some of you already know i attended the national railroad historical society convention, held last week wed-saturday, in salt lake city utah, well there will be photos coming , including one of the up big boy, but first, here is a way cool thing i got to do while there. i attended an open rehearsal of the tabernachal choir, in the tabernachal, something they usually do weekly on thursday nights. the first half hour was with the utah symphony orchestra, then half hour without, while they smoothed out some pieces of railroad songs, then they closed the rehearsal, because the next night they were doing a free 90 minute full concert, with the orchestra and 2 special guest stars, brian stokes mitchell, who i saw on broadway, when he won a tony award for his lead in kiss me kate, and broadway and tv star megan hilty. i also was able to attend that full show via getting a last minute standby ticket, that show was in the convention center, which also has great acoustics in a full hall setting. i did not bring my phone to that performance so unfortunately i do not have photos of this magnificent choir in full voice and full choir, without orchestra, look at the size of that pipe organ
aside view of the choir and orchestra, this actually was the first photo i took, and then one of the church elders came over and suggested i move dead center into the first row so i could get unobstructed shots, so i did the actual LDS temple itself, closed to non church members the sally bytheway chorale group rehearsing, a smaller chorale group made up of retired choir members and others who may not be able to make the rigorous choir performance schedule, they do quite a variety of jazz,gospel,blues and other genre music, and they were also very good, they were rehearsing in a smaller side church on the grounds, temple square behind the 10 foot cement wall, is 32 acres enclosed
all right, let's get back to the actual convention, unlike some past nrhs conventions i have attended, this one did not have any rare mileage trips, and actually very little rail riding when all was said and done, but it did include some pretty significant historical ceremonies, we started off thursday 5/9 with a trip on the light rail over to salt lake central station, where we boarded a utah frontrunner commuter train for the ride up to ogden, where union pacific railroad hosted the public unveiling of the return to steam of the union pacific big boy 4014, an articulated 4-8-8-4 built in 1941 by alco, 25 of these were built, 8 remain, this is the only operating one, taken in 2014 from static display in fullerton california to the union pacific steam shop in cheyenne wyoming and restored to operating order. brought from cheyenne to ogden, along with challenger 844 for this day. it was quite the spectacle of foamers chasing along the route, with a reported 12 mile back up on interstate 80 at one point. this is actually the route the big boys were built for, to haul heavy troop and war material trains over sherman hill and through the wasatch mountains between cheyenne and ogden waiting for the frontrunner, the wasatch range in the background, ogden-salt lake- provo is one long suburban/city sprawl running north to south steam locomotive on static displays at union station in ogden and i never did find out why these fiberglass horses are on display all over downtown ogden
Each city seems to have their own variation of art animals. Indianapolis has buffalo, Cincinnati has flying pigs. I saw several horses at an outlet mall in Kentucky.
