Saturday, May 6, 1911. One Colorado Senator.

Colorado's Senate adjourned after having failed to appoint a replacement for the late Senator Charles J. Hughes.  There would be only one Senator from Colorado until January 20, 1913.

It was a Saturday.

Last edition:

Friday, May 5, 1911. La Cruz Blanca Neutral.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Red Cross

Railhead: UP 4014 "Big Boy", March, 2026.

Railhead: UP 4014 "Big Boy", March, 2026.: The great UP 4014 is making the rounds of the West/ UP 4014 Rounding the Corner Outside Rock River, WY 2026.  MKTH Photo. This is my favorit...

UP 4014 "Big Boy", March, 2026.

The great UP 4014 is making the rounds of the West/

UP 4014 Rounding the Corner Outside Rock River, WY 2026.  MKTH Photo.

This is my favorite engine.  It's the third time I've seen it. Every time was accidental.

MKTH Photo.

MKTH Photo.

Big Boy UP4014 in Medicine Bow, Wyoming.  MKTH photo.

MKTH photo.

MKTH Photo.

MKTH Photo.

Railhead: Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abandoned Rail Line Before It Disappears

Railhead: Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abando...:   Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abandoned Rail Line Before It Disappears

Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abandoned Rail Line Before It Disappears

 

Cheyenne Railroad Historian Rushing To Save Abandoned Rail Line Before It Disappears

Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.

Railhead: The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado...:   I had no idea that this is what this train was called.  Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know! I've been looking into local passen...

The Nightcrawler. The train from Denver, Colorado, to Billings, Montana.

 

I had no idea that this is what this train was called.  Thanks go out to MKTH for letting me know!

I've been looking into local passenger train travel as part of my efforts with a novel.  What I found is that I knew very little about it.  Probably more than your average bear, but that's about it.  I'd long assumed that a person could board a train in Casper in 1916 and take the train to Douglas or Cheyenne, and then return that evening, but the more I looked into it, that was just an assumption.

I'm not the one who figured out how it really worked. That goes to MKTH.  the result is fascinating.

It turns out I was right sort of. The Burlington Northern ran a train from Denver Colorado, to Billings Montana, and vice versa, daily.  This article takes a look at it.

What I imagined, for novel purposes, was boarding in Casper, and traveling to Douglas.  I may, as I work at it, make it Cheyenne.

Union Station, Denver Colorado

Union Station, Denver Colorado

Union Station as viewed from in front of Denver's Oxford Hotel.

 

 

Anyhow, this is a really interesting article and give a really good look at what traveling on the Denver to Billings night train was like, complete with stops for food, which is something I hadn't considered.  It also picked up mail, and my source indicates, cream, something I also hadn't figured, but that may explain why the creamery my family owned was just one block from the Burlington Northern.  In fact it probably does.

Jersey Creamery Inc.

The trip took 19 hours.  It take 8 hours today by car, assuming good weather conditions, and not figuring in stops for food, etc.  The train moved about 34 miles an hour.

We'll look at the return trip first.  The train having come up from Cheyenne boarded there at 12:49 in the morning.  Uff.

It got to Casper at 6:20 in the morning, having made a couple of stops along the way.

Burlington Northern Depot, Casper Wyoming

What I imagined?  

Not really.  And I also had no idea that there was a major cafe right off the railroad.  This article deals with the early 1960s, but I can see that some variant of it was there decades prior.  That makes piles of sense, really.  Of course there would be.  How else would people eat if they were making the long journey?  

It simply hadn't occurred to me.

In my imaginary trip., that'd be it.  If I stuck with the Douglas variant of this, my protagonist would be boarding the train in the early, early morning hours and get in a couple of fitful hours of sleep, probably interrupted by a stop in little Glenrock.  Indeed, this train stopped everywhere to pick up mail, and a few passengers.

What about the other way around?

Well that was a day trip, but as we can see, the 19 hours the train traveled in total meat that it took a good 6.5 hours to travel just from Cheyenne to Casper.  Going the other way would mean the same thing, and likely a bit in reverse.  The 6.5 hour trip from Cheyenne to Casper was the second major leg of the trip (it'd still stop in numerous small towns in between), the first being Denver to Cheyenne.  Going the other way around meant that the Cheyenne to Denver leg was about five hours.  The article notes that the train actually arrived from Billings 40 minutes before its 7:00 p.m. departure.  So it arrived, more or less, at 6:00 p.m. and changed crews.  That would have meant that it left Cheyenne, on the way to Denver, at about 1:00 p.m. or so, which makes sense.  Passengers traveling all the way to Denver would have eaten lunch there.

By extension, however, that meant that the train left Casper at about 6;00 in the morning, approximately.

