Bits of 1944 Rail Disaster Still Rusting Away in GSL?

Remains of Dec. 31, 1944 train wreck?

OK, right up front, I don't know the answer to the question that headline poses.

I need to find sources, check witnesses, documents, and so on.

Do you know? Call me, please. Email summicron12000@yahoo.com.

Having that out of the way, I got a call from Weber County Sheriff's Lt. Mark Lowther a while back. Mark is a major train fan, also a major history fan. He said he thinks he's found wreckage from the New Year's Day, 1945, train wreck on the railroad causeway west of Ogden.

It was a horrible wreck.

Sunday morning, Dec. 31, two sections of the Pacific Limited left Ogden, heading west. Two sections means they were both part of the same train, but pulled by individual engines, one train following the other.

The first section, 18 cars, mostly passenger cars, was held up by a slow-moving freight that had left the yards in front of it. When the freight developed trouble, it forced the Pacific Limited's first section, behind it, to stop and then proceed slowly.

And on came the second section, 20 cars full of express packages, mail and, reportedly, two cars full of explosives. This was in the day before computers, radio coordination of trains and electronic signals. The engineer on the second section, apparently unaware of the trouble ahead, plowed on at normal speed. He smashed right into the rear of the first section.

Initial reports were that 48 were killed, another 79 injured. When I interviewed some of the survivors 50 years later they said it was the most horrific experience imaginable.

The rear passenger car on the first section ended up on top of the ruptured engine of the second section. Steam from the engine boiled people alive. The Standard-Examiner reporter on the scene, Dorothy Porter, described a scene of carnage, bodies barely recognizable as such, wounded and dead intermixed amid the tangled wreckage.

Rusting train car truck

The wreck was at a spot called Bagley, about 14 miles west of Ogden, between Little Mountain and Promontory Point. That is about where Weber County Sheriff's Lt. Mark Lowther and I drove Wednesday morning.

Mark has to go out on that area on official duty at times, investigating whatever crimes take place. The Weber/Box Elder county line actually crosses the causeway just east of Promontory Point which is in Box Elder County. If there's a crime out on the point, Mark said, Box Elder deputies will usually drive down to Ogden and then west beside the rails to avoid having to drive all the way out to Promontory Summit, then down to the point.

Denver Post photo -- note angle of wrecked car in front
and other car laid out parallel to the track to the right.
This matches the layout of wreckage we saw today.

But Mark's also a train fan, so while he was out there, he'd look around.

The wreckage he found is on the south side of the tracks. There are the remains of at least one car, and the chassis of another. There's also random stuff -- railroad trucks and hunks of car frames here and there.

Interestingly, the way the debris is laid out looks a lot like an aerial view of the crash published in the Denver Post (left).

It's hard to imagine the railroad would leave hunks of that wreckage around all these years, but stranger things have happened.  The war was still on, men and material to clean up wreckage sites was scarce, perhaps they just got the tracks cleared and made a mental note to come back later and clean up the rest.

And then never did? No clue. 

The tracks were double then, according to news accounts,
and, at least in this area, are single now. Back then the only way to get to the site was on a rescue train, now there's a road on the north side of the single set of tracks. 

One argument that the railroad isn't what you'd call tidy can be found further west of Promontory Point. A couple of old tug boats, beached by the high water of 1986, are still there, still beached, also rusting away. 

If they'll leave rusting old boats out there, why not hunks of car that aren't in the way? They've got a train to run, after all, not a beauty contest to win.

It's a lonely area to have a wreck. The lake is quiet, tinged with shades of blue on the south side and pink (from algae) on the north. Wide mud flats stretch between the causeway and Stansbury Island. I don't recommend you walk across, but it looks as if you could.

A lonely, desolate, beautiful place for a disaster.

ps. Special Thanks to Weber County Sheriff's Lt. Mark Lowther, who is retiring from the force Friday. He's a good guy who cares about what he does. His leaving is our loss.

Mark Lowther surveys wreck scene.

Just the gory facts, Ma'am: Operation Lifesaver Teams with Union Station

OK, so maybe a video of a car getting crunched by a train isn't your favorite thing.

It isn't UTA's either, or the Union Pacific's.

Those cars ding up their engines something awful. They scrape the paint and make crunching and crashing noises. Then there's the people inside the cars, screaming all over the place.

Dying. Who needs it?

Which is why Operation Lifesaver, a statewide education program to prevent train-people confrontations,  just spent $16,000 on a very large mural and two computerized educational kiosks at Union Station. Their goal is to keep people from getting run over by trains, squashed by trains, cut into little bits by trains and killed by trains.

Vern Keesler in front of new mural

The new mural and kiosks are in the Utah State Railroad Museum housed in Union Station. Operation Lifesaver had a ribbon cutting Monday night to let folks they are there, but they've actually been operational for several weeks and are seeing good business.

Vern Keesler, Operation Lifesaver state coordinator, said he's already had to refill the racks of coloring books and other information. He said the kiosks contain several public service announcements and interactive games designed to show visitors the dangers of playing around trains, trying to beat trains across crossings, and even trying to get onto trains.

