This
newsletter is getting out quite a bit late since Sue and I took advantage of
Spring Break to visit our granddaughter and her parents in Nova Scotia. We had
a great time but my only accomplishment, aside from spoiling Kathryn, was
reading Tom Clancy's 1027 page THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON. Both the
book and my son William's recent assignment flying P-3s from Whidbey Island
Naval Air Station made the current Chinese crisis hit home. The pricelists were
delayed even further by my insistence on preparing everything on the PC this
month. I'm still not as proficient on it as I am on the MAC. I'm making
progress but the formats still aren't quite satisfactory. Your comments and
suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks for your help and your patience. .
FOR THE RECORD: That widely publicized $360
million anonymous donation to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, my
undergraduate alma mater, didn't come from me. Sales have been good, but not
THAT good! I do donate a percentage of my sales to the churches I attend on my
show trips but I'm certainly not in the benefactor category yet. Keep those
orders coming as they have the past couple months though and maybe I'll get
there. Thanks for your strong support. .
AN EVEN BETTER DEAL: Turns out that the Supplement #1 to
ATA Handbook #138 WORLD RAILWAYS PHILATELIC is only $12.00 plus
postage, not $16.00 as I announced last month. My initial order is sold out but
I'll be happy to order more so let me know if you still need one. It is
certainly worth the money. See this months specials.
"BUY YOUR BIRTH
MONTH - SEE WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN RAILROADING WHEN YOU WERE BORN": That new sign
introduced at the Denver Great American Train Show has had a positive effect on
my magazine sales at train shows. One lady bought all 12 issues of both TRAINS and MODEL RAILROADER for her husband's birth year! If you would
like copies of MODEL RAILROADER,
RAILROAD MODEL CRAFTSMAN, RAILROAD/RAILFAN, and/or TRAINS for your birth month let me know the details and
I'll tell you what I have and the prices. Recognizing the ages of my audience,
I should point out that at present I am sold out of magazines from the 1930's
but I do have most of the MR's
from the 40's and a good selection of all four magazines from the 50's on.
JAPAN LISTINGS: Once again the publishers of the Scott Catalogs
have demonstrated their disdain for collectors by renumbering and reorganizing
stamps issued by Japan, many of them over 10 years ago! They have created a new
category of listings called "Prefecture Issues" which are designated
with a "Z" prefix. Thus numbers 1841-1990 issued in 1989-1993 are now
Z1-Z150, 2246-2400B from 1994 on become Z151-Z307. Scott explains this major
change on page 71 of Volume 4, stating "With few exceptions, prefecture
stamps were available only in the prefecture (one of Japan's 47 political
subdivisions) for which they were issued. All of the stamps were valid
throughout Japan. Prefecture stamps are distinguishable from other Japanese
issues by the calligraphic style of the four characters which represent the
prefecture name." I wonder if they will create a special category for the
football coaches, Wisconsin stamp and other US issues that had restricted sale
locations? Probably not since Scott seems to operate by whim rather than a
consistent policy (Remember all the changes and inconsistency in the
"Leaders of the World"). As another example of this I submit their
numbering of the new Japanese Millennium Sheets: they assigned the major
numbers consecutively, but letters for the individual stamps on the sheets seem
to have been assigned randomly. On sheet 7 (#2693) the train stamps are
designated a and b although they are in position 8 and 9 on the sheet of 10(as
numbered on the sheet itself)! I think I have caught all the changes and
corrections, but be sure to check your collection carefully to avoid ordering
something you already have just because the number changes confuse the issue.
MARCH TRAVEL: It was a beautiful day
for a drive, but train watching on my Ogden/San Francisco trip started out
really slow. Nothing until Denver where I passed a NB Texas Utilities coal
empty (the TXUX reporting marks gave it away) near Coors Field. An hour later I
met a SB 20 car BNSF manifest at the CO-WY border and a couple EB UP stackpacks
stopped just short of the UP-BNSF crossing outside Cheyenne. Then nothing for
another 100 miles except the light of a switcher working the welded rail yard
in Laramie and a rail grinding train on the siding at Rock River (power car,
two grinding machines, three tank cars and the control car). After stopping on
the west edge of Medicine Bow as a small herd of pronghorn antelope crossed the
highway single file, the action picked up. First, I caught up with a WB
manifest, then met an EB stackpack, three WB manifests stopped near Hanna Junction
with an EB TOFC passing the last of them and two more EB as I reached Walden
Jct. and got back on I-80. Only eight trains in a stretch where I usually see
15, but it ended well as I saw a total of 29 trains from Medicine Bow to Green
River. The only unusual train was an empty string of flatcars, which I had a
chance to examine more closely from the Green River footbridge. There were at
least three different car models but they all had the same basic design - a low
(3 ft.?) bulkhead at each end and four sets of stanchions on each side. I
couldn't figure out what cargo they might carry but a couple railroaders I
talked with at the Ogden show thought they might be a rail train or pipe cars.