These times are almost unimaginable now.  When we had good air travel to Denver I'd frequently board United Express here about 6;00 a.m. and be in Denver about 8:30, and take the train downtown and be to work by 9.  I'd be back in Casper on the redeye about 10:00, or if I was lucky, 6:00.

And when I go to Cheyenne, I drive.  Normally that takes me a little under three hours.  I haven't stayed overnight in Cheyenne for years, although I recently had an instance which should really cause me to.

Anyhow, if I'm looking at 1916, why not just drive?

Well, in 1916 most Americans, including most Wyomingites, didn't own automobiles, and those who did, didn't normally make long trips with them.  They frankly weren't that reliable, even though they were simple.  Roads also tended to be primitive, and not really maintained for weather.  Could a person have driven from Casper to Cheyenne in a Model T, the most likely car they would have had?  Yes, but it wouldn't have been any faster.  It may well have been slower, quite frankly, as well as much riskier.

Tuesday, March 16, 1926. Sgt. Stubby crosses the Rainbow Bridge.

Boston Terrier Sgt. Stubby, mascot of the mascot of the 102nd Infantry Regiment, died at age 10.  He'd served for 18 months in France in the Great War, participating in 100 battles and four offensives.  He provided warnings of attacks and of the use of mustard gas, and captured a German soldier by holding him by the seat of his pants.

He was a genuinely heroic dog.

The Casper recaptured fugitives indicated that they'd left Casper by rail.

I posted this page for the bus schedule.  I have a detailed thread coming up on trains, and then noted this.  I wasn't aware that there was a bus by 1926.

A closer look.

What isn't clear is how long the bus trip took.

There is bus service from Casper today.  Greyhound.  We'll take a look at that in some future post.

Apparently unrestrained immigration was worrying some.  Others were worrying about Wyoming's oilfield population leaving for Texas.

Robert Goddard launched the first liquid fuel rocket in the United States at his Aunt Effie's farm in Auburn, Massachusetts.

Rocketry, like aviation, advanced like crazy.  By World War Two rockets would be in use as ground weapons, air to air weapons, and of course, with the first ballistic missiles.

Last edition:

Monday, March 15, 1926. Boxer Rebellion Echoes, Manhunt ends, National Guard Cavalry Inspection.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Boxer Rebellion, cavalry, China, Costa Rica, Crime, Disaster, French Navy, Idaho Army National Guard, Imperial Japanese Navy, Italian Navy, Railroads, Royal Navy, U.S. Navy, Wyoming National Guard

Monday, March 15, 1926. Boxer Rebellion Echoes, Manhunt ends, National Guard Cavalry Inspection.

The signatories to the Boxer Protocol gave China an ultimatum for the commanders of the Taku Forts, who had just fired on the Japanese, to remove all mines placed at the mouth of the Pei River and to end their blockade of Tianjin by noon on Friday, March 19. 

At least 12 ships from the U.S. Navy, the Royal Navy, the Imperial Japanese Navy, France and Italy were blocked from traveling into the Pei River to Tianjin.  They were authorized to end the blockade by force if necessary.

A manhunt came to an end:

Of interest to us here, an inspection of National Guard cavalry was taking place in what was a unit that comprised Idaho and Wyoming National Guardsmen.  I knew that had happened later (the joint command), but I wasn't aware of it being so early, well before the 115th Cavalry Regiment came into existence.

Last edition:

Sunday, March 14, 1926. Reddy Kilowatt introduced. Manhunt in Natrona County.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Advertising, Alabama, Cartoons, Costa Rica, Country & Western Music, Crime, Disaster, Electrical Power, Hillbilly Music, Music, Personalities, Railroads, Wyoming (Casper), Wyoming (Natrona County)

Sunday, March 14, 1926. Reddy Kilowatt introduced. Manhunt in Natrona County.

 

Introduced on this day in 1926, the cartoon emphasized, in its introduction, electrical appliances and how they made life easier.  Power companies used the cartoon figure for decades.  I well recall it from when I was a kid.

There'd been a jail brake in Casper.

A railway disaster in Costa Rica resulted in the deaths of 248 people.

One via Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub, 16 year old Maybelle Addington married 27-year old Ezra J. "Eck" Carter, brother of A.P. Carter, in Virginia giving rise to the "first family of country music".

Country music, we'd note, is a bit deceptive in this context. As we've discussed before, Country & Western were actually two categories of music identified by early record companies, as was Rhythm & Blues.  Western ballads, associated with cowboys and ranching, was really its own distinct genre, as was "Country", which was sometimes referred to as "Hillbilly Music".  The current categories of C&W, Folk, etc, really hadn't set in, in a hard and fast way, either.  Folk and Country music were in fact very rapidly evolving.  Blues, which of course also had a Southern rural origin, was frequently picked up by Country artists at the time, even while it was breaking out in new directions in the Midwest and East coast, where it has already given rise to Jazz.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 13, 1926. Daydreaming.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Clothing, Daily Living

As a nearly random observation, any time anyone tags a private enterprise project to National Defense, it's a complete money loser.