Everyone has a favorite horror story. Norm Nelson, Brigham City, is on the Operation Lifesaver board of directors. He said he knows a guy who was the conductor on a freight that hit a car full of kids in Box Elder County several years ago, killing three.

Apparently the kids were playing a common game where they try to chase the train, seeing how close they can beat it to a crossing and pass in front of it. The kids timing was off just a smidge, and the conductor saw it all.

"He never got over it," Norm said. "He said he could always just see that little girl's face looking up," just before the car was hit.

Sherry Ferrin cuts the ribbon for Operation
Lifesaver kiosks in Union Station

UTA Chief Safety Officer Dave Geores, who is also on the Operation Lifesaver board, said the effort is working. "We've reduced our incidents and accidents over 50 percent since expanding our partnership with Operation Lifesaver in the last three years," he said. Utah's record "is the envy of Operation Lifesaver nationally."

Sherry Ferrin did the huge murals, showing a Union Pacific and UTA FrontRunner engine barreling down the track. She did them in three months last winter, dealing with the massive job and the station's erratic heating system.

"It's more painted instead of just like a mural," she said. "It's one I wanted to have a lot of feeling and more emotion."

Which it has. The painted engines are such a massive scale that they feel as if they're bearing down on you while you stand there.

Which is the point. When one of those things is coming at you for real, it can't stop and you will die.

Commissioner Jan Zogmaister and UTA Public Affairs
specialist Kent Jorgensen.

Weber County Commissioner Jan Zogmaister, who also chairs the Utah State Railroad Museum Authority, said Operation Lifesaver will be increasingly critical as Weber County, and all of Utah, grows.

"Transportation has changed as we have more and more trains and more and more growth and a lot of that growth is in rural areas where trains are operating," she said.

Trains really aren't anything to fool around with. They're so massive that you might as well not be there, which means the train doesn't really care if you are under its wheels. Does a steamroller care if it runs over an ant?

I still remember, years ago, talking to a hobo I found sleeping in the yards. He was a veteran of many rides, and I remember he only had one leg.

What happened to the other?

He fell asleep by the tracks, probably as a result of alcohol. Whatever, he woke up with a train bearing down and couldn't get out of the way in time.

He said the steel wheel slid through is leg like a hot knife through butter. "It just rolled right through me," he said.

And if that image doesn't keep you away from trains, go check out the kiosks. They've got lots more.

Sherry Ferrin shows off her work.

Cycling With A Zeiss Super Ikonta A to Salt Lake City

So I bought this little camera on eBay and, despite it having a very slightly sticking shutter after only 76 years (which, as it turned out, didn't effect the exposure), decided to take it, and only it, on a bicycle ride to Salt Lake City from Ogden.

Only way to test a camera is test it, right? No distractions. When you have two cameras you always have the wrong one out.

So I loaded a roll of Fuji Acros (asa 100) and set out. I had 16 shots for the day.

This camera was made in 1938, and age does have an impact. The coupled rangefinder works nicely, but since it is separate from the viewfinder it is faster if you rediscover the joys of zone focusing.

The camera itself is small, easy to carry. It was a bit of a hassle, taking it out of the never-ready case each time, but I didn't want it rattling around in my bike bag with my bike lock and other junk. The left-hand shutter release takes getting used to, and oxidation of the silvering in the albada finder makes viewing a bit hard. Had to take my glasses off to see the bright frame.

Other than that, shooting went well. Here's the pictures:

Gotta do a selfie of me and the bike at the start.

On the way out of town I liked the pattern of
shadows and lines on
this grain mill with a lift out front.

Start of the trail. There's 42 miles ahead. This
is the rail trail from Ogden to SLC through
Davis County.

I liked the glowing heads of the weeds

Rail Trail marker in Layton. This is an old Denver & Rio Grande Western right of way

Trees form a canopy over parts of the trail.

3rd South and 3rd West in SLC, hot and
tired so I had lunch here. Food and air conditioning.

Picture of the lamp post to prove I'm in
Salt Lake City

Picture of a guy sleeping on the train back

FrontRunner station in SLC

Back home with the dog.

Amazing Ogden Historical Find in the DI Box

Shelly and Dave with the picture

Bob DeBoer worked at Weber State University for years, including when I covered the place, so when he died last September I was, of course saddened.

And I'm not saying I'm glad, now, that he's dead, but we did just get this really cool picture from his kids, with promise of more to come.

How cool? Wow, very cool.

The picture is a panoramic shot taken in 1923 of the artesian wells in Ogden Valley. These wells used to supply much of Ogden's drinking water. The park they were in was also a popular recreational destination.

Bob's daughter, Shelly, is married to Dave Hestand, a Facebook friend. He said as the kids have been going through Bob's stuff they're sorting out what they don't want and putting it in the Deseret Industries box. That, Dave said, is where he spotted this picture, and grabbed it.

