains, books about trains, movies about trains and a whole basement storage safe full of railroad signs, tools, uniforms and literature.

But the library also holds a good-sized collection of general Utah history.  Utah’s history is intertwined with the trains, for good or ill -- the coming of the Transcontinental Railroad destroyed many Utah industries and plunged the state into economic depression -- so everything is relevant.

And a lot of fun. I spent a couple hours just wandering through the Utah history section, grabbing books at random, and found these nuggets.

-- The book “An Enduring Legacy,” published by Daughters of Utah Pioneers, contained this interesting quote from an 1878 Deseret News editorial arguing for women being allowed to vote and take part in politics:

 “We believe in the right of women to occupy every position for which she is adapted by nature and qualified by education and experience, and no other. And we think that the good sense of men, and the natural dignity, grace and keen perception of women, will not be lowered in  the least by the presence and assistance of ladies in a nominating convention for the selection of candidates who are to be voted for by both sexes.”

-- A reprint of LDS Prophet Brigham Young’s diary from 1857 contained a variety of nuggets. For example, Young was a huge fan of physical fitness as a matter of military readiness, to the point he felt riding horses made people soft. You can almost hear him muttering about “these young people today ...” in his entry from June 25. (Spelling and punctuation is his -- back then neither was standardized):

“Had a conversation with Bro. Wells in which I deprecated riding on horseback So much as is practized by the valley youth, as I think that a person brought up to walking is Superior in Strength & powers of endurance, and should mobs ever compel us to act on the defencive the mountains where horses could not be used would be our resort.”

“Bro. Wells” was Daniel H. Wells, commanding general of the territorial militia, superintendent of the public works of the Mormon church and one of Young’s counselors. 

Again on June 29 he says “At 4 o.c. PM met with officers of Nauvoo Legion for the purpose of giving them Some Items in regard to their establishing the custom of walking in place or Riding on horseback So much do I think that a constant practice of horse riding is one of the most injurious of practices for youth. Had the Mexicans In place of trusting to their horses taken to the mountains on foot. They would have been unconquered to this day, and the United States would have been completely worried out.” 

Another entry shows him to be rather blunt in helping with the marital problems of one of his fellow church leaders, Orson Pratt. 

On July 8 he wrote, “Visited Historian office one of O Pratt’s wives called at Tithing office and rehearsed to me her many wrongs by Sarah, Os first wife. I told her to either Leave Orson or Stop talking about it.” 

A footnote says Orson, who had 10 wives, and Brigham didn’t always see eye-to-eye. If one of his wives dumped him on Brigham’s advice, you can imagine why.

-- There's a handmade history titled “Gilbert Belnap Lawman,” prepared by Belnap’s great grandson, Wesley Cox, for the Belnap family reunion in 2008. Belnap was the first marshall of Ogden City, apparently appointed in 1850, although there is confusion and the author  finally  says that Belnap “was arguably the first marshal of Ogden, Territory of Utah, by 23 October 1852.”

He did everything. Dog catcher? One of his first duties, on May 17, 1851, was to “notify the pound keepers George W. Hill and Charles McGary to erect the pounds immediately.”

But he could be tough. In an undated anecdote: “Late one night a company of men from Missouri arrived at the Fort after the Ferry had been tied up for the night. They prevailed upon Captain (James) Brown (who bought Fort Buenaventura from Miles Goodyear) to take them across the river (Weber) by offering him extra money.

“So Brown recalled some of his men and the wagons were ferried across the river. The men refused to pay. With curses and threats, the Missouri caravan drove on as far as the Ogden River where they camped for the night.

“A complaint was signed the next morning and Marshal Belnap was sent to bring the Missouri captain into court. Still cursing the Mormons, the man walked back and forth beside the marshal’s horse. Belnap reached down and grabbed the man’s coat collar and  headed the horse to the court house (located on 24th Street.) The curious boys and girls living along Washington Boulevard took up the chase while their mothers screeching “come back here!” followed. The captain paid all charges and was released.”

