Capdiamont’s Weblog

We had a special speeder run today, just for the communities of Manila, and Samoa. Weather wasn’t bad, just light rain. The rides were free, as a thanks for the support. Pretty good turnout, despite the very limited advertising.

We’ve cleared part way in to the last heavy brush area between Manila and highway 255. It really helped having the use of the exhavator to load the dump truck. NCRA needed the exhavator and dump truck for use down south to clean up winter debris. They greatly helped out the speed and width of cleanup. Now further cleanup will be harder and slower. At least we don’t have much left of the thickly overgrown area left.

Two Thursdays ago members went out to Fields Landing to retreve another speeder and move it to Samoa. The engine in it is no good, so the speeder is going to be restored as a trailer to the A&MR RR speeder. Issuses to be dealt with is braking, pa speaker, lights, and general restoration. The engine have already been taken out.

We have already met our rent requirement for the year with the work we have done.

The ROW has been cut just east of the bridge by Sierra Pacific for what looks like levee work.

Fog was quite thick in the morning, blowing off by mid morning. Believe it or not we haven’t had much fog for the many runs we have had. Richard Marks, and his wife took the ride that and and loved it! Richard Marks has photos, of the ride, and roundhouse at his website. “This project is also an affirmation of the relevancy of an excursion train to Scotia.” Richard Marks is running for Harbor district commissioner, and supports rails with trails. His hard work, and looking for everyone, including the pole climbers is why I personally endorse him.

Just got the latest THA newsletter. According to it, 834 people took speeder rides, generating $3,849 in contributions for the ride or general preservation. Speeder rides will resume in the Spring, hopefully with a trailer to increase capacity.

Voices of Humboldt County also likes the speeder ride. One correction though, of their stuff, we try and keep the speed below 15 mph, however it probably can do 30mph. It has four gears, but we generally only use the 2nd and 3rd gear, with little to no throttle. 1st gear is a little slow, and 4th is too fast for the condition of the roadbed. Going to Manila, I’ll have it in 3rd, with the throttle as low as it will go. On the way back I’ll have it in 3rd, with two fingers width of throttle. The throttle does tend to creep towards going slower, than faster if you don’t watch it.

The petal on the floor is the clutch, with a long throw to it. On the bench, the one with the loop is the throttle, the knob is the choke, the thick orange handle one is fwd-n-rev, and the stick shift is R-1,2,3,4. Trivia for you, is if both the stick, and reverser is in reverse, you will go forward. Also, we hardly ever use the reverse on the stick. The control panel has ignition power, horn, and starter controls. It has amperage, and oil pressure. I’m working on a speedometer.

My personal joy was having the kids ring the bell going back in to the “station”, and their eyes light up. It was nice being able to have people tour the collection at Samoa. Many thanks to Humboldt Towing for hauling the speeder from the roundhouse to the rail, and back again.

The boiler shop roof continues, the part over the shed was the worst roof we had on the property. No way to keep people out of it, before, with burnt and rotting rafters. Now it is ready for roofing.

Various groups have toured the buildings.

May 7th, HSU OLLI Extended Education class with 25 students.
July 25th, Eureka Heritage Society with 50 people. Both were facilitated by Ray Hillman. Mike Kellogg gave a historical background of the buildings, and locomotives.

Aug 5th Horseless Carriage Club Tour with people from California and other states toured the area and included a stop at the roundhouse with their vintage cars.

In August, the Southern Oregon Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society from Medford, Oregon scheduled a three day visit to THA facilities and activities.They presented a Live Rail Award, for “outstanding accomplishments saving our railroad heritage for future generations” to THA. The honor included a certificate and a handsome carved wood plaque.

Sept 12th, a number of the Humboldt Bay Model A Club members rode the speeder, and toured the roundhouse.

Work continues on #37. Ultrasound survey has been started, and cylinder/pistons inspected, and tested.

