Railroad memories

Those of you who read my column know I almost always write a piece from my Mother Marion Deaver's "archives" digging through her old files to find some subject to which I can give new life.

Last week I had the pleasure to ride in historic railcars with other city and county leaders, from Bakersfield to Tehachapi on a route now dubbed the Tehachapi Trade Corridor. The tour was to showcase the nearly completed double tracking project which offers a 63 percent capacity improvement on the major rail route which provides movement through California to major national markets.

The additional track increases connectivity, provides faster transit time, reduces emissions, and significantly reduces fuel versus trucks on the highway.

The project also extended the Cliff siding which can now accommodate the longer trains of today. Instead of the long trains having to sit in Tehachapi and wait for the faster trains to pass, they can now pull off on the Cliff siding and as the train passes the freight train can move on.

The rail improvement project briefing was presented as the train pulled out of the Amtrak station in downtown Bakersfield. Ahron Hakimi, Executive Director of the Kern Council of Governments gave a brief history of the rails, noting that the rails arrived in Tehachapi in 1876, contributing to Tehachapi's existence and growth.

Other presentations were made by Juan Acosta, BNSF State Government Affairs; Wes Lujan, Union Pacific Railroad VP Public Affairs; David Miller, BNSF Railroad, Manager, Engineering, and Shundrekia Stewart, BNSF Railway, Network Strategy.

Acosta expressed his appreciation to Greg Garrett, City Manager and the City of Tehachapi for the cooperation given to help get the project off the drawing board and onto the tracks.

So where's the history that I usually write about?

After the official presentation we settled into the club car and drank coffee. I enjoyed getting to sit by fellow City Councilman Phil Smith, who grew up in Keene and told stories about the one room schoolhouse, swimming in an old quarry nearby, and watching trains go by right behind his parents' house. His father was a railroad employee.

He said that he had old Super 8 movies that his father took of train derailments and of the equipment Southern Pacific used to right the train engines and cars. He explained that after the 1952 earthquake the railroad crews built out "detours" around the tunnels that were full of debris to get that major rail route running again.

A little later Phil moved across the aisle and was watching the scenery when he heard a gentleman sitting behind him remark to someone he had grown up in Bena and Keene.

I watched Phil's head literally jerk around. He got up and introduced himself to the man whose name was Sam Mercado, who now works for the City of Bakersfield. The memories began to flow and the two men realized they had grown up together in Keene, but did not remember each other from their youth.

Sam told Phil to wait until he went and got his wife, Maria, from another car and when she returned the three of them chatted and laughed for several miles as the train curved through the mountains toward Tehachapi.

Sam told me that he learned to speak English from Phil and the other children. "I wanted to play, so I had to learn English so I could know what was going on."

Small world or what?

As the train slowed and stopped in the middle of Tehachapi, lunch was served in the Fred Harvey car. We climbed the stairs to either the Bay View or Glacier View cars and had a wonderful view of the beautiful rolling hills and of course the tunnels as we sped through them on the way back to Bakersfield.

For me it was "better than Disneyland". I had never experienced the train ride to Bakersfield and all those tunnels; and don't forget the famous Tehachapi Loop!

I guess the railroad media writers are correct when they say "Ride the train and make memories for life."