OUR RIDE ON THE INDIANA RAIL ROAD PRESIDENT’S SPECIAL

Thomas Hoback is the President of the Indiana Rail Road (INRD), a regional railroad with its principal mainline between Indianapolis, Bloomington IN and Terre Haute, with a branch to Newton Il, plus track rights to Chicago and Louisville for a total of over 500 miles. He has made several innovative changes in traditional railroad operation on the INRD, including one man crews on trains, remote switching of customers yards by a crew of one using portable remote control of locomotives, and remote control of switches.

Mr. Hoback feels that my great-grandfather, William Barstow Strong, did progressive things while general manager and President of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad between 1877 and 1889 which should be recognized in a book. He has hired a professional researcher, Jennie Born, to locate original materials about Wm B, such as letters to and from him, letters mentioning him and other data about him. I have been helping in a small way to locate materials.

Cousin Marilyn Strong Uselding, who lives in nearby Bloomington IN, and I were invited to ride the INRD President’s Special train on June 15, and we happily accepted. Jo could not go on the trip as she was in St. Clair MO house sitting for her daughter.

 

Some of the people involved in  the President’s Special gathered at the INRD Senate Street terminal in Indianapolis at 9:30. Above are Chris, the driver of the van which took us to the other end of the railroad, Eric  Powell, Manager of Economic Development of the INRD, John DePaemelaere, our engineer, me and Marilyn. We are standing outside a replica of a Santa Fe depot built two years ago from plans provided by the BNSF.

Marilyn and Sue Hoback inspect furniture in the President’s office of the depot. Note the picture of Wm B. at the far left and the route map of the Santa Fe next to it. In the lower left is a red globe lantern.

 

Marilyn, Sue and Jennie Born are taking a closer look at the unusual desk. It has wide shallow drawers containing maps on both the top and bottom of the drawer.

From Indianapolis we travelled by van to the INRD Terra Haute Van Yard and Dispatch Center where we saw the dispatcher controlling train movements on the single track line and in yard switching. Trains controlled by the dispatcher average 20 a day, including  unit trains hauling coal from mines to power generating stations. There is a dispatcher on duty 24/7 and he has 10 computer screens with information, 5 with the more significant data. The dispatcher also functions as the second man in the cab when the train is operated by a one man crew. He remotely can stop the train should  the engineer become incapacitated.

 

Here is the President's Special train. The train is made up of a diesel-electric GP38 locomotive, a power car containing generators to supply electricity to the next two cars, a Santa Fe lounge car (no. 1389), and the President’s private car, formerly a Santa Fe business car, refurbished and repainted last in 2004 - 2005. With permission of the BNSF the car contains the Santa Fe name and the car number, 56. The car was built by Pullman in 1923 and has always carried the Santa Fe name.

 

Here is a better view of the lounge car just before we boarded the train at INRD’s Jasonville Hiawatha yard. We rode 107 miles on the mainline of the INRD through Bloomington to the Indianapolis yard.

 

Here is the dining table in the business car. It seats 8 and the dishes used are in the Mimbreno china pattern used by the Santa Fe for many years. The upholstery on the chairs was a pattern also used widely by the Santa Fe.

 

The galley in the business car was fully equipped. A chef prepared our gourmet dinner on board while we were on our trip.

 

Cousin Marilyn in the lounge car. The bar is at the far end, and there are sleeping quarters forward of that for a car attendant.

 

 

This is the view from the observation platform on the business car as we just crossed the Tulip Trestle on the IRR.   It is the longest and highest trestle in Indiana.

 

When the time came for guests to take a ride in the cab. Mr. Hoback joined us at the controls to log check ride hours to keep his engineer’s license current.

I enjoyed this view from the brakeman's seat during my turn to ride in the locomotive.

And this was my view in the mirror of the cars in the consist.

We paused here to change riders in the locomotive.

 

We just entered the only tunnel on the INRD at Unionville. This is the view from the observation platform at the rear of the business car.