Anderson Model Kits offers a high end model kit of the Samoa Roundhouse as it appeared in 1933. The HO, S, and O scale kits will be available through THA’s mail order catalog. The prices are $199, $299, and $399 respectively. I wish there was a G scale option, but then again I couldn’t afford it. Many best wishes to them.

Many thinks to Green Diamond Resource Co. for donating, Wayne Bare Trucking for delivering, and Homer Purcell of Freshwater Tissue for unloading a log truck load (about eight or nine cords) of logs to be bucked, and split. Well with donation of Don’s Rent All of splitter time, and members help, it has been all split.

Harold Harnden gave a tour and donated items from his Harnden Mill at Berry Summit to THA.

North Coast Co-op has selected THA as part of it’s 1% Register Donation Program. Members can donate an aditional 1% above their grocery purchase to THA at either Co-op. You will need to give the cashier our number, which is 87383.

The five passenger cars THA purchased are numbered SP 2091, 2093, 2106, 2109, and 2148. Our successful bid was $2,800 per car, and estimate cost of moving is $9,300 per car. The purchase price, and move is being financed by NWP co, NCRA’s operator of the railroad. Tentatively they will be moved Nov., or Dec., and placed on temporary track at the edge of the parking lot at the Samoa Roundhouse building complex.

Strategic Plan Completed, and final draft completed/approved.

If you have the actual newsletter, you will see I ripped most of this out of the newsletter, shamelessly.

The speeder ride dates are the Saturdays as follows:
August 22 (Newly added date)
August 29 (full–no advertising needed)
September 12 (Newly added date)
September 26 (original date advertised, half full)

Thanks to strong demand, we added the new dates.

Timber Heritage Association (THA) and friends will have rides on the Arcata & Mad River Crew Speeder these Saturdays beginning at 10:00 AM, ending with last ride at 3:30 PM. Members ride free otherwise the ticket donation is $4.00 for adults and $2.00 for children under 11. THA’s Humboldt Bay Scenic Railroad will be operating the crew maintenance vehicle (speeder), which was built in the late 1930’s by the Arcata & Mad River Railroad and recently restored by THA volunteers.

The rides begin near the Cookhouse (please park there). The speeder will travel from Samoa to Manila on the mainline NWP track by the bay and back for a trip lasting 20 to 24 minutes. The rides are on a schedule leaving on the hour and half hour.

Guests will be able to tour the old Hammond Roundhouse facilities where six steam locomotives and one diesel locomotive that formerly operated in Humboldt County are housed.

Call Gerry Tomczak at 707-441-1960 Friday to reserve a ride during the day. If you can’t make a reservation THA will issue a ticket with a time so you do not have to wait in line.

‘Speeder’ zips down long-unused railroad track – Times-Standard Online.

Hundreds of volunteer hours have gone toward the opportunity to get a railroad-eye view of Humboldt Bay and portions of Manila.

History buffs, railroad fans and adventurers gathered for a brief ride on the rails this weekend as the Timber Heritage Association sold spots on its Speeder, a bright orange, self-propelled railroad car built in 1939 for the Arcata and Mad River Railroad and originally used to transport railroad crews to trouble spots along the track.

…

The Timber Heritage Association will again be offering rides on its Speeder Aug. 29 and Sept. 26. Reservations are advised as the small car fills up quickly. Requested donations are $4 for adults and $2 for children under 11 years of age. To make a reservation, call 441-1960.

We also added Sept.12th due to demand.

Today they are doing another training class, for more people.

I’m not sure how $4 per adult, $2 per child suggested donation separates the classes.

We have already made back the money put in to this. Think about that, less than $400.00 to restore it, and we can have this.