Belnap also served as the Ogden sexton, running the graveyard and keeping records of deaths, and led the Weber County regiment of the Nauvoo Legion. 

He was elected sheriff of Weber County in 1862 and served eight years. 

Ogden Schools Should Fire Football

The Ogden School District has been cutting back librarians, reading coaches and the entire adult ed program to save several million dollars in the budget.

Times are still hard, I get cutting back, but why cut back things with long term benefits -- reading is an essential job skill, after all. Education gets people jobs. It is why we have schools.

Cut something that's useless, like football.

I don't know how much this would save -- all the coaches, the team supplies, gym and field maintenance, the buses and extra trips out of town and so on must add up to a pretty penny, however. And when you boil it down, all that is just for entertainment. It adds nothing to the careers of the players, and perhaps even hinders them.

It is a huge amount of money to support what amounts to a taxpayer-funded minor league system for professional football, and since when do taxpayers support private business?

Yeah, that's a joke.

I know, football has long rivalries, a key role in the building of school spirit, and many feel it is great fun to watch. It also draws -- especially on the college level -- vast amounts of money from alumni.

And football, let's face it, is part of American culture, a segment of the economy that gets all the money it wants and is practically worshipped. A recent map around Facebook showed that the highest paid public employee in almost every state in the union is a college football coach. Money shows where our priorities lie. (click).

That still gets away from what we have schools for, which is to educate young people, not train them to be professional gladiators. And yet I haven't heard the idea of cutting athletics anywhere in the discussion of the Ogden district's financial problems. If adult ed takes too much time away from educating students, why doesn't football practice?

Part of my thinking along this line is the ultimate waste and destruction of the players, who are physically damaged by playing football as it is played in the US. The Washington Post (click here) has been running a series on this subject the last several weeks, looking at NFL players whose professional careers left them physically destroyed, financially ruined and pretty much abandoned by the NFL.

Last week's pert of the series (clock) was about Reggie Williams, a huge star, so big even someone as sports-averse as me knows the name. Has he, after his glory years of football, gone on to a comfortable career or retirement.

No. He's ruined. (click)

The NFL has the real sweet spot in all this -- it gets to pick its players from masses of young people  trained through a tax-supported minor league system that starts on Ogden High's football field and extends through Weber State University. The NFL produces football games on playing fields financed by taxpayers in the cities in which they are built, raking in billions of dollars in revenues.

And when the players are tossed aside, and their money runs out, they end up in many cases on Medicaid, the taxpayers again picking up the tab.

If the Ogden School District wants to convince me it's serious about cutting spending, let it cut athletics. Keep physical education classes, and intramural sports that don't cost much, and leave it at that.

But fire the coach. Hold some pep rallies to boost math test scores. Make the annual fight with Weber High over who has the best reading comprehension scores.

Do that's I'll believe you are serious about both education AND saving money.

Browning Arms Museum Acquires Prototype Winchester

Leon Jones and the "Winchester 93"

The prototype Winchester rifle Union Station's Browning Arms Museum just acquired actually looks too good to be this valuable.

How valuable? I was asked not to be specific -- anonymous donors chipped in to buy it.

But we can say: A lot. Union Station had to bid for it at auction.

What we got here is a prototype for a Winchester Rifle built in the early 1890s by John Browning. Leon Jones, chairman of the Union Station Board of Directors, said it was supposed to be the next development of the Winchester 92, a rifle much beloved by cowboys because it used the same shells as their pistols.

This one was supposed to be better because it took a larger shell, something with more power.

As it common with prototypes, they built this rifle, tried it out, said "Nope!" and went back to the drawing boards. The end result was the Winchester 94.

 "It's not a reworked 92, but it's not a 94 either," Leon said. "It worked fine, but it was never manufactured. It was too tight," meaning the receiver for the longer shells needed more work. There are also major differences in how the lock and hammer work.