 

Here we just exited the tunnel.

 

 

 

 

This is the Shuffle Creek Trestle  crossing the Lemon Reservoir.

 

 

 

 

Guests Eric Heiser (Arizona attorney and editor of the publications of the Santa Fe Historical Society), Jennie Born and Bob Babcock, VP of Business Development, Transportation and Mechanics of the INRD. Donald Lamb was another guest who spent much of his time on board in the locomotive. He is a professor of astrophysics at the University of Chicago and a leading writer of articles on the history of the Santa Fe

Me, Susan and Tom Hoback after dinner in the business car.

More information about the amazing things Mr. Hoback and coworkers have accomplished with Indiana Rail Road in 26 years is on line at inrd.com

BELOIT COLLEGE AND NOSTALGIC BUILDINGS IN BELOIT

After the wedding, Jo went to Lonedale MO with her grandchildren who attended the wedding to look after the family home while Jo’s daughter and husband took a cruise to the Bahamas on the occasion of their 25th wedding anniversary. I drove the motor home from Colona to Beloit WI to attend my 55th anniversary of graduation from Beloit College, to research on my Strong ancestors who lived in Beloit,  and to take a nostalgia tour of the area in which I was raised.

 

 

Beloit College’s icon building is Middle College, the first building for the college completed about 1850. The class of 1962 is gathering on the steps for their 50th reunion picture.

 

 

Why is everyone in the class of 1962 holding a  paper plate in front of their faces?

Answer: so the caption writer can correctly identify each person from the number on the plate!

 

The Beloit College campus contains many mounds build by natives of many years ago. I attended a seminar/walk about the campus about the mounds. There are three kinds on the campus, conical or round, linear (one is about 50 feet long) and effigy. This is the only effigy mound on the campus, a turtle. Its features have been obscured over the centuries. There are burials in some mounds but not in others. The Anthropology department has excavated many of the mounds.

 

 

This is the Strong family home on Church Street in Beloit. My maternal grandmother babysat me there occasionally between 1939 and about 1941. The front porch has been enclosed and another entrance added.

 

Street sign for the corner of Strong Ave. and Milwaukee Rd.

 

Sign for Strong Park which is bordered by Strong Ave.

 

 

This home on Bluff St. was the home of the James A Strong family. I also recall visiting here many times as a child.

 

This is the home at 510 Locust of the parents of Mildred Richardson Strong, mother of cousins Jim, Marilyn, Pamela and Barbara. I rode my bike past this home 6 days a week for three years while pedaling home after completing my paper route.

The two homes in which I lived in Beloit between 1939 to 1955  have been demolished, as well as all of the public school buildings I attended except for the brand new high school my class moved into after we started high school in the old building. Have I become superannuated?

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION OF JO’S NIECE AND WEDDING OF JO’S NEPHEW

 We returned to Mesa from Utah, leaving the motor home in a RV park the high country near Clint’s Well, to attend the high school graduation of Katie McNurlin. Although her high school is in Mesa, the May 23 graduation ceremony was held in the basketball arena at the Arizona State University campus in Tempe. Katie will be attending ASU this fall. After returning to the motor home we headed east to attend the wedding of Nathan McNurlin and Mattea Scharf in the Quad Cities area on June 2.

 

Me, Katie and Jo after the graduation ceremony. The medal Katie is wearing is an academic recognition.

 

 

Laura (Katie’s mother), Katie and David McNurlin, her father, at graduation dinner at Buca Di Beppo Italian Restaurant

   

The restaurant served a nice graduation cake in honor of the occasion.

 

TEN DAYS LATER, NEAR LECLAIRE IA NATHAN AND MATTEA WERE MARRIED IN A QUAINT COUNTRY CHURCH

 

Altar at the historic church

Exchanging of rings. Mattea’s grandfather, center, officiated.