I'll have to keep looking for a loaded one to confirm that! Green River was
full of activity as I had my T-bone dinner at the Embers and later as I watched
from the footbridge. But the clear, bitter cold night had my ears and cheeks
nearly frozen after three EB and six WB (including four I had seen earlier) so
I headed for the motel at 8 PM where I wrote out postcards for the Cow Palace
show.
There wasn't anything
happening in the yard at 7:45 AM Friday morning. The six road locos on the
ready tracks were all different from the eight that had been there last night.
A breeze made it even colder than the previous evening, so I only spent a half
hour there - long enough to see both yard goats power up to start their
switching duties and one string of three locos roll out to find their train,
but there were no thru trains. I did see a TOFC stretched out before me against
the snow-covered landscape as I descended the hill toward the UP-I-80 overpass
East of Evanston - I passed over the middle of the train. An EB stackpack had
just crested the hill as I started the descent into Echo canyon. I passed a
single WB "geep", then a WB coal train. I met a couple EB stackpacks
between Echo and the mouth of Weber Canyon, then passed a string of three WB
manifests stopped waiting to get thru the Riverdale yard. The yard was totally
clogged at 11 AM as I stopped at the post office to mail the post cards and buy
more. Then I dropped off the newsletter/pricelists at Staples for printing and
went on to Union Station to set up for the show. After setting up, I went back
to Staples to pick up my printing, happy to find it done and at the same price
as in Colorado Springs. The Riverdale yard was still clogged but with a new
group of trains as I drove to the Sleep Inn to check in. Back to the show for
an early dinner (late lunch?) at the Union Grill - a delicious Salmon Primavera
Linguine. After wandering around to see the layouts and other dealers, I
uncovered my tables about 4 PM since they seem to always start the show before
the published 5 PM opening. Some one new did the floor plan this year and my
tables were in the hallway instead of in the main room where I've been since
1993. Aside from giving lots of directions to the food service and restrooms
and not having a view of the model layouts, the location wasn't too bad. The
Hostlers had record attendance on Friday evening and probably for the whole
show! I also had a good show.
The Saturday night
banquet was also a great success. In addition to an excellent grilled salmon
dinner and a wonderful strawberry cheesecake dessert, the presentation by Daniel
Kuhn was outstanding. Mr. Kuhn, currently Utah's State Rail Planner, is a
former Southern Pacific and AMTRAK official as well as a professional historian
and photographer. He selected a few of his 65,000 slides to illustrate a
railfan trip by car from Ogden to Reno, NV, along the Western Pacific to
Portola, CA, then along the SP's Shasta Route to Portland, OR and back to Ogden
via I-84. In addition to some great train photos, he also highlighted the
scenery of several lesser-visited national parks and discussed the volcanology
of the many Cascade Range volcanoes. A man after my own heart, he also pointed
out which rooms on which floors of hotels in the various cities had the best
track views and which restaurants had the best eats!
My sales would have been
about equivalent to last year's had it not been for Jordan Glew, a retired
Southern Pacific engineer and manager. Saturday afternoon he brought me nine
large Avon boxes filled with his 30+ year accumulation of SP memorabilia -
locomotive manuals, timetables, drawings, papers, keys, pins, a clock, etc.
