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Show o Section B Sun fidvocate an ornate, Fred Voll Jr. shows off one of his a with is variety of his patriotic clock. Voll's home decorated s to welder's handiwork, from wood-carving- wall-frame- d s, wood-carving- Retired railroader Fred Voll Jr. of Helper looks back over two generations of riding the rails. Voll and his father before him spent their lives working for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad. His father started with the railroad in Alamosa, Colo., before the line was finished between Salt Lake City and Denver. sculpture. He looks back railroad blstoiry weir Two Voll generations cover D&RGW line in Carbon County By NELSON WADSWORTH Managing Editor HELPER Fred W. Voll Jr. leans on a counter in the Mining Museum here and glass reminisces about a lifetime of railroading. His memory spans two generations of time, dipping back into the beginnings of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad in Carbon County. Volls father before him also spent his entire life as a foreman riding the rails. I never bought a railroad ticket in my whole life, the retired, 83 - year - old machinist says, pushing a black baseball cap back over tufts of silver - gray hair. But I traveled all over. Voll retired from the Denver and Rio Grande 15 years ago, but railroading is still very much a part of his life. As curator of the Mining Museum, he spends much of his time collecting old photographs and artifacts from the areas colorful rail and mining history. Because of his efforts, the museum now contains one of the most comprehensive e collections of memorabilia in Utah. rail-min- Days of Steam group of men wait for an incoming train at Pleasant Valley Junction (later named Colton) in station was located the 1880s. This about six miles southeast of Soldier Summit and A once-thrivin- g A diamond-stack- , narrow-guage- , steam locomotive turns at Pleasant Valley's roundhouse in the early 1880s' getting ready to go into one of the stalls at the Denver and Rio Voll lived through the transition from steam to diesel locomotives and now he wistfully recalls the good old days when the big steam engines puffed over Soldier Summit. Im always glad I lived through those days, he says. Why? Because theyre gone now, and well never see em again. served the railroad until it was abandoned in the 1930s. Fred Voll Sr. lived in Pleasant Valley Junction about the time this photograph was taken. The print was provided by his son Grande Western's terminal. Picture was taken from the round-houslooking toward Note bar in front of cattle guard. the e turn-tabl- (arrow) poses with fellow workers at the Pleasant Valley Junction Round-houssometime in the early 1880s. of the round house shows a small portion Only Fred Voll e Sr. Recently on a trip to Sacramento Voll visited a park with a friend where one of the huge steam engines was on public display. I said, Frank, if the railroads hadnt scattered these old engines around the country in these parks, wed have a whole generation growing up that would never know steam was a part of the transportation scene. If one of these big engines was to come through. Helper or Price and blow its whistle, everybody in town would be down to the railroad tracks wondering what it was. Therell never be another sound like that. Theyve tried to duplicate it with the diesels, but they aint even close. Volls father worked for the railroads long before Fred was born. He was a machinist, too, from Springfield, Ohio, and one of Freds most prized possessions is a beautifully crafted set of tools his father hand - made back in 1876. Fred Sr. worked for various railroads in the east before ending up with the Rio Grande in Alamosa, Colo., as the tracks were being laid between Denver and Salt Lake City. Voll is a little hazy on dates, but he thinks it was around 1882. I once had two railroad passes signed by the construction engineer D.C. Dodge himself, but I dont know whatever became of them, Voll laments. All I know was my dad was sent out of Denver to work as a foreman on the new line. In 1883 Volls father ended up in Colton, then known as Pleasant Valley Junction, where -- (Continued on Page 2) in the picture. Note large lever in foreground which also shows in the photograph of the turn table on the left, probably used to turn platform. |