 

Grandmothers of the groom: Barbara Williams and Jo McNurlin

 

The BRIDE

 

 

 

The bride and groom preferred this form of limousine to the more conventional kind to take them to the reception. The uniformed chauffeur is Mike Williams, step-grandfather of Nathan.

 

Laura and David McNurlin, parents of the groom, at the reception in a converted mansion in LeClaire IA.

ZION NATIONAL PARK – VIRGIN RIVER CANYON

Zion is similar to Yosemite in that in both the main part of the park is located at the bottom of a canyon, they  are crowded in season, they have efficient bus service to take the visitors to the various features, and they are beautiful. The main part of Zion in the canyon is much smaller. Early arrivers at Zion in the summer quickly fill up the main parking lot and the overflow lot; those arriving later must park in the adjacent town, Springdale, and take a separate shuttle bus into the park.

 

 

We arrived in time to have a short walk from the parking lot to the park bus system at its southernmost stop. The busses are propane powered and consist of a short bus pulling a trailer similar in seating capacity to that of the bus.

 

When this waterfall runs, impurities in the water stain the rock to create the ribbon effect.

 

 

The north fork of the Virgin River flows through the canyon. Because of the topography, heavy rain in the upstream watershed causes water to rise rapidly, leaving heaps of downed trees such as this when the water recedes.

We first rode the bus to its northern end and walked the 1.1 miles to The Narrows where, as one might guess, the canyon narrows considerably. Here we are looking at the end of the paved trail. Hikers must wade across the river to continue. Many, including us, turned back here.

The trail to The Narrows passes along a weeping wall – groundwater seeping out of higher rock between layers runs down the cliff, resulting in these hanging gardens.

In the lower part of the canyon the greatest elevation differences can be seen.

After lunch at the Zion Lodge we took the Emerald Pool trail up a side canyon to the point where water flowing out of the canyon wall between layers of rock made broad waterfalls ending in the pools

 

 

The breeze caught this small waterfall, providing a nice shower to those standing below.  The next picture shows the same waterfall from underneath.

 

 

I took a lot of pictures at Zion with a 35 mm camera I had just found in an antique shop to test it, so I did not take many digital pictures for showing in this blog.

TOP OF ZION NATIONAL PARK AND SLOT CANYON OF QUAIL CREEK

After leaving Moab, we spent a week near St. George UT, near Zion National Park. On the west side of the park the Kolob Terrace road leads to the upper northern part of the park and to the Kolob Resevoir. While we both had been to the popular valley part of the park visited by most tourists, neither of us had been on this road. It was well worth the day trip. We did not get to the Kolob Canyon far western part of the park, saving it for the next time!

The views of formations are much different along this road than in the canyon bottom. If this one has a name, I have no idea what it is!

More of the same.

 

 

Finally our climb in the Jeep on the sometimes steep road rewards us with getting into ponderosa country. We had lunch in a convenient pulloff near here.

This view is from Lava Point Lookout at the edge of the Colorado plateau. There were thick lava fields just below us. Here  we are looking at the light colored side canyon feeding Zion Canyon on the far left.

 

Kolob Reservoir is at the end of the road.   There were a few semi-developed RV sites on the lake, but it might be a challenge to drive our motor home up to it. The lake is at over 8000 ft. elevation!

 

ABOUT A MILE FROM OUR RV PARK NEAR HURRICANE UT A TRAIL ALONG A SLOT CANYON FORMED BY QUAIL CREEK MADE FOR A NICE MORNING WALK.

Erosion formed these almost grotesque  formations along the creek

 

Jo negotiated the obstacle in the trail in the foreground after wading across the shallow creek downstream from this pool. One can barely make her out in the shadow  near the fall where the slot part of the canyon  begins. This is the point where I decided not to go as far as did Jo.

 

Sorry about the fuzziness of this telephoto shot of the falls, Jo, and steps cut into the rock to get around the falls.

This is the summer home of Brigham Young in St. George.