(The following story by Kevin Bonham appeared on the Grand Forks Herald website on July 13, 2010.)
DAHLEN, N.D. — Allan and Barbara Wiens and their children are seeing the United States and Canada in a rather unusual way — rolling along in a railroad motorcar just about 2 feet above the rails.
“The kids get to see a lot of the country,” Barbara said.
“Mainly, I like the air conditioning,” said 11-year-old daughter Julia.
“She’s talking about the wind blowing through the doors,” her mother said.
The Wiens family, from Sundre, Alta., also includes riders Jonathan, 12, and Timothy, 15.
They’re part of a North American Railcar Operators Association, which took a 110-mile roundtrip journey Tuesday from Fordville, N.D., to Devils Lake and back. The group of 26 railcars and 54 motorcar enthusiasts traveled along tracks owned by Northern Plains Railroad, based in Fordville.
They stopped for a morning break in Dahlen, where members of the Dahlen Lutheran Church served coffee and pastries. They stopped again on their return trip to Fordville.
Oliver and Lorna Johnson, who live in nearby Michigan, N.D., visited with family members.
Their grandson, Ross Johnson, works for Northern Plains in Fordville.
And Cindy Johnson, who also works for NPR, is the sister of Dan Kessler, who is traveling with dad, Bruce Kessler, a retired depot agent for the B&O and Pennsylvania railroads from Illinois who traveled in the lead railcar on Tuesday’s excursion.
Bruce Kessler, decked out in a railroad conductor’s uniform, traveled in a 1953 two-stroke Fairmont railcar that originally was owned by Western Union.
Tuesday’s trek is part of a two-week excursion that started Saturday along the North Shore of Lake Superior, between Duluth and Two Harbors, Minn.
After completing the Northern Plains Excursion, other excursions include:
– Dakota, Missouri Valley & Western Railroad, two days, 130 miles roundtrip from Crosby, N.D., to Whitetail, Mont.
– Last Mountain Railway, 120 miles roundtrip through the Qu’ appelle Valley northwest of Regina, Sask.
– Great Sandhills Railway, 260 miles roundtrip through southern Saskatchewan.
– Great Western Railway, a 360-mile journey through another portion of southern Saskatchewan.
Coincidentally, another NARCOA group is making a trip through northeastern North Dakota this month. The two-day excursion, July 17-18, will travel on Dakota Northern Railroad tracks between Grafton and Walhalla.
NARCOA has been around for nearly 25 years. Organizers are railroad enthusiasts who wanted to preserve the history of the railroad motorcars, which were used by railroad crews to inspect tracks. Larger versions carried workers or pulled trailers loaded with spikes and tools for track maintenance, according to the NARCOA website.
Railroad companies have been replacing the old motorcars since the late 1970s with Hy-Rail vehicles, which are standard road vehicles equipped with retractable guide wheels that can operate on road or rail.
“I rode on them a couple of times, back in 1979-80,” said Roger Harmon, NPR rail inspector. “Then, all of a sudden, they were gone.”
Railroad motorcars also were known as “Speeders” because they were much faster than the old manually powered pump cars they replaced.
The motorcars are powered by 2-cycle, 5-horsepower or 4-cycle, 20-horsepower engines. Most have top speeds of about 35 mph.
The enthusiasts on this trip come from all over the country, said Mike Ford, an Indiana resident who is serving as this excursion’s leader. They hail from states such as California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire and Tennessee, as well as the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia.
They own their own railcars, which cost anywhere from $1,500 for one that needs a lot of restoration, to $7,500 or more. Excursion participants pull their railcars by vehicle to each starting point and pay $75 to $125 per day per car, plus their own expenses.
The traveling group pays a fee to the host railroad for use of the tracks.
NARCOA is a non-profit organization. Any profits from a trip are donated to a local charity. The designated benefactor of this trip will be the Nelson County Food Pantry, according to Ford.
“It’s not an inexpensive hobby,” Ford said. “I just like to travel the rural areas, to see the countryside.”
Barbara Wiens said it’s a comfortable ride, although not quite as comfortable as it used to be.
“It’s getting a little tighter as the kids have grown,” she said.
As the tourists prepared to leave Dahlen, Dan Kessler turned the crank on his dad’s railcar.
“Putt … putt … putt,” the little motor whined, before stalling.
He cranked it again.
“Putt … putt … putt … putt …” it purred on the second try, prompting the tiny train of tourists to roll out of town.