Private Railroad Car Friends Gathering at Charles City Iowa

Friday evening June 2nd we departed at around 6 pm from our home in the northern twin city suburbs and headed south to Charles City Iowa. We stopped at the McStop in Lakeville, which is a truck stop / McDonalds (Subway and other fast food is available as well...) in the southern ex-urbs of the Twin Cities, for a quick bite to eat. We continued down I-35 into Iowa, and exited at US 18 just past Clear Lake Iowa. We were getting low on gas, but the "Distance to Empty" reading was 45 miles, and the sign along the road said that there was less than 40 miles to Charles City. As we traveled east, it became clear that we would not make it to Charles City. We pulled into the truck stop at the junction of US 18 and US 218, where the Distance to Empty read 1 mile. We were but 5 miles or so from our destination.

We finally pulled into the former Charles City Western Railway shop parking area at around 9:45 pm, said hello to the folks that had already arrived, and set up our camper (40k); this consisted of leveling the trailer and plugging into power. We arranged to meet for breakfast and went to bed.

Waking up Saturday morning we headed for breakfast at Dave's restaurant. A couple hours later we were back at the shops, where we began various activities. Some folks swept the shop floor, others roped off the inspection pit in the shop. There was a lift being used to remodel part of the building, so it was brought out and those that wanted to see the area from 30 feet up (57k) were taken up. Everyone toured the  several passenger cars in various states of repair, a fan was set up (22k) to blow cool air into the diner-lounge car that was "home base" for the activities of the day to keep it cool on this warm (85 degree) June day.

Once these "clean" tasks were accomplished, it was time to change clothes and begin to investigate the lighting problems with the Charles City Western's trackmobile (52k), which is kind of a tractor that can ride on track and pull rail cars or drive on the highway like a truck. In highway mode this vehicle will operate at slow speeds - I would guess 10 to 20 MPH maximum. In rail mode, the safe top speed is probably under 5 MPH.

After just a brief time troubleshooting it was time for lunch. I changed back into my clean clothes and had a wonderful lunch in one of the passenger cars. Everyone had a wonderful time talking about railroads, railroading and other interesting topics. When everyone was finished, we all moved to the back of the car where Dawn had smuggled two birthday cakes onto the train, and everyone sang Happy Birthday. One of the cakes was decorated with a Jeep and travel trailer (47k), and the other was decorated with Thomas the Tank engine (43k)- Thomas was cute but not quite the thing for this middle aged man (41k).

After plenty of refreshment, I changed back into my work clothes and started to work in earnest on the Trackmobile lighting. Ted Hotvedt helped a lot on this project, getting more involved - or at least more greasy than I did. By the end of the day we had the headlights working (we found wiring missing, a bad switch that had been bypassed, and a junction block that was incorrectly connected). We also repaired the headlights that are used while on the rails (40k). These lights are interesting because the when the light that is bright for the direction of travel, the light on the other end (actually other side - the machine moves side-to-side while on the rails) of the trackmobile is on but dim. The bright lights are conventional sealed beam headlights, and the dim light is provided by a bare bulb in the fixture installed behind the sealed beam. It provides a dim light source that is a makeshift tail lamp. The problems found and repaired on the track lights were bad connections and burned out "dim" bulbs, and a bad solder connection on the back of one of the sealed beam bulbs. We also burned out several fuses troubleshooting both problems.

We also gave the tail light a quick look, and found a bad bulb. We also found the wiring to the tail light completely shot - sections of the wiring are so worn and corroded they are completely missing. This repair will be accomplished on my next visit to Charles City.

While Ted and I were working on the trackmobile, some folks were resting and visiting in the shade, and others were cleaning the accumulated junk out of a former Great Northern Railroad dome car - including the old carpet. The result is a big improvement (18k).

The next order of business was to get cleaned up and ready for dinner. On the way back to the trailer, someone was trying to cook the chicken and the steaks, but they were having problems with the gas grill. It turned out to be a bad pressure regulator - it had failed in the closed position. Another grill was found, and the regulator swapped out. It was then I went to the camper, had a shower and changed into clean clothes.

We had a delicious dinner of grilled chicken, steak (18k), chips, potato salad and other picnic style foods. After dinner, it was time to share slides (19k). Since our host is a big fan of the Milwaukee Road railroad, there were many photographs of that railroad. We also saw many photographs of the Great Northern, Chicago great Western, the Burlington route, and more!

Dawn was invited to show a program from our honeymoon trip that we took 14 years ago - it was a hoot! We had photographs from our wedding, Glacier Park, Portland Amtrak station, our visit with my uncle and his family near San Jose, California, Los Angeles and other southern California sights that including the mothballed airliners at the Mojave, California airport - the assembled crowd really enjoyed looking at the airplanes; One person said that he actually had flown one of the airliners and knew all about its history. Apparently the DC-8 was owned by a Japanese airline who had crashed it into Tokyo bay, and recovered it. They decided it was beyond repair. Another airline bought it, repaired it and put it into service and the person recounting the tale actually flew it! The plane was later retired and we had photographed it in storage in California. Pictures from our trip on Amtrak's Desert Wind and our trip home via Chicago were included as well.

We quickly finished our program - at least as quickly as one can go through 6 reels of slides. The group took a couple breaks and others shared their pictures. Folks left one or two at a time, and at around 1 am the remaining group decided to call it a night.

We woke up, hitched up the trailer and filled the water tank, had breakfast with everyone at Dave's again. We said goodbye and hit the road by 10:30. We made it home by 1:30 pm, parked the trailer in the backyard and got ready for the week ahead.