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Show -s. f " 1 v , 2 , Bits and Pieces by Eleanor 0. seats was 1908 so you know how many hundreds of thousands of miles that car had been in service. The "plumbing" . . . one at each end was antiquated, of course," and will have to be replaced before that part of the car can be used. Again ol' No, 35 will be the number one engine ontheHeber Creeper. You should see it! It's been sand-blasted and painted a shiny black with red, some yellow and silver to make it a colorful giant all ready for the 1972 debut May 27. I remember so well my first trip on the Creeper last July; it was 3 12 hours of pure joy and fun, too. I'm lookingforward to going again this summer. It'll be running until Labor Day and in my book it's a MUST! As Mr. Ashton said "You just haven't seen that canyon until you've ridden the train through it!" THE CREW WORKING on the Creeper are dedicated men and boys. Mr. Ashton said he has the finest group of teenagers BY Eleanor Bennett PROBABLY many Parkites noticed the old railroad cars on the track down back of Bud Gas-parac's Gas-parac's oil tanks this past week and perhaps ' wondered about them. I did, but by the time I was able to get there with my camera they had been removed all but one and that was a comparatively compar-atively new dining car quite recently retired from use by the Union Pacific. When I found that these cars were destined for the Heber Creeper I wanted to see them, so Friday I went to Heber and was lucky to find Lowe Ashton at the Depot. That Depot De-pot in itself is a jewel but the Heber Creeper is something else again. When I asked Mr. Ashton about the old cars he pointed to one monster of a car and said, "Here's one we got that we'll be using right away," It was marked on the side the Areata and Mad River R.R. "That name was just too hard for folks to remember so they nicknamed it the Annie and Mary line" he said. And sure enough, there on the side under the name were the words Annie & Mary. It's a line in California about 150 miles north of San Francisco. working and the men are from all walks of like. "Every minute min-ute they can spare" he told me, "they're here working." The Creeper will have the same cars as last year the open flat -bed and the covered cattle cars as well as these ne"wly purchased regulation railroad cars. It'll be fun to see how they refurbish them. From all indications 1972 will be a banner year for the Heber Creeper and it's my guess that a great many tourists will have a better understanding of the Alps of Utah after they've taken this trip on the famous Iron Horse. I prevailed on Mr, Ashton coveralls and all to let me take his picture sitting in this old railroad car he had just acquired. MR. ASHTON laid a plank ' down so I could walk inside and that car was really an oldtimer. High fancy lamps in the ceiling and straight-back seats that could be turned over so that four people could ride together, two forward and two backward. The patent date on the |