This rifle's history is a bit twisted around. Browning built it, decided it wasn't good enough, and stored it away. In the 1970s Fabrique Nationale, the Belgian company that now makes Browning guns of all sorts, bought out Browning. It didn't have any interest in Browning's history, Leon said, so it sold a bunch of stuff, including this rifle, which Leon said wasn't really supposed to be sold.

Which was a shame. The Browning family saved massive amounts of their company's history, including much of what makes up the Browning Arms Museum, and a prototype like this belongs with that legacy.

Instead, a collector got hold of it. Recently it went up for sale, anonymous donors pitched in to buy it back.

Now it's back in Ogden. Leon said one of the reasons it looks so good is it was overhauled a while back, including a new stock, so it still looks like new, works smoothly, feels good.

A nice little item to join the other unique guns on display, sometime next month after a proper display case is prepared for it.

Union Station a Marathon Zoo

Came down to Union Station to do a little quiet writing and found the place mobbed with preparations for Saturday's Ogden Marathon.

A helicopter at a train station...why not?

There's a  helicopter parked in the fountain plaza. What else can you say? Whirlybird Helicopters is doing a deal with United Way for a fundraiser, plus advertising Father's Day special flights.

Still, a helicopter on the plaza? I was told it was landed in the parking lot and wheeled over.

There's people hawking cooling shirt systems, special towels, recreation passes, the Standard-Examiner and on and on. A booth selling fashion stuff of some sort had a giant poster of some guy with messed up hair, an unshaven beard and a tux.

Didn't the unshaven look go out with Don Johnson on "Miami Vice?" The women running the booth had mustaches, so they were no help.

The Main Lobby inside the station is equally full, and the runners themselves haven't even started showing up to pick up their packets.

Ran into Dan Dailey from Grounds For Coffee who was standing by a relatively small and modest poster advertising the shop's Green Initiative.

Dan Dailey and Green Initiative

Not sure what this is about

He said this year the initiative is going to collect and compost all the banana peels from the marathon. "With 10,000 runners, that's a lot of banana peels," he said.

That's the scene here this morning. Come on down, but plan to walk a ways because parking is at a premium.

May I remind you that today is bike to work day? That's how I got here. All these runners and athleticism, and mine is the only bicycle on the rack out front.

A Bit of Saltair to be Preserved at Union Station

Saltair used to be THE place to go, but how to get there, way west of Salt Lake City, out on Great Salt Lake?

Horses were a bother. Cars were noisy, unreliable and expensive. It was too far to walk.

Fortunately, none of those were necessary. Utah's extensive system of streetcars and inter-urban rail could get you anywhere in a hurry. You'd go to the Salt Lake City train station,  hop a convenient excursion car and ride out in the open air. The Salt Lake, Garfield & Western ran those cars out all the time.

The ride in the open air cars must have been thrilling, with the wind blowing, the smell of the salt as you got near the onion-domed pavilions for a day of swimming, dancing or arcade games.

But all things come to an end. The automobile killed the railroads, Saltair burned down for the third or fourth time and people went elsewhere for entertainment, or stayed home to watch that newfangled television thing. And what of the excursion cars?

Built in 1922, four survived to the modern era. Two were donated to the Sons of Utah Pioneers, which displayed them in a museum in Corinne, which is now no more. One went to the Heber Creeper and eventual doom. The other is in California.

The other two, in the usual roundabout way, are owned by the Utah State Railroad Museum right here in Ogden. They've been moldering slowly away on a siding way out in Business Depot Ogden, their orange paint peeling, their tongue-and-groove flooring slowly warping.

But perhaps not much longer. The Golden Spike Chapter of the Railway and Locomotive Historical Society (R&LHS), which has been busily restoring DRG&W Engine 223 in its shop attached to Union Station, has won one grant for $5,000 from the Sally Langdon Barefoot Foundation, and hopes to use that as a matching grant for a requested $10,000 heritage grant from the National Railroad Historical Society. 

The goal is to bring the cars from BDO to Union Station where they can be better watched and stabilized, at least. If the guys could find $30,000 somewhere they could do a pretty thorough restoration.