The THA will conduct training for those who will operate and give rides to the public this Summer on the AMRR Crew Maintenance Vehicle (Speeder) on Saturday, June 27 from 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM with a lunch break (see attached training schedule). Dates for scheduled operation are July 11 (THA organization and VIP Day), July 25, August 29, Sept 26. These are the last Saturdays of the month. If demand requires it, we can add Saturdays in August, and September other than the the third Saturday, which would conflict with Steam-ups at Ft. Humboldt. The training will be at the roundhouse at the AMRR Speeder stall–we have chairs. Please plan to check in at 8:30 AM so that we can begin promptly at 9:00 AM. Note: Marcus has arranged for a portable toilet on a permanent basis for our complex.

We will ask (if not require) a donation of $4.00 for adults, and $2.00 for children for rides. We will have tickets, which will be punched by the conductor before the ride. Rides will be on a scheduled run of 20 to 24 minutes each, two per hour. Thus the tickets can be sold for a scheduled time and our guests will not have to wait in line. We will take telephone reservations for scheduled runs on the Friday before each Saturday operation. The starting point will be the parking area to the right of our gate.

We will hand out Operations Booklets to each trainee. Certificates will be awarded to those who complete the training. Those who wish to qualify as drivers must have experience driving a standard transmission or “stick” shift. You will be asked to complete an availability calendar to help us create a work schedule. We plan to have two shifts with operations from 9 to 12:30 and 12:30 to 4:00 requiring at least four people per shift.

Gerry Tomczak
Tourist and Excursion Train Committee

Not much clearing, mainly clean up. Meet 9am at the crossing just north of the roundhouse
fence.

Last weeks went well, though I had to leave early due to bday party setup. I wish to thank those who keep putting timbers on the causeway. From there we just load them up, to get get rid of them. It is making the ROW cleaner and cleaner.

We will have track clearing this Saturday. Weather looks ok, maybe a few showers. We will meet 9am at the crossing just north of the Samoa roundhouse fence. I won’t be there for long, or at all due to a birthday party that day. Bring chainsaws, hardhats, gloves, and weed machines. Not too much cutting this time, as removal of already cut brush while we still have the dump truck.

Volunteers have been doing lots of things lately. On Friday [Feb ]20 Mike Kellogg trimmed some bushes near the entrance gate to the Samoa Roundhouse and other buildings. Now when we exit from the Roundhouse complex we can better see the cars coming from the vicinity of the Cookhouse! Thank you, Mike.

Byron Baker has got the engine running on the Hyster forklift. However, when he tried to lift some track sections there was a failure in the hydraulic system for lifting the forks. He is currently working on that.

Dan Hauser completed our input to the THA portion of the EIR (Environmental Impact Review) and delivered it to Dave Hull, Harbor District Exec. Dir., to the latter’s satisfaction.

Bert Bertolini (with a little help form Carl Casale and Gerry Tomczak and possibly others) is close to finishing repair of the radiator from the large air compressor in our collection. Bert disassembled the radiator and removed the core and took it to Rod’s Radiators in Redding. They ordered a new one, which was picked up and delivered to Arcata courtesy of Bettendorf Trucking.

Gerry Tomczak took a little worn AMRR Speeder brake shoe sample to Bayard Smith’s workshop (under construction). Here Bayard using an ingenious router jig was able to cut a near perfect radius on a wood pattern for a casting to fit the 20 inch wheels of the speeder. He finished it off the brake shoe pattern by trimming and tapering it to fit and be easily removed from sand molds before casting. After a call to coordinate the casting at Sunset Foundry in Valley Springs, Gerry Tomczak packaged the wood pattern plus the worn down brake shoe from the speeder and shipped it via UPS to the foundry. David Fradites at Sunset Foundry will check the metal and match it with a new casting.

The track cleaning crew worked on Saturday, Feb 21, and now have gotten more than 1 ½ miles of track cleared. Gary, Larry, Bob, Rod, Carl, and Allan worked on Saturday, Feb 21, loading the dump truck with brush many times. The crew led by Allan will work again tomorrow, Saturday, Feb 28, beginning at 9:00 AM meeting near the Roundhouse entrance gate.

Gerry Tomczak