Return of the Iron Horse

THE GRAND CANYON RAILWAY Return of the Iron Horse

Wren songs of another era have echoed over the Grand Canyon the last few months, luring visitors who thought they had heard the music of steam locomotives for the last time. And younger travelers are hearing "live," for the first time, the plaintive wail of a steam whistle and the rhythmic chuff of steam exhaust. The Grand Canyon Railway has returned with bells on, so to speak. Steam whistles were absent for nearly 40 yearsfrom the forests and lonesome grasslands between the town of Williams and the Canyon's South Rim, and even diesel work trains have avoided Grand Canyon for more than 15 years. But visitors can now travel by steam train the 64 miles from Williams, on Interstate Route 40, to the South Rim. For railfans, those of us possessed by the spell of America's vanishing railroads, it will make Arizona an even more worthy destination. The trip to the Grand Canyon should become the main event in a hitherto unfocused agenda of things for railroad buffs to see and do in Arizona. Volumes have been written about the complex geology that created the Grand Canyon. But it was the railroad that made the Canyon. The awesome gorge was not always considered a significant attraction or a rare and valued part of mankind's environment. Miners were the Canyon's first developers, and they exploited tourism as an afterthought. Their trails and camps served early visitors who came by coach or horseback to look at the vast curiosity. Early in the 1880s, the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad acquired the franchises of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad and built a line across northern Arizona. The route piqued interest in the Grand Canyon, more than 80 miles northwest of Flagstaff. William O. (Buckey) O'Neill, a pioneer Arizona journalist, politician, and businessman, was intrigued by the Canyon and began in the 1890s to promote a railroad from the A & P main line at Williams to the South Rim. Not only to accommodate tourists, the spur was later to serve mines,

Specialists in the intricacies of steam engines play a critical role.

(BELOW) Robert Franzen works on the tube sheet inside the locomotive's boiler.

(OPPOSITE PAGE) Cranes hoist a locomotive off the flat car used to carry it by rail to its final destination in Williams.

In a time-exposure photograph (OPPOSITE PAGE), railroad workers prepare Number 18 for the inaugural trip on September 17, 1989.

All four 2-8-0 Consolidation engines owned by Grand Canyon Railway were built by the American Locomotive Company. (ABOVE) Engineer Charles Harris gazes across a broad expanse during the sunset run to the South Rim. (LEFT) Eighty-year-old gauges still keep accurate account of the locomotive's functions.

sawmills, and ranches in the area; O'Neill himself had some mining claims on the Coconino Plateau. But before his railroad scheme was realized, O'Neill became one of Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War. He was killed in Cuba in 1898.

The Santa Fe acquired the line and opened passenger service from Williams to the Grand Canyon in 1901. At that time, the Grand Canyon was within a national forest preserve, part of a fledgling effort to protect natural resources; it would not become a national park for another 18 years.

Legendary. Santa Fe built the El Tovar and Bright Angel lodges at the Canyon, and the Fray Marcos in Williams, where the branch line originated.

Millions arrived at the Grand Canyon by rail. The title of one book about it only hints at its clientele: Cowboys, Miners, Presidents and Kings: The Story of the Grand Canyon Railway. Thousands of Santa Fe freight cars displayed a map of the branch and carried the slogan "Grand Canyon Line."

Railroads had barely conquered the West when they were challenged by automobiles and trucks. Half a century after the Grand Canyon spur opened, America was beginning to suffer from what songwriter Rodney Crowell called "the disappearing railroad blues."

Five thousand railroad enthusiasts (ABOVE) turned out for inaugural ceremonies at the Williams Depot and saw the train decked out in patriotic bunting.

(RIGHT) Each run offers car-to-car entertainment, such as a barbershop quartet, Indian dancers, or strolling musicians.

(ABOVE, RIGHT) Max and Thelma Biegert, principal financial backers of the new railroad line.

(FAR RIGHT) A steep four percent grade is a respectable challenge for the powerful drivers of the steam locomotive.

THE GRAND CANYON RAILWAY

The Santa Fe had only three paying customers on its last passenger train to the Canyon on July 30, 1968. The last work train traveled the line in 1974, and that seemed to end an era.

Over the next 15 years, there were several proposals to revive the line as a tourist railroad. It looked like a natural, as Americans belatedly scrambled to preserve some remnants of the steam age. All the proposals, however, seemed more romantic than practical.

Then in January, 1989, Arizona entrepreneur Max Biegert began putting togeth- er a financing package that, by the time he and his associates are done, will approach $80 million. They took on the railroad as a hard-nosed business enterprise.

The revived railway has purchased five steam locomotives dating from early in this century and has identified a couple of others in the nation's dwindling pool of serviceable steamers. (For the information of true train buffs, four of the locomotives are 2-8-0 "Consolidations" built by ALCO from 1906 to 1910 and originally used mostly in freight service; the fifth is a larger 2-8-2 "Mikado" built by Baldwin.) Grand Canyon Railway also has bought and restored to museum quality 17 Harriman passenger coaches. When the first train ever reached Grand Canyon on September 17, 1901, it carried about 30 passengers. Exactly 88 years later, nearly 500 passengers made the revived railroad's gala inaugural run behind Consolidation Engine No. 18.

Trains are now making daily trips from Williams to the Canyon, and will make two or three runs a day this summer, depending on how many people reserve seats. Round-trip tickets are $47 for adults and $23 for children under 12 including tax and a $2 National Park Service entry fee. Trains leave Williams at 8:00 and 10:00 A.M., reach the canyon at 10:45 A.M. and 12:45 P.M., and depart for Williams after a two-hour layover. (For more information, telephone 1-800- THE TRAIN.) Ardent railfans may travel to Flagstaff by Amtrak, which offers a package trip from Flagstaff to Williams with a round trip on the Grand Canyon Railway.

Grand Canyon Railway has refurbished the old Fray Marcos "Harvey House" in Williams as a depot and museum. Plans call for an Old West theme town. At the other end of the line, the railroad has restored the historic Grand Canyon Depot, a large log structure.

Ironically, the automobile contributed to the revival of the railroad. When rail pas- senger service ended in 1968, the national park drew 1.9 million visitors a year. That has increased to nearly 4 million visitors a year. Traffic congestion has become a seri- ous problem for the National Park Service and affected the Canyon experience for visitors. Most visits tend to be brief, an interlude of less than a day while a family is en route to some other destination.

Park Service officials have supported the revival of the railroad, hoping it will cause many visitors to leave their cars in Williams. The Sierra Club also endorses the notion of using the railroad to reduce traf- fic and pollution.

These are important considerations, and it is nice to know you are contributing to environmental sanity.

But for most of us, the thrill will start with standing on a platform at Williams, lis- tening to the sounds and inhaling the smells of an oil-fired steam engine getting ready to go to work.

And then comes the nostalgic wail of a whistle we thought we would not hear again, and the conductor's soaring "All aboard!"