Show i£ Sunday Way Stancard-Exarmn- 7 1995 er Far left: A painting of Johnny Appleseed graces the left side of the sand dome on top of Old 119 Near left: Using a grinder Eric Dowty cleans up welds on Jupiter’s smokestack Schedule Each year officials at Golden 'Spike Historic Site celebrate the May 10 1869 completion of the nation's first transcontinental railroad with a reenactment of por- -' lions of the original ceremony The event is free The visitors' center bpens at 8 am for this year's festivities The day's schedule is: 9:30 am — full-siz- e replicas Of the Central Pacific Jupiter and Union Pacific's Old 19 arrive behind the visitors' center 1' am — formal program beceremony gins B 12:30 pm — reenactment of the locomotives' meeting with the engines moving into the nosc-to- -' of the (lose position for pose made famous in the black and white “Champagne Photo" taken 2back in 1869 i pm — actors from the park find any visitors who show up in 'drcss appropriate for 1869 pose for the photograph 1:15 pm — a second photois taken that includes all park graph ' personnel and visitors — with or without period dress 2:30 pm — second reenactment followed by a demonstration run of the locomotives 445 pm — engines depart 5 pm — center closes 1 1 flag-raisi- ' Trains From IE they love it It's not just a living It’s a hobby" he said Or a sickness ANDRE A rainstorm that all but washed out the rail through Weber Canyon prevented arrival last-minu- A hot job Six days before showtime 300-degr- ! j j i ! i ! ' ! I i J ! j j the engine's boiler The steam that powers the locomotive is created when the fire in the firebox heats water stored in the boiler The hole through which Eric crawled is the one workers toss wood in to stoke the blaze as the engine rolls down the track Yeah He was in there - It's the only way to examine the toiler's 200 “slay bolts" which are rods embedded in the sides top and bottom that help it withstand the 50 pounds of pressure needed to run the engines He lapped each bolt with a small hammer listening for the ringing sound that means it’s still OK A dull thud means it's loose A loose one here or there is all right but two or three next to each other makes a weak spot Weak spots go “KABLOOIE!" Makes the lest seem like a much better alternative Unfortunately it's one that must be done right before the season's first run which was last Tuesday Luckily Eric's links rang All 400 of them “It's hot in there I don't like to Stay too long" Eric said “You lose a lot of weight" Eric recalled a chubby worker from another railroad who got stuck in the firebox door It took half a dozen guys to yank him out “You’ve got to be half nuts to work on a steam locomotive anyway" Eric said “They'd look at the outside and " say Oh this looks great’ Eric said “All they’d see going down the track is the glitter" i j j i j I ! I j i L beams arc slow to write checks When the Dowtys can't buy what they need they improvise They use an old dishwasher that sits next to the workbench for keeping welding rods dry and at a consistent temperature Over in the machine shop where they keep the lathe and other big machines is a box of long thin spirals of gold that look like Christmas tree garlands They're scraps of brass left over from the screws bolls pins and other custom parts Bob creates for the locomotives Brass is valuable in any form They trade the curls with a Brigham City scrap dealer for other parts and materials They make whatever they can't buy and they can't buy most parts When they needed a brass screw with 18 threads to the inch Bob made one on the lathe When they needed an air gauge with the same numbering system as those in the 19th century Eric worked on one at home every night These engines only go about a I1: miles a day but that doesn't matter “I don't care if we've only got feet of track It's still a railroad" 20 Eric said And it is subject to the rules and regulations set by the Federal Railroad Administration which sets safety and equipment standards for railroads from tourist attractions to Amtrak The Dowtys like those rules “It keeps the money guys from saying we don't have to do things" Eric said "It keeps people honest" It keeps operation of the engines safe “When I first gdt here I wondered ’Why do we have so much labor with these things?’ And now I understand" Powell said of d his charges "It's really a lot of work" That attitude is a refreshing one the engineers said because sonic of Powell's predecessors didn't have the faintest idea what it took to keep Jupiter and Old 19 puffing They'd come in a few days before the season opened take a look at Adding polish In winter Golden Spike visitors can peek in the engine house and watch the Dowtys work but they have to nsk permission Most folks aren't refused but the privilege isn’t posted anywhere in the visitors' center in order to keep a handle on the crowds They arc alter all on a tight schedule With the exception of a iron-bellie- 1 mm trivia Bureaucrats who know nothing of boiler bolts and equalizing Golden Spike isn't the typical national park When Bruce Powell took over as superintendent in January he wasn't assigned to watch over the usual moose pine forests or canyons The only wild animals out here arc a clan of feral