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Oral History |
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By Pappy Clay - Febuary 18th, 1969 This is the story of the "Promontory Gravel Train" that was loaded up with gravel from the "east promontory gravel pit" approximately five times weekly by the steam-shovel on the spur at ___ and which was a continuing operation over a near two-year period. The said "gravel train" was a specially equipt string of ten flat-cars all coupled together as a "flexible unit" with all the hand-brake wheels removed and wide steel plates flexibly fastened over the spaces between the ends of the cars and a row of two-foot high wooden stakes fastened on each outside edge of each flat-car. This string of cars would be loaded with a good grade of "ballast gravel" by the steam-shovel while on the gravel-spur until all the flat-cars would be carrying a continuous string of gravel piled high in the middle of the cars and shallow near their sides so that very little gravel would shake off it would do no harm. That gravel train was run all that time by an engineer named Fick with the help of his fireman and one front-brakeman riding on the engine. There was one flat-car with no gravel on it but instead was a large "gravel plow" and this plow-car would be switched at the gravel-pit to the end of the gravel-train farthest from the locomotive which was always headed east with "the string of flats" being pushed ahead of the locomotive and the gravel-train would go down the Hill and to its unloading destination in that order. When the gravel-train got to that place where there was a large work-gang of Chinamen raising ties and tamping gravel and leveling track, then the Brakeman would have a half-dozen Chinamen to unwind a long steel-cable which was on a "reel on a tool-car", immediately in front of the locomotive, and drag said cable along the string of gravel cars. The gravel-plow was somewhat similar to the old "double-spread snow plows" used to clear the main-line of snow. Now Engineer Fick would set the air-brakes on all the gravel-cars and the Brakeman would uncouple or "break the train" between the "tool-car" and the closest gravel-car then signal to Engineer Fick to slowly back-up the locomotive which would pull the steel-cable tight which would slowly move the "gravel plow" ahead along that whole string of gravel-cars in such a manner that the "gravel-plow" would push the string of gravel" evenly off both sides of all the gravel-cars while the row of wooden stakes on each side of each gravel-car prevented the gravel-plow from jumping off either side of any gravel-car as it slowly spread the gravel on both sides of the railroad track just outside of the ends of the ties. When the gravel-plow had spread all the gravel up to and onto the last gravel-car and before the gravel-plow would have been pulled off the end of that car, then the Brakeman would signal Engineer Fick to stop then slowly go forward toward the gravel-cars. As the locomotive pushing the tool-car moved ahead, several Chinamen would wind up the steel-cable back onto the "reel on the tool-car" fast enough to take up the slack so that when the locomotive would "couple up" to the gravel-train again, this would leave the "gravel-plow" flat-car on the west end of the gravel-train instead of on the east end as had been its position when leaving the gravel-pit. The gravel-train would now go west again leaving the gang of Chinamen to "tamp in gravel" along a new section of roadbed. Going west, Engineer Fick would stop a Blue Creek water-tank to take on water and let young Wallace Clay off the engine after his being on the same sitting ahead of the Fireman's seat in the left side of the locomotive cab for a whole round trip to gravel-pit then to Balfour then back to Blue Creek as a guest of Engineer Fick. When the gravel-train went back up the Hill to the gravel-pit again, then the flat-car, with the "gravel-plow" on it, would be switched to the east end of the gravel-train by proper use of the side-track and gravel spur so that the whole roadbed was being progressively westward graveled from Corinne to Promontory Summit in that long-ago time in the middle of the Golden Spike Era. |
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