Trains
By Gordon Russ
Life on the Lower River Road
While at the Grants Pass railroad depot, Wayne and Gordon were wide eyed watching the steam railroad engines huff, puff and clank around the rail yard with clouds of white steam hissing from their pistons and black smoke billowed from their stacks they pushed and pulled railcars into line. As one of the switcher engines came to a stop close to us the engineer hollered, “You boys want a ride?”
Grants Pass has a grand history of railroading. Until 1926 Grants Pass was part Southern Pacific’s mainline as it went over the Siskiyou Mountains into California. In fact my mother’s uncle Dick Lewman worked on the line as one of his many jobs, so I was connected as well. In 1926 the Cascade line from Eugene to Klamath Falls was built and became the main line into California with the bulk of passenger and freight traffic from the north going that way. However, in the 1940s Grants Pass still had its share of passenger trains running through the Rogue valley in fact they were increased due to the troops training at Camp White in Medford. This lasted until the mid-1950s. I won’t get into the history of railroading in the valley; there are many books, documents and pictures available that will provide a much clearer story than I can relate. I will tell you what I remember.
My first remembrances of a passenger train was not so much the train, but getting to the train. Dr. Robert Russ, dad, was inducted into the Army during WWII. The calm Russ family life was to change with adventures not for scene just a few months before. Dad was a veterinarian working for the Department of Agriculture Disease Eradication division prior to the war. In 1943 he was called up and made a Health Officer in the Army Air Corp. He was to insure camp health conditions at new Air Bases as they opened up. In 1945 he was transferred to Smokey Hill Army Air Field in Salina, Kansas.
So mom, Lois Russ, who had just driven back from dad’s assignment in Texas, packed up my brother, Wayne, and myself and boarded a train to Kansas. All I really remember was our neighbor; Pat McFadden was taking us to the depot in Grants Pass. We were all loaded in his car, but he had taken his seat out of the car. I remember him coming out of his house with a kitchen chair saying “this will work”. He sat on the chair and drove us to the depot. I also remember a lot of guys in uniform being on the train. They may have been from Camp White. More than likely we traveled to Portland then transferred to a train heading to Kansas. During this trip mom got off for a moment to purchase something at a depot store. She ask a lady to watch us just for a second. When she returned to reboard the gate to the train was shut and the attendant refused to open it. Saying the train was about to leave. She said she had to get on her kids were on board. He still refused. She started screaming that her kids were on board. Finally another attendant came over inquiring what the commotion was about. Now panicked and crying that here boys were on that train and she had to get on. He was kind enough to open the gate. She always bothered by what would have happen if the attendant had not come by and opened that gate.
After the War dad went back to his regular job with the Department of Agriculture. He would visit dairy farms early in the morning to collect blood samples of the cattle. The cattle were being tested for Brucellosis and TB. The Brucellosis test required a blood sample at that time. He also provided TB vaccination shots the young cows. Each evening he would mail the blood samples to Oregon Agriculture College, present day Oregon State University, to be processed.
In those days the passenger trains had a mail car. Rather than go to the post office you could go to the mail car and hand them the mail for instant delivery. Each mail car was a post office. The employees would pick up the mail from the local Post Offices along the tracks. As the train moved along the mail would be sorted for the next stops down the tracks. When the train got to Corvallis the box of blood sample would be delivered to OAC. It was always fun to make the trip to the depot each evening and watch the steam engines move and sort cars in the rail yard.
You could also pick up special freight from the train as well. Each year dad would order baby chickens from a nursery in California. I don’t remember the process, I just remember while at the railroad station one of the men on a freight car would hand him a cardboard box full of baby chicks. We would take them home and keep them in the kitchen until they started getting feathers. We placed them by our wood burning cook stove.
When Oregon law banned fireworks in the state, dad was not happy. He did like his fireworks at the fourth of July. He thought he would go around the law and order them right from an out of state company. They did come to the railroad freight house and dad got a call his fireworks order had arrived. He said he would be right down to pick them up. The freight clerk then informed him, he couldn’t pick them up they were illegal. Whoa Nelly, we had some home grown fireworks that night. I am not sure how or if he got his money back and if he had to pay the freight charges both ways. But I do know he was not happy. To dad it was Un-American to ban fireworks.
The depot is long gone, I guess replaced by a Safeway Store, but it was a center of activity in those days. There was an ice plant close to the depot as well. Most rail centers had ice houses to service the refrigerated cars and some homes still used ice boxes. In truth I don’t remember ice being put on any cars, but we did use the place. We rented a frozen food locker at the plant. We processed much of our own meat and produce. Home freezers were not common so we had a locker at the plant. Each evening dad was given a list from mom of possible foods items to bring home while he was putting his blood samples on the train. So we would go and sort through the locker looking for whatever was on the list. It was nice place on a hot summer days. However mom was always a little concerned about being locked in the locker. Come evening they did lock the place and if someone didn’t do a good job of checking there was that possibility. It was not unknown happen; although I am not sure it happened in Grant Pass. The walls of the locker were very thick with an inner and outer walls packed with insulation. There was no way for anyone to hear you yell. It was a freezer.
One high light was the coming of Clyde Beatty Circus. They came to town on rail cars. What great fun it was to watch them unload the animals from the rail cars. They then formed up at the rail yard for a Circus parade through town and on to the Josephine County Fairgrounds. What a site watching all the, clowns, animals, wagons and trucks going down 6th street and across Caveman Bridge. Clyde Beatty was known to all of us kids for his Clyde Beatty radio program. Keizer/Frazier automobile sponsored the circus so the parade was lead off by a Keizer automobile for Clyde with zebra skin seats and a Frazier automobile for his wife with some other kind of skin seats. At that time the Keizer Company was introducing the Henry J., a small economy car. It was introduced during the show by a bunch of clowns getting out of it, not sure how many, but a bunch. Yes advertising was part of the show then as well. The circus stayed a couple days then they loaded up their train and steamed on to the next town.
Trains were also a diversion when I was in Demmick Grade School. From the school windows we could see the railroad cut across Granite Mountain. As we sat in Mrs. Howell’s class you could see the trains as they pass through the cut outlined against the yellowing granite gravel. Mrs. Howell taught four grades in her room. While she was busy with another grade a dreamy Gordon would watch the steam engines pull a string of rail cars over the hill, huffing and puffing all the way. Sometimes there were two engines pulling the string of cars with an engine cut in the middle and one pushing at the end. A couple years later, after Demmick and Ft Vannoy consolidated around 1948, I was back in the same room in the third grade. By then the diesel engines were coming into being. What a difference, one or two engines pulling close to a hundred cars over that hill with ease. I know because more than once I just sat there looking out those big windows counting railroad cars. I thought what a gyp, There is no class in those things. A new era had started, but in my mind nothing could replace steam engines. They were like living breathing things. Diesels was just a big car with iron wheels. It didn’t take skill to run one. Just step on the starter and off you went.
Did those two boys get a ride, no. Dad was coming back soon and if we were gone there would have been heck to pay. When we told him about the engineer’s offer he said, “You should have gone, never turn down a chance for a ride in the engine.” Ya right, parents go figure.