On the back it has stickers saying it belonged to the Hotel Bigelow, which was located where the Ben Lomond Hotel is today. There's a handwritten notation that it is also the property of the Chamber of Commerce.

I showed the picture to Ward Armstrong in the Browning Arms Museum here at Union Station. He remembers the artesian park as being off cemetery point in Huntsville, about where the three arms of Pineview Reservoir come together. This particular view, he said appears to have been taken looking southeast from a point about where the yacht club harbor is now.

1919 Ogden Standard

I did a little digging and found that Goshen Studio was run by George W. Goshen. He did the usual society photos, high school graduations and the like, but he was also a regular photographer for businesses and government agencies promoting Ogden.

1919 Ogden Standard

From news accounts, he was always there with his camera to shoot promotional pictures to show the rest of the world how fun Utah was. Need a movie of bathing beauties at a local resort? He was there.

Group of businessmen touring Utah? He went along.

In 1919 Goshen shot movies of the 50th Anniversary of the Driving of the Golden Spike at Promontory, and wouldn't you give a body part or two to see those films today? I sure would.

Which is why Goshen was taking pictures of the city's artesian wells. The city's water was nationally famous, Ward Armstrong said, and worth publicizing.

The artesian wells are gone now, of course. In 1934 the Pineview Dam was built, flooding much of the lowland of the valley and burying the wells. Ward said they were still visible in the 1950s when the reservoir was emptied so the dam could be built higher.

Effie Hopkins' Surprising Treasures

I'm still working away at the Effie Hopkins treasure.

Effie, you remember, was the wife of Nephi Hopkins, a North Ogden farmer. In the 1930s she filled two large steel boxes with news clips and other stuff. After she died her kids got the boxes and after they died the boxes ended up, somehow, at Union Station.

What's fun is that a lot of the things Effie tossed into the boxes are the day-to-day ephemera that most people chuck. That's why those things are so interesting today.

For example, at some time she sent into Kellogg, the cereal folk, for a recipe card for things you could make out of the humble corn flake. I'm guessing she really sent away for the Fruit 'n Cereal certificate that the envelope mentions, but it also came with the recipe card. The postmark says 1962, so perhaps one of her kids got this. Still, pretty neat.

The recipes use corn flakes to coat chicken or make baked Alaska, macaroons or coffee cake. For example, you crunch up the flakes, add salt and pepper, then dip the chicken in evaporated milk (not regular milk, which is too thin) and and then the flake mixture, and bake.

There's a small sheet of Gold Strike Stamps. Remember those? I actually think these are from the 50s. They competed with S&H Green Stamps.

I found this Hostess Cake ad which is really a toy -- there's a small length of chain attached to two places on this card where the drawing of the man's face should be. You jiggle the card and suddenly theman's nose is long, or short, or droopy, or part of his chin, or whatever.

Fun!

I love this map of Ogden, which is copyright 1937. It lists Lake Street going through the middle of what is now the Ogden City Municipal Building. In 1937 the old city hall was north of Lake on that block and the library was south of it. Both were torn down to make way for the City-County building.

The map lists all the other businesses along those streets back there -- what a lot of them there were.

I love the ad for Intermountain Photo Service on 24th Street. Back then 5-hour service to get your prints done was pretty quick.  Unless you can find one of the few 1-hour labs still operating (Macy's has one) in the area, you have to send it out. I was at Walgreens yesterday and heard the clerk tell someone that it would take a week to get film developed and they wouldn't even send the negatives back.

This is progress?

One Day, One Roll of Film, One Lens

In Ken Sanders book store.

As I've shown on recent posts, excellent results can be obtained with any camera equipment if the person holding that equipment is paying attention.

I tend to be something of a gear freak, always looking for that one piece of equipment that will make me finally, at last, really good.

It never comes along, of course. How could it? The problem is in my head, not my hands.

Bicycle Shadows

So occasionally, just to get centered, I take a day and self-assign: Shoot with one lens, one camera, one roll of film. Get back to basics, do it simple, learn to look again.

Today I took a simple small rangefinder camera (Leica CL), one roll of 36-exposure Tri-X film (rated at 1600) and one lens, a Voigtlander (actually made by Cosina) 15mm f-4.5 super-wide lens, just because I don't use it enough and need to learn to see with it more.

The meter in the camera is advisory, especially with this lens, so there's some Kentucky windage in the exposures, which adds to the fun.

Then I took the train to SLC and looked around. I ended up with 24 images worth not immediately trashing, a few of which are pretty good, a few of which are so-so, some were muffed, and one or two are worth blowing up and maybe putting in a show someday.

Not bad, all in all. This is them:

Construction Walkway

I'm amazed this place is still
there. It was a hole in the wall
when I was a kid.

Behind the Wells Fargo building

Out front of Ken Sanders, suntan in
the city.

Shadows and lines, Salt Lake Library

Bicycle dreams of flying

Ken Sanders, organized

Coffee break

Self portrait

Wall art.

At what?

Pondering 

Riding the rails

Utah Books, old bookstore, old customer