(The following story by Lynda La Rocca appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain website on February 1, 2009.)
HANDLER, Ariz. — There’s something magical about trains. Whether fictional like Harry Potter’s Hogwarts Express or as real as America’s first transcontinental railroad, trains have always symbolized adventure.
Trains are also time capsules that recall an era when the “iron horse” didn’t simply haul freight and passengers, but shaped nations and changed history.
When a golden spike joined track laid by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads in Utah in 1869, the resulting transcontinental railroad did more than connect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. It united the country “from sea to shining sea,” fueling a period of rapid geographic and economic expansion that helped transform America into an international powerhouse.
Despite wide-ranging advances in transportation technology, trains today still attract travelers who enjoy watching the world roll by at a slower, more leisurely pace. And trains continue to delight people of all ages who dream of riding the rails just to see what’s around the next bend and beyond the horizon. The history and legacy of the railroads, especially those that crisscrossed the Southwest, is lovingly preserved at the Arizona Railway Museum.
Appropriately located in a former rail yard, this primarily outdoor museum is a work-in-progress consisting of some two dozen cars displayed on standard gauge track. Its collection, which ranges from locomotives and cabooses to passenger coaches, sleepers and elegantly appointed dining cars, is being maintained and restored by the museum’s members, a dedicated and enthusiastic group of volunteers who double as mechanics, woodworkers, painters, plumbers, sanders and upholsterers.
They also research the history of the railroads and cars, lead visitor tours and staff a small gift shop housed in the Southern Pacific Railroad’s No. 4740 caboose.
While most of the collection has been donated to, or purchased by, the museum – a nonprofit organization funded solely through membership dues and public contributions – several cars, like the gleaming silver, diesel-electric locomotive built in 1950 for the Chicago & Northwestern Railway Co., are privately owned by individuals who store them on-site simply because they want the public to see them.
The Union Pacific Railroad’s No. 4815, one of four cars open for guided interior tours the day my husband Steve and I visit, is a spacious, 48-seat diner with walls covered in gold fabric and leather. Originally ordered by the Union Pacific in 1946, this car was sold more than two decades later to the Alaska Railroad Corp., where it remained in service until 1998. The museum purchased the car four years ago and plans to restore it as a fully operational dining car powered by many of its original systems.
“You say where . . . we’ll take you there in smooth-riding comfort,” declares a vintage Union Pacific poster on a diner wall near a framed, 55-year-old breakfast menu. The menu lists hearty morning meals like two eggs and nearly a half-pound of charcoal-broiled ham, a bargain at $1.95 – especially when another 30 cents bought a pot of hot coffee or tea.
Strolling down the aisle of the Santa Fe Railroad’s No. 2870 coach or chair car, I can imagine what it might have been like to travel in state-of-the-art style back in 1947, when this roomy, 68-seat passenger car debuted as part of the railroad’s first El Capitan “all-coach streamliner” train, with service between Chicago and Los Angeles via Winslow, Flagstaff and Kingman, Ariz. This car, decorated in shades of silver and lapis-lazuli blue and retaining the original gray upholstery on its seats, was renumbered and added to Amtrak’s fleet in 1971; 10 years later it was purchased by a resident of Las Cruces, N.M., who subsequently donated it to the museum.
Another coach car that began service with the Santa Fe Railroad before moving on to Amtrak is the Regal Phoenix No. 3166, a 52-seater that arrived at the museum with broken windows and no interior furnishings or fittings. The 63-year-old lounge-style car now boasts blond woodwork, pull-down tables, chairs covered with blue and maroon fabric, and walls filled with historical photographs.
But for me, the height of luxury has to be the 1938 Denehotso, an observation car containing one double bedroom, four drawing rooms and a 17-seat lounge. Sold to the Santa Fe Railroad in 1954, this Pullman Co. car is the only observation car that remains from the original units. The Denehotso is listed on the Arizona State Historical Register; it is also the pride and joy of museum member and tour guide Craig Shields, who is currently restoring and replacing its woodwork.
“All of these cars are pieces of history,” Shields declares, running a hand over the Denehotso’s gleaming wood. “You can’t come (to the museum) without getting a sense of how important trains were, and still are, to our country and to the whole world.”
Historical significance aside, trains are also fun to climb aboard, as I discover when I take a seat in the cupola or raised observation post of a wooden caboose. Built in 1944 in the company shop of the former Phelps Dodge mining corporation, this caboose served that company’s copper mine in Ajo, Ariz.
From 1947 to 1985 when the mine closed, the caboose was part of the Tucson, Cornelia & Gila Bend Railroad Co. line that hauled huge slabs of copper metal from Ajo to the Southern Pacific Railroad interchange at Gila Bend. The train, including the caboose itself, also carried passengers between Ajo and Gila Bend; an 86-mile, round-trip ticket cost just $1.94.
My seat in the cupola offers a fine view of the museum’s entire collection, including the Southern Pacific’s No. 2562 locomotive. I literally have to wait my turn to scale a ladder to the cab of this 217,000-pound, black-and-silver behemoth, which was placed on the state historical register in 1984. Built in 1908 by the Baldwin Locomotive Works, this oil-fired, steam-powered locomotive traveled between Yuma, Tucson and Phoenix, fueled by a tender that carried 4,000 gallons of oil along with 12,000 gallons of water.
And while other, albeit much younger, visitors brave the narrow walkway on either side of this locomotive, I’m content to return to firmer ground as the lyrics of Neil Young’s classic “Southern Pacific” rumble through my head: “And the tunnel comes/And the tunnel goes/Round another bend/The giant drivers roll . . . Roll on Southern Pacific/On your silver rails/Through the moonlight.”
Humming this song, I feel positively transported.
Getting there: Phoenix, Ariz., is 790 miles southwest of Pueblo. From Pueblo, take I-25 south for 334 miles to Albuquerque, N.M. Then take I-40 west for 320 miles to Flagstaff, Ariz., and continue on I-17 south for 136 miles to Phoenix. To reach Chandler from downtown Phoenix, take I-10 east for 16 miles to Exit 161, then follow Arizona 202 (Santan Freeway) east for 8 miles to Arizona Avenue. Proceed south on Arizona Avenue for 1 mile to Ryan Road and follow Ryan Road east for mile to the Arizona Railway Museum.
The Arizona Railway Museum is open noon-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, from Labor Day through Memorial Day (hot weather closes this museum during the summer season). Admission is $2 per person or $5 per family. For more information, contact the Arizona Railway Museum Inc., 330 E. Ryan Road in Chandler (mailing address: P.O. Box 842, Chandler, AZ 85244); 480-821-1108; www.azrymuseum.org .
The Chandler Museum, 178 E. Commonwealth Ave., is open 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday (closed Sundays and holidays); admission is free. Mailing address: P.O. Box 926, Chandler, AZ 85244; 480-782-2717; www.chandlermuseum.org .