An email from Rep. Hageman is doing that with "clean coal".  Secretary of Defense Hegseth just said the same thing.

Horse hockey.  Coal quit being relevant to national defense the moment the Royal Navy switched to oil.

Highways, I'd note, were the same way.  We built the Interstate Highway system as states couldn't afford to do it and nobody could compete with rail  "Needed for defense".  Oh bull. The military still ships by rail.

This is always just a way to prop something up with Federal money or a Federal program.  Some claim that's why the  Air Force bought Studebaker trucks just before Studebaker went belly up, or why the service bought Dodge trucks for so many years, and mind you I like Studebaker and Dodge trucks.

Thursday, February 5, 1976. Swine Flu and Conrail.

Just as with the 1916 Flu Epidemic, the 1976 Swine Flu Outbreak commenced on an Army post, when Private David Lewis died of the disease.

President Ford signed the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act into law creating the Consolidated Rail Corporation to operate freight trains in the northeastern United States.  The act united much of the rail systems of the Penn Central, Ann Arbor Railroad, Erie Lackawanna Railway, Lehigh Valley Railroad, Reading Company, Central Railroad of New Jersey and Lehigh and Hudson River Railway into Conrail.

Last edition:

Monday,. February 2, 1976. Moynihan resigns.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, Government, Personalities, United Nations

Railhead: Looking at, and for, railroad maps. Blog Mirror: Welcome to The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad in Wyoming!

Railhead: Railhead: Looking at, and for, railroad maps. Blog...: Railhead: Looking at, and for, railroad maps. : A long time ago, I published this item, which I'll post in its entirety down below, rega...

Railhead: Looking at, and for, railroad maps. Blog Mirror: Welcome to The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad in Wyoming!

Railhead: Looking at, and for, railroad maps.: A long time ago, I published this item, which I'll post in its entirety down below, regarding a railroad map from 1916.  I could not lon...

I was sent this great model railroad website:

 Welcome to The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad in Wyoming!

Wow, what a model layout.  It's fantastic.

Included on it, is this map, which we're directly linking in.:

Look at the pile of named spots on the rail line.

Some of these I recognize, some I don't.  The Colorado and Southern rail line from Glendo to Cheyenne is now a Burlington Northern rail line, I'd note.  The line running right up to Yellowstone National Park is a complete surprise.

The line running from Arminto in this depiction does not go into Shoshoni, and avoid the Wind River Canyon.  I was unaware that had been done.

Really interesting.

As are the model lines that this fellow is putting together.

Monday, January 17, 1916. Female marksman.

There was dramatic news on the cover of the Casper paper:

But I'm actually posting this one for the story on the champion teenage female marksman.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 15, 1916. Russian victory.

Labels: 1910s, 1916, Art, Battle of Koprukoy, Bulgaria, Disaster, Imperial Russian Army, Mexican Border War, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Norway, Norway (Bergen), Ottoman Army, Pancho Villa, Woodrow Wilson, World War One

Thursday, January 14, 1926. The Girl Who Went For A Ride In A Balloon.

African railway workers went on strike in Sierra Leone.

A total solar eclipse took place that was visible in the Southern Hemisphere from French Equatorial Africa, Sarawak and North Borneo (in Malaysia) and the Philippines. Scientists gathered in Sumatra to perform observational experiments, including an evaluation of Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.

Last edition:

Saturday, January 9, 1926. A different train attack.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Norman Rockwell, U.S. Navy, Washington Naval Treaty

Railhead: Looking at, and for, railroad maps.

Railhead: Looking at, and for, railroad maps.: A long time ago, I published this item, which I'll post in its entirety down below, regarding a railroad map from 1916.  I could not lon...

Looking at, and for, railroad maps.

A long time ago, I published this item, which I'll post in its entirety down below, regarding a railroad map from 1916.  I could not longer find it, but the item noted that later maps demonstrated the same thing.  Here's one I found from 1918.

Ths map also covered motor vehicle highways, which I was also going to try to look up.  Frankly, the highways are much easier to read.

Lex Anteinternet: Wyoming Railroad Map, 1915: The Wyoming State Library has published a series of historic maps of the state, including railroad maps.  I'd been hoping to find one fo...

Wyoming Railroad Map, 1915

The Wyoming State Library has published a series of historic maps of the state, including railroad maps.  I'd been hoping to find one for 1915 (book research, which I've been turning to again, which probably makes this blog a bit more like it originally was, and a bit more dull for the few people who actually stop in here), and low and behold, they had one.