Plus we had a chance to talk about some of the highlights of his outstanding
railroad career. Most of my Sunday sales and all of this years sales increase
came from this new material. But it did present a big logistics problem. I had
picked up three copy paper boxes of magazines from a collection of 12 I bought
in Denver on the way out so I came fully loaded! Plus I had bought another box
full Saturday morning. The Previa wasn't going to handle ten more boxes. Using
the slow periods Saturday and Sunday to reorganize and consolidate the 40
magazine boxes I brought with me, I had the ten extra boxes down to three by
closing time. It still took some doing to get the extra boxes in, but the real
problem will come when I try to get all that extra weight over Silver Zone and
Donner Passes. After getting the Previa loaded, I parked near the Ogden wye
until dark, relaxing watching the trains go by since I hadn't been able to see
any during the show. The Union Grill was closed and so was the restaurant next
to my motel, so I went to Jeremiah's where the banquet had been held. Their
marquee and menu boasted "Voted the Best Breakfast in Utah Seven Years in
a Row" so I ordered the Meat Lover's Skillet Breakfast for dinner. It
certainly outclassed the Denny's breakfast of the same name both in quality and
quantity! I had completed the Cow Palace postcards Friday night and mailed them
on my way to the show Saturday. Although the banquet ran late, I prepared some
of the newsletters for mailing Saturday night and finished the rest Sunday
night.
The Riverdale yard was
almost empty as I drove to the post office and on to the Toyota dealer Monday
morning. On the trip out, I couldn't get my cell phone to work and decided the
cigarette lighter was the problem, not the phone. I was hoping it was just a
fuse problem, but no such luck. Changing the fuse didn't solve the problem and
the dealership was already booked up so I decided to wait until I could take
the car to my dealer. Back to my vantage point to watch trains and finish
reading the morning papers. At noon, I went to Carl's Jr. drive-thru for their
99c double cheeseburger and back to the motel for lunch, a few telephone calls
and some work on the computer. Then back to the wye for some train watching
while reading about the Microsoft Access database. There had been 12 trains of
various types by 4 PM when I heard the dispatcher tell a maintenance man that
she didn't have any trains for at least an hour. Sounded like a good time for
dinner so I went looking for an Italian eatery but found a Chinese buffet
instead. Its limited offerings were adequate but not up to the standards of the
similar buffets that seem to be opening at every intersection in Colorado
Springs. Back to the wye for another dozen trains before dark, then on to the
motel to type up my travels. Spent all day Tuesday at the wye reading, watching
trains and sorting thru a box of miscellaneous items from Jordan Glew that I
hadn't had time for before. A very good train day (40) but nothing really
unusual. From the scanner talk there was a derailment at Evanston, WY and a
car/train collision near Clayton, UT but neither appeared to be serious.
Traffic was slow again around 4 PM so I had a quick dinner at the Souper Salad.
A summary of my 16 hours at the Ogden wye shows nine stackpacks, two TOFCs, six
autoracks, 24 manifests, one coal, one taconite, one work, and 20 locals.
Nineteen trains raced by on the yard bypass, blasting their horns as they
passed. I also had a lady engineer on a local sound her horn for me when I
waved. Of the thousands of train cars that passed by, none was like my mystery
flatcars so I'm still looking. I did see some new steel coil covered gondola
cars labeled "CO-STEEL".
Wednesday was another beautiful
day for travel. My drive-by of the Riverdale yard netted five trains (two
stackpacks, an autorack and two manifests) but just one WB autorack between
there and Salt Lake City. The local was doing some switching west of the Morton
Salt plant. At I-80 mile post 50, I caught up with a WB coal train going 39 mph
(according to the Defect Detector), then passed an EB manifest on the siding at
Clive waiting for the WB, another at the mp 40 siding, and a third at the mp 30
siding. As I passed the latter, I could see a WB rolling over the salt flats a
couple miles ahead. Finally caught up with the manifest at mile post 13 doing
60 mph (according to my calculations). Saw another manifest approaching
Wendover and two more in Wells, one WB on the old Southern Pacific line and
another setting out some cars on the old Western Pacific line. Passed a WB
autorack stopped about 10 miles further on and an EB manifest waiting in the
Elko yard. Another EB manifest was doing some switching at Carlin. Saw another
EB manifest east of Battle Mountain and then caught up with a Pandrol Jackson
rail grinding train on the westbound track approaching Valmy - that explained
why the train lineups #6 and #7 I had heard on the scanner were all EBs. The PJ
train has power units at each end and two windowless crew/equipment cars (all
painted bright blue with yellow lettering and trim) two tank cars and three
grinding cars (all five a dirty gray-black). There was a yellow water tank
truck on the rails plus a couple UP work trucks about a mile in trail of the
grinding train, probably to insure no brush fires started. Saw another EB
manifest just after passing the grinding train and an EB TOFC near Golconda,
then nothing all the way to Reno. Still, that was more action than I usually
see on that stretch. I did have to wait for an EB manifest at a crossing on my
way to the Reno Hilton for the night. Unfortunately, the "Wheel of
Fortune" didn't spin my way during this stop.