felines who live behind the engine house (Bob keeps a bag of kilty kibble in the shop for them in winter) jiUtuviL Train Spare parts Bureaucrats j of the westbound locomotive originally scheduled to come in 1869 so the 119 (replica above) in Og- - swell the mechanics said 1 j r den came instead Below Bob and Eric eat their identical lunches in the 119’s cab the brass and figure everything was stood on live embers in £ shcat so he could examine i RANIERIStandard-Examine- Eric £trawlcd into Jupiter's firebox and ! te yi two engines at Summit are of the historic 1869 locomotives and were built in Costa Mesa Calif from 1977 to 1979 The engineers who run them Bob and Eric Dowty arc father and I son and members of the n team that built the replicas Some other interesting facts from the folks at Golden Spike I Historic Site: n The locomotives weigh within a few pounds of what the ' originals weighed The paintings on Old 19 arc the same as those on the original except for the one of fur trapper J Jim Bridgcr on the right side of the sand dome — the thing that sticks up right behind the smokestack People arc standing in front of thaj side of the sand dome in all of the photographs of the original 19 sp no one knows what was painted there The left side has a picture of Johnny Appleseed Old 19 wasn't supposed to be part of the historic meeting However a rainstorm (hat all but washed out the rail through Weber Canyon prevented arrival of the westbound locomotive originally scheduled to come Engine 19 was sitting in ' Ogden ready to go so they used it for the ceremony instead Jupiter's smokestack is fat at the top to prevent embers spewed g locomotive from the from Dying all over the countryside Old 19 burns coal so its smokestack is tall and straight to more efficiently purge the exhaust Wood burned in the Jupiter this summer is from the support beams of the old railroad bridge that used to cross the Great Salt ‘ Like from Promontory Point The Jupiter burns 5 cords of wood a week or 80 cords in a summer season of demonstrations at the park When stacked a cord of wood is about 8 feet long 4 feel wide and 4 feet high The eight-perso- 64-lo- 1 couple ol temporaries hired each March to help with cleaning and polishing it’s just the Dowtys and their fireman Steve Ramcro In the summer Ramcro’s job is to keep the fires going when the locomotives arc in motion In the winter Ramcro drives in from his Brigham City home each day to polish brass Each bell tube railing and bracket must be removed from the engines and buffed by hand or electric wheel until it glows Then Ramcro takes the pieces outside — one by one — and sprays them with a polymer to protect them from becoming tarnished over the summer After they dry he dons a face shield and buffs them a final time with the electric buffing wheel Each locomotive carries about 1500 pounds of brass baubles but Ramcro doesn't know how many there arc All he knows is it takes about six months to dean them all "I never counted" he said "I just keep taking them o(T" No substitutes Nobody knows these engines like the Dowtys and it's difficult to imagine anyone else could keep them running But reality tells them that eventually someone else will have to “Bob is really talented I don't know what we're going to do without him when he moves on" park manager Powell said Eric doesn't want to think about that He and his dad have been working on steam trains together olT and on for nearly 20 years — all of Eric's adult life “It'll be a traumatic thing for me because we've worked together for so long It will be tough for me to be here without him around" They drive in together every day from their Honey villc home Their faces look alike their speech sounds alike and their moustaches look alike except Bob's is white and Eric's is sandy brown They even bring the same lunches to work — a sandwich bag of chips yogurt cookies and a soda Bob's the methodical patient one who knows how every inch of these engines fit together and is more interested in getting on with the next task than filling out reports for the last one Eric who fired up his first steam locomotive when he was 12 is the pickiest about historical authenticity (remember his gauge) and enjoys any task that involves crawling into the 19th-centur- y dark creepy places in or under the n engines He likes doing the paperwork He logged about 60 pages of tasks completed this winter and has started a fist of stuff that needs to be done next year His love for trains began with his father a machinist who loved them so much he look his small son to the crossings in their Southern California hometown just so the pair could watch the old steam engines chug past 64-to- Eric's first memory is of a 1901 locomotive that made its last runs during the late 1950s "I'd yell ’There’s that green one Daddy!' It was green because it was dirty" Eric said Nope Bob can't retire said Eric who calls him "Dad" even at work Bob's not making any plans to cither He figures he'll stick around for another 20 years or so lie even works on Saturdays sometimes because he'd rather weld an equalizing beam than watch a basketball game “They told me this morning they're going to bury me out by the last spike site" he said grinning 1 1 te 1 wood-burnin- 1 |