Urban Legend

From: booga@insightbb.com

i have been trying to find information about a mass grave found in ca it had 4,000 bodies in it they turned out to be chinese people. i read this within the past forty years.
but i have not been able to find the information . at the time the article said that the chinese people were killed so that they would not have to be paid
please help if possible

Access to Historian

From: "Douglas Schiller" dschiller@alternativeenergy.com

I’d like to interview an historian for AlternativeEnergy.com. Please contact me to discuss.

—Doug Schiller, CEO

Judah property in Roseville, CA

From: "Gary Day" garyday@starstream.net

Two or three years ago I heard that Theodore Judah bought large plots of property in Roseville before deciding to locate the extra-engine roundhouse there. After his death in early 1863 CP management decided to locate the roundhouse in Rocklin instead thereby depreciating the value of the property held by Judah’s heirs. When Judah’s wife died in the mid 1890s, I forget the year; railroad managers bought the Roseville property from her estate and after a few years decided to move the roundhouse from Rocklin to Roseville. Since some of these managers owned property in Rocklin the railroad first announced an expansion in Rocklin in order to allow their managers’ to dump their property. The following year the railroad announced the intention to move the Roundhouse to Roseville, thereby allowing their managers to profit from their Roseville property purchases.

Sorry that this is such a sketchy synopsis and I don’t remember where I heard this story, but I’m wondering if any of this rings a bell with your group.

—Gary Day

Bohemian Club

From: Charles W. Jenner

The Bohemian Club was formed in San Francisco in 1872, composed of newspaper writers and artists (they possibly imagined themselves as "bohemians"??). It was a San Francisco Club. Later, businessmen join club. I don't really imagine the Big Four as being original bohemian clubbers. I doubt that they were considered San Francisco Businessmen. Camping trips led to the establishment of Bohemian Grove. Non-San Fransciscans were invited to the camp as guests. Probably right – the Big Four were too busy running a railroad.

—Charlie Jenner

[from the R&LHS Newsgroup.]

Obituary of Chadwell O'Connor

"Obituary of Chadwell O'Connor", © TVTechnology, January 24, 2008. (Obituary)

"Chadwell O'Connor, inventor of the counterbalanced fluid-drag camera head has died at the age of 92.

... Another locomotive buff and studio head, Walt Disney, observed O'Connor filming trains at [the Glendale] California train station and inquired about the unusual pan and tilt head. Disney was working on a new film, The Living Desert, and asked O'Connor to construct a similar head to solve some problems associated with that production. The event sparked a lifelong friendship between O'Connor and Disney, and also the beginnings of O'Connor Engineering [which also built the replica CPRR Jupiter and UPRR 119 steam locomotives for the National Park Service's first transcontinental railroad Promontory Summit site, the engines painted by Disney employee volunteers]." [More]

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Replica Jupiter & 119 steam engines
manufactured by O'Connor Engineering

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["O'Connor Engineering Laboratories was founded in 1949 by Chadwell O’Connor. Chad, once a designer and builder of steam power plants, always had a passion for steam locomotives. ... " (The "improved fluid-damped tripod head, for which he won Academy Awards in 1975 and 1992," now commonly used for video, was invented by Chadwell O’Connor to allow smooth panning of the tripod head while he was doing cinematography of trains, i.e., to avoid the jerking motion of a conventional tripod head.)]

[" ... Disney was so happy with his first O'Connor [tripod] head that he immediately ordered 10 more. His film, The Living Desert, won the first Academy Award for Documentary Feature in 1953. To produce his new fluid head, O'Connor founded a part-time business in 1952, first building them in his garage and then from a small factory on Green Street in Pasadena, which his wife Regina ran during the day. By 1969 O'Connor Engineering Labs was so successful that O'Connor left his 'day job' at Pasadena Power and Light to work full time on camera heads and steam engines at O’Connor Engineering. ... "]

Our school still doesn't "get it" about the internet

Hi. My son is a 5th grader ... and he is writing a term paper on the Transcontinental Railroad. Are there any brochures or other materials that you could send him? He'd really appreciate it.

If so, please mail ASAP ...

Thank you very much!

Transcontinental Railroad Workers

From: "Marianne Price" mcbing@att.net

I have three books, two of them are signed at Promontory Point, Utah.