The Railroad Museum and R&LHS are fighting a constant uphill battle against time and the elements to preserve what Utah railroad history they can. Lack of funds means it is often a losing battle, but this project doesn't seem to need a lot, as these things go. Compared to the estimated $3 million needed to get the DRG&W 223, it's pocket change, almost.

So if you've got another $20,000 or $30,000 you don't know what to do with, there's a donation box down at Union Station. Meanwhile, hope they get that second grant. 

Maybe someday you'll be able to sit on one of the wooden benches in the cars (very close together, people were a lot smaller and thinner back then), admire the distinctive curlicue design of the wrought iron frames of the seats, and pretend you're heading out to Saltair to float in the warm water, buy a bag of saltwater taffy and wash some cotton candy down with sasparilla.

"The Mormons Will Eat You"?

The above is the actual headline on a story run in the Provo Herald in 1889, which story was picked up from the Ogden "Standard".

Here is the story that went with it:

"Yesterday afternoon at the Union depot in this city a traveling lady, with her little girl,was taking a platform promenade awaiting the time for departure of the west-bound train. The little one, two or three years old, kept running away from her mamma and laughing under the sunlit air. She want too far, and the mother cried: "Come back, quick, or the Mormons will get you and eat you up!"

Baby fled in terror to her mamma's arms. Twenty years hence she will doubtless tell how she narrowly escaped being made into a fricassee. Ah there, Baskin! Don't your efforts bear rich fruit?" ... Ogden Standard.

The reference to Baskin is to R.N. Baskin, a judge in the Utah Territory and an anti-Mormon liberal politician who, among other things, prosecuted John D. Lee for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, was elected mayor of Salt Lake City in 1891, and in 1898 was elected Chief Justice of the Utah Supreme Court.

National Train Day Chugs Along

We  had a lovely day Saturday at Union Station for National Train Day.

Best guess is several thousand people came by -- more than 500 alone rode the free train rides out front, the speeder out back was busy, the blacksmith was a huge hit as he made decorative pieces out of old railroad spikes.

He made one intertwined piece for a couple that got married at the station on Train Day. Mike Murphy in the  Hostlers told me that the couple had gotten caught short when, so he said, their attorney took all their money out of their bank account, $5,000, instead of half of it, which left them with nothing to pay for the wedding.

So they did their wedding with paper plates and so on, and I saw the couple wandering around enjoying the sights, she in her long white dress. Everyone looked happy, and in my experience people very quickly forget about the wedding fest anyway.

I spent 3 hours answering questions and trying to sell pavers out front. The Union Station Foundation's booth right next to the door was more of an information desk than anything else. I was happy to chat, steer people around, and even sold one of the pavers to a guy from West Jordan who wanted to memorialize his dad, a 35-year worker on the railroad in Ogden.

After the model railroad out front picked up their track some dude with a guitar and banjo came by, sat down and started singing railroad songs. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, 25th Street out front buzzed with the familiar hum of traffic and people coming and going.

Just a darn pleasant day and everyone seemed to have fun.

Union Station's Cars Also On Show On Train Day

Saturday is National Train Day in which we all get together to ponder the glory that is railroading in the United States, including looking at two "heritage fleet" engines at Union Station (click!).

So, naturally, I went to the Browning-Kimball Classic Car Museum on Tuesday. What the heck, right?

The Car Museum will be open for free on Saturday, as will the others, and for a fan of chrome and polished brass, not to mention solid value per square inch the cars are hard to beat.

Oddly, it's one of the quieter museums, most of the time. Where are you guys?

I stopped to admire the 1937 Packard Business Coupe, one of the more interesting items in the collection. Unlike most of the others, it was not part of the car collection given to Ogden by the Browning family when it sold the rest of its collection.

This car was given to Union Station by Max Kennedy, Layton,  who was surprised when he showed up one day, title in hand, saying "here's a free car," and was told he'd have to wait a bit.