now i wonder if perhaps these were commissioned pieces for the golden spike festival, there were at least 4 of then in ogden that i saw, all mounted on pallets and all were railroad/spike 150 themed challenger 844 awaiting the arrival of the big boy and yes it was a photographic madhouse, as they brought 4014 in and posed them both, but i did not care, i never ever thought i would ever see one of them returned to glory ever in my lifetime
on friday 5/10, we rode charter busses up tp promontory point for the spike 150 ceremonies, which basically turned out to be nothing but a bunch of politicians patting themselves on the back for upgrading promontory national historical site into full national park status, i couldn't even get close enough to get a good photo of the 2 replica steam engines they keep there and bring out for enactment scenes, the touching of the couplers
so lets finish out this trip report, it will probably be mid october before i have any other trip reports, michael and i are meeting up 10/4 at the strasburg railroad for a photographic weekend, managed by lerro productions of the n&w j class 611 at the strasburg railroad along with their own #90 for a 2 day extravaganza here we are at the heber valley railroad, heber city utah, they have a static steam engine, but they also have one which is currently in the shop undergoing the 15 year inspection, that supposedly will be back under steam in 2021, i hope they will do a lerro charter at that time as i would go on that without hesitation. the wasatch range out over the rail yard, that is the backside of the park city/deer valley ski complex heber valley has a nice selection of older 1st generation diesels, no f units though, at least that i saw our charter awaits
taken from my seat in the table car, 2 cars back from the engine, taken while eating lunch and waiting, a horse show taking place at an arena next to the tracks, and here is a calf roper loosening up with some practice roping outside his trailer and why we sat and waited, we started off on our excursion, went about 800 feet , went to cross the first grade crossing, the car shuddered and we came to a very quick stop, that's right, DERAILMENT, yup, we put the last truck of the engine and the first truck of the business car on the ground, irreparably on the ground, the engine truck tapped a derail maybe placed too close to the switch point near the crossing, and the next 2 trucks went up and onto the ground. where we sat and watched the horses until they declared the train broken for the day and bussed us all back to salt lake city, and a refund offer just arrived in the mail this weekend, with an option to let nrhs keep it as a donation, because we did get some fine scenery on the bus rides, and we did get our lunch, i will let them keep my fare as the donation
to close out the trip thread, i did something new to me on saturday night, i went right down the street about 500 feet, same side as my hotel, to the home of the utah symphony, and watched a showing of the first star wars movie, with the sound track performed by the orchestra, that was really neat. i had heard of that before but never had been to that kind of performance. they are doing harry potter and the goblet of fire in june.
That's something that many orchestras are doing these days. In fact, later this month the Indianapolis Symphony is doing the final of the seven Harry Potter films. Also on the schedule for this year are The Little Mermaid, Return of the Jedi and Psycho. And to tie it in to the railroad theme, earlier this year I saw the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra play for Buster Keaton's The General. How would you rate the convention, @gary ?
i give this years a 6 of 10, and probably 1 point is for the location. the excursions were limited this year, and not run by the nrhs, all under control of spike 150. the trip to ogden was not bad. it's my own fault for not walking a few blocks west of the festival, some folks did that and were able to get unobstructed shots of the big boy. the golden spike excursion i would have skipped if i had known what it was going to be like, just a bunch of politicians and vips making speeches, and we then were kept from leaving on our charter bus until they got out first. promontory point is really out in the middle of nowhere. so restricted traffic flow, and way more charter busses than they were set up tp load out at one time. heber railroad would probably have been great if it had happened, saw some of the valley on the bus back and it's really pretty. the 14 and 15 conventions were great, and full, but they were the last ones run by bart jennings, when his contract ended the older power structure of nrhs would not renew it, leading to a failed attempt by some younger members to seize control. so in charge now are a lot of older folks, who want to not start at the crack of dawn, and want to be back at the hotel by 4-5 so they can clean up, have a cocktail, eat dinner socialize a little and go to bed. they are just not interested in rare mileage and multiple photo ops.with the lerro length days that entails, you can see that if they do not turn it around to attract younger members it will be a dying organization, literally. in fact i am already certain i am skipping next years in fullerton california. it doesn't seem like there are hotels too near the rr station, so getting there from lax is problematic, unless you have a rental car , i heard some of the proposed excursions, there is going to be a large amount of bus time involved, one of the excursions is to the niles canyon railroad, and that is 80 los angeles miles from fullerton. behind the scenes tour of knots berry farms steam shop, interesting to some degree. not sure it will allow any time in the park. one of the problems is that nrhs apparently has such a large group of members/attendees that flat out would not go if they cannot get there by train. so locations these days are very limited
Is there a Niles Canyon RR in southern California? The one I'm familiar with is eight hours north in the Bay Area. Remind me to regale you with tales of the NRHS conventions that I attended in the 70s and 80s. WIth few exceptions, they were never great, but at least there was plenty of main line steam available back then. It was more an excuse to go somewhere new than anything else.