The Compound Locomotive Supplement to The Science of Railways, by Marshall M. Kirkman. The autograph is hard to read, it looks like Ruy narcrs 10/9/1899 It could be Ray Narcrus or it could be Ruynarcrus.

A Catechism on the Combustion of Coal and the Prevention of Smoke by William M. Barr, M.E. published by Norman Henley & Co. This one isn't signed, however, it was one of the three.

Up to Date Air-Brake Catechism by Robert Hl. Blackall published by Norman W. Henley & Co.
Autographed by: Ralph W. Traver's Promontory Utah 4/10/01

They are maroon books with leather backs. They are in great condition with pictures that are protected by thin paper.

Hopefully, someone can help me!

Maybe I could take a photo of the one signature that I can't make out.

—Marianne Price

"Not bad, for an old lady: Fifty tons of historical locomotion"

"Not bad, for an old lady: Fifty tons of historical locomotion" by David E. Cook, © Sacramento News and Review, January 17, 2008. (News Article)

" ... Granite Rock No. 10 is just waking up. She’s 65 years old ... the working steam-powered locomotive that is a prominent part of Sacramento’s world-renowned California State Railroad Museum collection—one of fewer than 100 steam locomotives still operating in the United States. ... Most of the volunteers at the railroad museum are not former train people. ... Most people on the train crews start at the museum as docents. ... There is a pattern to the whistle blowing ... 'Any time you cross another right-of-way, you have to blow two long, one short and a long, and you have to blow it so that the last long sounds as you pass [the right-of-way].' ... " [More]

[Courtesy Google Alerts.]

New Book on Rails of California's Central Coast

From: "Julie Rivers" JRivers@arcadiapublishing.com

I wanted to inform you of our upcoming title, Images of Rail: Rails of California's Central Coast [by Walter Rice and Emiliano Echeverria]. This book contains 200 vintage images, including the "World's Most Beautiful Train" Southern Pacific's Daylight. I know that when visitors to your museum see them, they will feel that emotional connection which has made our books such a success for the past 14 years. For easy reference, enclosed is additional book information. ...

Julie Rivers, Regional Sales Manager
Arcadia Publishing, Inc.
420 Wando Park Blvd.
Mt. Pleasant, SC 29464

Tickets; Segregation

From: "Blanco, Bernadette O" BBLANCO@houstonisd.org

How much did tickets cost: from New York to the West Coast; from the Midwest?

In the early days were the cars segregated?

Philadelphia & Germantown railroad

From: paulg5@ptd.net

I found this small piece of paper attached to the back of a picture frame that contains an old print entitled "Railroad depot at Philadelphia." It looks like it might be a early schedule (Timetable) for the Philadelphia Germantown line from 1832?

—Paul Goodwin

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Truckee's Railyard played an essential role in building the transcontinental railroad

"Did you know ... Truckee's Railyard played an essential role in building the transcontinental railroad?" by Greyson Howard, © Sierra Sun, January 10, 2008. (News Article)

"... the empty lot east of downtown Truckee began as a supply and staging area for rails, railroad ties and rolling stock brought over the mountains by wagon ... Once the line was completed, the Central Pacific Railroad Co. made the Railyard home to a massive wooden roundhouse, large enough to accommodate around 20 engines when completed in 1898. Along with maintenance and repair facilities for the railroad, a lumber mill was built on the site to provide rail ties and bridge timbers, with millions of board-feet of timber passing through the mill. The railroad also stationed fire trains and snow plows at the Railyard, and built the 'balloon track' loop of rail to give the plows a place to turn around and head back over Donner Summit. ... " [More]

[Courtesy Google Alerts.]

Railroad Signal Lights

From: "Steve Jutras" sjutras2003@yahoo.com

I live near a railway and wondered what the lights mean on the poles; sometimes we see different patterns and wondered what they signified. It's the one with three lights on it. They can be all Red or mixed with Green, Yellow. Could you tell us how to read them?

Transcontinental Railroad Workers

From: "Suzanne Bronder" sbronder7@yahoo.com

Can you find the date of death of Edward P. O'Connor?  How about his son James J. O'Connor born 1909 in Green River, Wyoming. date of his death, too?

—Suzanne

Is the original Transcontinental Railroad still in use?

From: "Amy Newkirk" ANewkirk@litchfield.k12.il.us

Is the original Transcontinental Railroad still in use?

From,

Mrs. Newkirk's fifth grade class

Amy E. Newkirk
Russell Elementary School
Litchfield IL

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