Which makes sense, actually. The museum has limited display place and cars tend to be rather large. Union Station has enough stuff just sorta show up (sometimes in the middle of the night) so the museum wanted to make sure this car would fit in.

It did, because there it sits, in gorgeous blue with black accents. It's a nice counter-point to the other cars. Most of the collection are top-end classics, Cadillacs and the like, the sort of cars (as Conductor Bruce Bybee told one visitor) that would be owned "by bankers and bank robbers."

The Packard is a car you or I would have owned. Like the Studebakers my dad used to drive, the Packard is just a normal car, with no secret hatches for golf clubs, brass lamps, mahogany woodwork or other fancies.

The car came to the museum in 2008. At the time volunteers working on restoring it figured it would take two years, but you know things go.

But the end may be in sight. The engine's been rebuilt, the brakes and other necessities repaired, the outside all painted and detailed. A small board shows what is left to be done, mostly cosmetic although if you have the license plate holder for a '37 Packard sitting around, that would help.

Bybee, the conductor who was on duty Tuesday, said they've collected enough money to do the biggest job remaining -- the upholstery inside. A volunteer from the Ogden Fire Department is trying to find time to do the work.

There's a begging box for donations. If you have a buck handy on Saturday, or just some pocket change, put it in and do your bit to restore a bit of normal American transportation from the 1930s and 1040s.

Then go back out and admire all the train stuff. Saturday is National Train Day -- what are you doing in a car museum anyway?

Sign of the Times, Past and Present

"I want that sign," said Union Station Foundation Director Roberta Beverly, and she meant this one, located on 17th Street in Ogden, right where the railroad tracks cross. "I'm going to call Union Pacific and see if they'll give it to me."

Actually, I'm not at all sure the sign is old. It doesn't look old, although what is written on it is.

The sign, canted to the right on a couple of steel poles, says "Entering Pacific Time Zone," and you are probably thinking "...but the Pacific Time Zone doesn't start until the Nevada state line."

And you'd be right, as long as you aren't talking about the railroad.

Actually, the sign is a nice reminder that it is the railroads, not us, who invented time zones, so if anyone has the right to say where one of them begins and ends, it is the railroads.

Back in the late 1800s there were no time zones in the United States, or anywhere else. Time was whatever a local area agreed it was, and since everyone needs a starting point most people agreed that noon, or 12:00 sharp, was when the sun was highest in the sky from where they were standing.

The problem with that system was that it doesn't account for the fact that earth is round -- solar noon in Evanston, Wyoming, is not the same as solar noon in Ogden. Railroads trying to schedule things based on local times found themselves quickly getting very confused, publishing schedules that tried to include local times, but can you imagine the problems?

And what if the conductors on two trains, coming from opposite directions, had set their watches according to different local times 45 minutes apart. If those two trains are trying to share the same track, and hoping the other guy is on schedule to hit the siding, well, you can imagine the result.

So in the later 1800s the railroads, nobody else, set up time zones. Areas hundreds of miles wide were all deemed, by railroad command, to have noon at the exact same time.  The railroads set up four of those zones to cover the entire US, roughly based on how far the sun traveled in an hour in the sky.

But not always. For example, until the late 1930s, at least, the time zone dividing Utah and the West Coast (Pacific Time Zone) ended just west of Salt Lake City. There was not much west of Salt Lake to worry about, all the major train junctions were east of that line (including Ogden) so that's where the line was put.

As Tooele and other areas built up it became inconvenient to have two time zones in Utah, so the line was moved to Wendover. Nobody apparently cares if Wendover has two time zones. Let them figure it out.

So why is that sign still sitting in the middle of Ogden?

I suspect that, once trains going west leave the Ogden rail yards there's nothing of importance, railroad-wise, until Nevada, so the engineers are told to re-set their watches then. Maybe someone is worried they'll get to Wendover and forget.

And when they come back east, of course, they see the other side of the sign which reminds them they are entering the Mountain Time Zone -- with Mt. Ogden in the back in case there's any doubt.