1915 Wyoming Railroad Map.

Interesting map, it shows some things that I'd wondered about.

It shows, for one thing, that Casper was served by the Burlington Northern, which I new, and the Chicago and North Western, which I sort of knew, but it was celled the Great North Western in its later years.  It served Casper up until probably about 25 years ago or so.  There's hardly any remnant of it here now, and its old rail line here was converted to a trail through the town.  The old depot is a nice looking office building, but I don't know if that building dates back to 1915.  I doubt it.  I don't think that the Burlington Northern one isn't that old either.

 

Former Chicago and North Western depot in Casper.

 Burlington Northern Depot in Casper.

A really interesting aspect of this is that it shows two parallel lines actually running from where the railroads met in Douglas.  I knew that there were two depots in Douglas, and I knew there were remnants of the North West line east of town, but I didn't realize that the two lines actually ran astride each other, more or less (within a few miles of each other), from Douglas to Powder River, where they joined. The depot at Powder River is no longer there.

 

Former depot for one of the railroads in Douglas, now used as a railroad interpretive center.

 

 The other depot in Douglas, now a restaurant called "The Depot".

After that, interestingly, the Chicago and North Western ran to Shoshoni, while the Burlington Northern did not.  Now, a local short line runs to Shoshoni and links in somewhere with the  BN, but I don't know where.  Not in Powder River, that's for sure.  The BN still runs north through the Wind River Canyon, however, taking a turn at Shoshoni, which did not at that time, still passing through Lysite as it then did.  No rail line runs from Shoshoni to Riverton, and on to Hudson and Lander like this map shows.  And as with one of the Douglas depots, the old Riverton line is now a restaurant, although I've apparently failed to photograph that one (note to self, I suppose).  It's pretty amazing to think, really, that Fremont County's rail service has really declined pretty significantly in the past century, with Lander no longer being a terminus.  

Rail facilties in Lysite, which are probably nearly as old as the map being discussed here.

Going the other way, the results are even more surprising.  Orin Junction is still there, and is still a railroad junction, but just for the Burlington Northern.  The railroad still runs east to Lusk, but that's a Burlington Northern line today, apparently running on the old path of the Chicago and North Western.  Going south east, that line is still there up to Harville, but from the there what's indicated as a Colorado & "South 'N" line is now a Union Pacific line.

I honestly don't know, and really should, how far south that UP line runs, which shows that this is one of those areas of my state's history and present that I don't know that much about.  It's funny how something like this can really surprise you, and make you realize that you don't know aas much as you think.  I know that the BN runs as far south as Chugwater today, and further south than that, but I don't know if it runs into Cheyenne like it once did (or rather the Colorado did).  The main line of the UP runs through southern Wyoming and there's a huge yard in Cheyenne, so presumably there's a junction there somewhere.

The former Union Pacific depot in Cheyenne, now, of course, a restaurant and a museum.

This map in fact answered a question for me which I had, which is that if you wanted to travel from Casper to Cheyenne on a timely basis, what route would the train take. Well, now I know.  In 1915, you'd take either of the railroads serving Casper east to Orin Junction, and then take the BN south to Hartville.  From there, you'd take the Colorado south to Cheyenne.  From there, the extensive UP lines opened up the path west, south and east.

It's also interesting to see some lines that I knew once existed, but which are now defunct, shown here on the map.  The Saratoga & Encampment, for example, is shown.  I didn't know it was that told, but I should have.  The Colorado & Eastern running from Laramie up to the Snowies is also shown.  I knew that some railroad had done that, and that the lines are still there (a shortline serving skiers was attempted a few years ago, but no longer runs), but I didn't know what line that was.

Very interesting stuff.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Postscript

Out of curiosity, I took a look at the map for 1930, the last one they had up.  The rail lines were the same in 1930 as they were in 1915.

That shouldn't, I suppose, surprise me really.  For one thing, all the basic service lines appear to have been in by 1915 (or earlier, I'll  have to see if there's an earlier rail map).  And the last 1930 map was a "travel" map, not specifically a rail line map, like the 1915 one was, so perhaps it may have omitted any newer lines, although I doubt it.  Of interest, that travel map for 1930 only showed rail lines, not roads, so the presumption was obvious that if you were going to be doing much traveling, it was going to be by rail. 

Postscript II

Another thing that occurs to me from looking at this map is the extent of rail service, particularly passenger service, but all rail service in general, at a time when the state's population was less than half of what it present is. Very extensive.  Quite a remarkable change, compared to now, when some of these lines and many of the smaller railroads no longer exist here at all.

Of course, that no doubt reflects the massive changes in transportation we've seen, the improvement of roads, and of course the huge improvement in automobiles over this period.