I had caught a glimpse
of some AMTRAK Amfleet cars in the Sparks yard on my way into town, so on my
way out Thursday I backtracked to see if they were still there. Sure enough
there was a UP loco, two AMTRAK FP40s and about a dozen of the low level
Amfleet cars as well as one car in the Rio Grande ski train colors. Is AMTRAK running
a ski train from Reno to Donner Pass similar to the ski train from Denver to
Winter Park? The climb over Donner Pass was beautiful but uneventful for a
train watcher so I was excited when I passed under an autorack on the high
bridge East of Colfax and watched as it slowly curved around the mountain
eastward. Another first - now I just need to see a train on the high bridge in
Auburn to complete the set! I stopped at the Roseville station to check out the
action and called Jim Taff, a Sacramento stamp dealer, I planned to visit. At
the base of the road overpass at the east end of the new yard three locos (one
UP, one SP, one D&RG) and a white bay window "Railroad Police"
caboose were parked on a short siding. It looked like a new static display of
the railroad heritage. There were also a welded rail train and a Cargill grain
train on the EB thru tracks as I drove by at 11 AM. I spent four hours (and a
few hundred dollars) going thru Jim Taff's back stock. He has a nice set-up. He
closed his store a few years ago, but bought a small cottage near his home that
he uses as a work area and to meet clients. I was able to sit comfortably at a
desk while I paged thru 100+ binders of souvenir sheets. I didn't find the
treasures I hoped for but I did find some items for future lists.
After checking into my
motel, I headed for the Roseville yard taking my Madison Ave. route. Just as I
approached the tracks, the AMTRAK train from Reno roared by (sixteen cars
including one dome car) so I guess it isn't a ski train. Must have been some
special excursion since it had too many cars to be an inspection train. As I
approached the yard another AMTRAK roared by - probably the CALIFORNIA
ZEPHYR - but it was mostly hidden from view as a couple hump trains blocked
my view. I made my rounds of the yard noticing that the grain train was still
there but the welded rail train and the locos & caboose I thought were a
static display were gone. Got back to my spot near the west yard throat at
Antelope about 4:30 PM. Watched a couple WB manifests and the hump train until
my location turned into a wild life refuge about 5 PM. Suddenly there were four
jack rabbits racing around playing tag back and forth across the tracks. They
no sooner disappeared than a white peregrine (?) falcon flew up, flapping its
wings frantically to hover over a spot, then dove straight down into the grass
about 10 feet from me, then flew away. It came back and did the same thing a
few minutes later. I assume it was catching mice but I didn't really see
anything in its talons as it flew away. An unexpected and pleasant diversion!
At 5:49 PM an EB AMTRAK CALIFORNIA P59 roared by pushing four bi-level coaches.
It evidently spends the night at Colfax, then comes west for the morning
commute. About that time the grain train was finally ready to head east but
they had a water leak in the throttle 8 position and a bullet hole in the
fireman's window on the lead loco so they had to run it over to the service
facility and get a different loco. Saw a couple other trains go by before it
got too dark to see. The grain train was still there when I left at 7:30 PM.
Went to dinner at
Carrow's and ordered the "Steak and Shrimp Scampi" special. The steak
and the pasta were good but there were only 3 shrimp. When I told the young manager
they should call it "Shrimp skimpy" he brought me a couple more
shrimp! After breakfast at Carrow's Friday morning, I headed for the rail yard
again. At the Roseville station I saw the white caboose on the end of a short
manifest as it turned on the wye, then headed for my spot at Antelope. There
wasn't much activity except for the hump trains but I did see the manifest with
the white caboose going west before I left for the Cow Palace.