How to be Humbled by a 9-Year-Old

Boy, talk about feeling small.

Not for any really serious reason. This is not false humility talking. I mean, the rest of us really did deserve the honors -- we're talking lifetimes of work and involvement, careers dedicated to helping the community.

But there's this thing about relativity. Relative to Armani McFarland, the rest of us looked just a bit sick.

I just got back from the Catholic Community Services breakfast raising funds for the agency and honoring a bunch of folks for their work helping CCS. There was me, for all the news stories and columns I've done over the years about CCS and the Food Bank. There were representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Weber State University and, last but never least, the sisters of St. Benedict.

Quite the lineup. The sisters have done more good for Northern Utah than any other three groups I can think of. What a group to be part of.

But we all, as I said, looked a bit sick compared to Armani McFarland, 9.

Last fall Armani heard about the desperate need for food for the poor in Weber County, so she organized a food drive and collected 1,000 pounds of food for the Joyce Hansen-Hall Food Bank. She collected nearly 500 backpacks for the CCS annual drive to supply packs full of school supplies to low-income students.

Armani McFarland

Then she collected 460 coats.

She did all this by hitting up family, friends, companies and on and on. Having done a bit of fund raising myself, I know how hard it is to just ask people, blind, for money or stuff. It would be triply hard for someone under 10-years-old, to whom adults can look rather large and imposing.

Armani has her own blog at http://www.onecanmakeachange.blogspot.com/. Check it out. I'm sure she didn't personally haul all those coats around on her bicycle. She did a great job of inspiring a raft of friends, strangers and businesses to get involved in the effort.

I'm honored to have been thanked so wonderfully by the CCS folks.  After giving me my award Marcie announced that someone made at $10,000 donation to the St. Martha's Project in my and my mother's name. St. Martha's Project provides layettes to low-income mothers who have babies in local hospitals, a project my mother worked on for years sewing small quilts.

Mom was always an inspiration, so that was an especially touching gesture.

But I still felt a little silly, personally, to be thanking folks for an honor recognizing stuff I've already done. How do you say "Well, now I'm retired and goofing off" when a 9-year-old is just starting out in life and already kicking your butt?

So I came home and mailed a check to Marcie. She's invited me to come down and volunteer at the Food Bank and as soon as I get my retirement schedule figured out, including Union Station, I'll will be doing that.

Because, really, a 9-year-old? Doing all that?

If you want to try to keep up with that 9-year-old, feel free to send a donation to the Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank, 2504 F Avenue, Ogden, 84401. 

Big Brother Is Watching the Rail Center

Union Station Foundation Director Roberta Beverly reports to your humble blogger that the Ogden Police are installing a surveillance camera to keep an eye on the south end of the Rail Center at Union Station.

Caboose sits outside the Rail Center south fence

This is a very good thing.

The rail center is just a hop-skip-and-jump from the big field that used to be the candy building, which is next door to St. Anne's Center. While we have a fence around the south end of the center, there isn't enough room in the center to put everything behind the fence, which is not hard to get around or over anyway.

While I have the utmost sympathy for the homeless, it is a sad truth that people who hang around the St. Anne's Center, not to mention gangs and kids who live nearby, have been known to vandalize things, steal metal to sell and tag with gang symbols.

So protective surveillance is a good thing, although just how closely the dispatchers can watch the rail yard is unknown.

It's a big city, they have a lot to do.

OPD has cameras all over Ogden as part of its effort to keep an eye on crime (Standard-Examiner had a story in 2011-click here)  and even wanted to put a blimp in the air with a camera at one point in time.  But unless someone sees the crime happening, and sends a cop, the camera doesn't do much good except document what happens and, it is hoped, make the vandals feel a little self-conscious..

Still, the Utah State Railroad Museum has a lot of valuable stuff in that back lot, keeping it safe is a good goal, we thank the OPD for helping out.

Back end of the Golden Spike Centennial car