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Weekly News June 29, 2009Description
Springtime in the Rockies: In the early 1930’s, the lyrics to this song were on everyone’s lips. When Hollywood made a Technicolor movie with this title many years later, the supposed location was Lake Louise in the Canadian Rockies, although most of it was filmed in Hollywood. I think it starred Esther Williams, but it might have been the skater Sonja Henie.
In any event, nine of us left the Colorado Rockies on the last full day of spring, 2009, for our 4-day return to Yorklyn. The Rockies during this last week of spring were spectacular! Surrounding Estes Park, our headquarters, snow-capped peaks greeted us in all directions. We had climbed part-way up many of these mountains with our steam cars, reaching an elevation of 9,200 feet on two separate days. All of the driving was up or down, sometimes with grades of 12%, and although our speed was sometimes down to 10 m.p.h. with stops to cool the brakes, both our Mountain Wagon and our 1913 Model 76 did themselves proud with no breakdowns. I must credit qualified operators of FAHP, Bill Schwoebel, Butch Cannard and Steve Bryce, with expert assistance from Jerry Novak, for their exemplary achievement, which reminds me of a compliment I received in 1970 in response to a comment that my 1912 Mountain Wagon was performing very well over the Green Mountains of Vermont: “It has something to do with the Management”. We hope the women, Ann Bryce, Holly Novak, Jane Cannard and Ruth Marshall enjoyed the trip as much as we did.
A Colorado “park” is usually a huge meadow between snow-capped mountain peaks, sometimes as large as 50 by 100 miles (in the case of South Park, s.w. of Denver). Estes is a park possibly 20 miles in diameter in which the town of Estes Park has grown into a major tourist attraction. F. O. Stanley went here for his health in 1903, and opened the grand resort hotel that bears his name in 1909. The very first Mountain Wagons coincided with the opening of the hotel in June of that year, and with 4 Mountain Wagons (from Delaware, Michigan, Idaho, and Washington) and 16 other Stanley cars, we celebrated the hotel’s 100th birthday. All four Mountain Wagon owners are members of FAHP, one of whom is our immediate past president Mike May.
Colorado members of the Stanley Museum bore the responsibility for the planning and operating of the tour, and they did a great job. Especially attentive to our needs were Linda Henry and her husband Lou Becker, the latter treasurer of the Stanley Museum. Several photo opportunities and a small show at the Estes Park Visitors’ Center (very well-attended by the general public) were included in the week’s program. It was great to have our cars photographed at the Loveland railroad station at the same location where the original Mountain Wagons met F. O. Stanley’s hotel guests in 1909. The trip from there through the Big Thompson Canyon, climbing 2,500 feet in about 20 miles (the total distance to the hotel is 30 miles), was indeed spectacular, especially with the top down. Two days we toured briefly in Rocky Mountain National Park, adjacent to Estes, and one day we took the second Mountain Wagon route to the other railhead at Lyons, 25 miles from the Stanley Hotel. We plan to illustrate this trip in an upcoming edition of the “Herald”.
I apologize for the two-week lapse in sending the “Weekly News”, and again must ask to miss a week on July 6, as we will be attending the Eastern Steam Car Tour at Saratoga Springs, July 5-11. Those going, and there are 15 FAHP volunteers, will be unable to work the July 5 public event at Auburn Heights, but we are leaving things in good hands. Dan Citron is in charge of the docents and tours of the big house, and Richard Bernard is in charge of everything else. Additional volunteers will still be welcomed, so if you can work next Sunday, please give Richard or Dan a call a.s.a.p. Thank you, one and all!
Our work sessions have been well attended. Work has progressed on the Diesel locomotive, scraping and cleaning of parts from the Model 607, and the building of seats for an oversized persons’ car for the Auburn Valley. The cars from Colorado have been cleaned up, and the Model 76 is going to Saratoga Springs with a patch-painted hood. In the high elevations, flames from the flue scorched the paint on the left side, as well as a small section of the left fender skirt. The throttle on the Mountain Wagon is being replaced, as it leaked enough in Estes Park to prevent the boiler from siphoning after blow-downs. The “Wagon” will be needed for the July 5 event and possibly for the July 4 parade in Hockessin. Following our return from Saratoga, we will be addressing driving lessons again, with the hope of qualifying more operators for the Stanleys. Possible short trips for July might be to Irenee duPont’s water tower (with his permission), and to Mitchells’ for ice cream. We want to get some signals installed on the A.V.R.R., locate at trackside the scale-model stations being refurbished by Art Sybell, and finish the exhibits in the Museum.
Going to the annual Eastern Steam Car Tour, this year hosted by Mark and Lisa Cantor and the Steam Automobile Club of America at Saratoga Springs, NY, are Ann and Steve Bryce, Bill and Cathy Schwoebel, Butch and Jane Cannard, Ruth and Tom Marshall, Walter and Liz Higgins, John, Ellen, and Robert Hopkins, Bob Hargraves, and Kelly Williams. We are planning to take Stanley models CX, K, 76, 725, and 740 in 4 trailers, and will leave early on July 5, returning on Saturday evening, the 11th. The longest days’ runs of the tour are to Howe Cavern (125 mi. round-trip), and to Lake George, with the other three days being made up of shorter runs to the many historic sites around Saratoga. We wish all of you could go!
The famous Independence Day parade at Hockessin, beginning at 3 P.M. on Saturday, July 4, appeals to many of us, and we have traditionally taken several cars. This year, with some of us away, we NEED CARS TO GO, and urge qualified operators to sign up with Anne Cleary a.s.a.p. To my knowledge, John Hopkins (725), Dan Citron (735), and Jerry Lucas (820?) are the only drivers who have committed. Anne’s E-mail is Clearyak@verizon.net, and her phone (302) 239-0777.
On this date in 1942, Brooks A. Jones, a schoolteacher from Corinth, NY, drove our Model 740 from Earlville, NY, to Yorklyn, about 260 miles, to deliver it from Robert B. Chase to my father. The next day I registered for the draft in the Odd Fellows Hall at Centreville. Gasoline rationing went into effect in mid-July that year. Happy FOURTH! Tom