The trip into San
Francisco was uneventful and the show set-up went smoothly. Had a relaxing
salmon dinner at Lyons and worked on the computer until bedtime. Saturday
didn't start well since the Fire Inspector determined my booth was blocking
access to the fire hose but some minor rearrangement solved the problem. The show
turned out exceptionally well thanks to several mail order customers who showed
up - my best GATS ever! Aside from winning some gas money on the "Wheel of
Fortune" in Reno on the way home, there wasn't much out of the ordinary -
lots of trains but nothing unusual until just outside Laramie, WY where I
caught up with the rail train, my mystery train! It ducked into the yard as I
crossed the over-pass but I saw it again on the East side as it backed into the
welded-rail yard. It delivers the 60-80 foot rail sections that are then welded
together to make the super-long rail sections - mystery solved!
USING TWO COMPUTERS AT
ONCE: Using a Mac and a Windows PC simultaneously causes some
interesting problems. I haven't yet fully transitioned to the PC and it may
take longer than expected. The PC software is not nearly as user friendly as
the Mac, particularly the MICROSOFT ACCESS database compared to CLARIS WORKS.
Here are just three examples: (1) ACCESS doesn't seem to use the same ASCII
protocol when sorting records as CLARIS WORKS did so several records in the new
database are a line or two out of sequence. I have to research the sort
protocol to get them in the proper sequence. (2) When entering a new record in
the stamp database, it is often convenient to just DUPLICATE an existing record
and then modify it - saves a lot of typing. On the Mac this is a one-click
process, just hit the DUPLICATE RECORD in the EDIT menu. In ACCESS, you have to
highlight the entire record, COPY the record, open a NEW RECORD, highlight it,
then PASTE the copied record. (3) As you know, I use an (*) in the Cat. No.
column to indicate new items not on previous lists. When creating a new list on
the Mac, I first did a FIND (*) REPLACE ( ) that effectively deleted all the
(*) in one step. When I did this in ACCESS, the entire 7200+ record database
was ERASED! (And the FIND/REPLACE operation is one you can't UNDO - much to my
chagrin!). I discovered later (while watching trains and reading in Ogden) that
ACCESS uses the (*) as a "wild card" which refers to any characters.
Thus a command to REPLACE (*) by ( ) deletes all characters. A command to FIND
(*) finds every character! (?) and (#), which I also use in my lists, are also
"wildcards" so I'll have to be careful how I use them in the future.
Fortunately I had a backup, so the entire database wasn't lost permanently.
Just some heart-stopping panic and more extra work. Consequently, I'm a little
gun-shy using ACCESS so I prepared last months lists on the Mac. But to keep
the two databases the same, every change I made in the Mac, I also had to make
in ACCESS so there I was with the computers side by side working on a record on
the Mac, then making the same changes in the PC. Obviously, not the efficient
way to proceed. Not wanting that aggravation again, I took my time and prepared
this month's lists on the PC. Fortunately, the word processing functions aren't
as big a problem - most of this newsletter was written on the Mac while
traveling, then emailed to the PC and reformatted for the newsletter.
Unfortunately the PC doesn't support my favorite "Helvetica" font, so
this is printed in "Arial Unicode MS". Or would you prefer "Times
New Roman"?
RAIL FACTS
AND FEATS: The first railway in Africa was the 129 mile standard-gauge
mainline from Alexandria to Cairo opened in January 1856.
RAIL
THOUGHT OF THE MONTH: "I've spent most of my
time and money on TRAINS. The rest I've just wasted." Tee shirt on
satisfied customer at Denver train show. Make it "train stamps" and you
have my sentiments exactly!
STAMP OF THE MONTH: Is this a train stamp? I have been
told that these are Japanese Railway Express stamps, possibly used during the
Korean occupation so I am including them in this months list. However, Hiroshi
Aoyama, my Japanese dealer friend, has no information on them. He translated
the Japanese characters in the horseshoe as "Internal Transport Company
Transport Fee Paid". He says that while it looks like a stamp or revenue,
it is probably a private label from the 1900-1920's. He indicated that the
character in the cancel on one of the copies I sent him is private rather than
official. He can't tell whether the transport means train, ship, etc. During
this period 100 sen equaled 1 yen but he says these values are not Japanese
yen. The dealer I bought them from didn't know anything about them either so I
don't even know what catalog the numbers come from. Anyone out there who can
shed light on this for us? .
The Rail Philatelist 
AL PETERSON