Saratoga Stereopticon
Engine leads to divorce ... no, that's vice versa!
Law practice helps bring backyard railroad together
By Willys Peck
In my last column, I explained the source of the name Dangerous Instrumentality and Attractive Nuisance for the two-foot-gauge railroad encircling my yard. It was prompted by a law-school course in torts, and it seemed appropriate for describing the liability I was incurring.
The first rolling stock was what I considered a pretty good copy of an open-platform combination baggage and passenger car, circa 1870. Being about 14 feet long, it could easily carry a half-dozen adults in the passenger section, plus a few kids in the baggage compartment. It got plenty of use.
There was no motive power-Engine 44 didn't come along for a few more years-and passengers had to push the car to the top of the hill. After completion of the yard-encircling loop, something over 400 feet of track, it was safe to run the car down only one side of the yard, since the track on the other side rounded a tight curve at the bottom of the hill and a passenger-loaded car would tip over.
All went well until one evening in 1971. That was when we had a party for my daughter, Anna, who was about to depart for Finland as an American Field Service exchange student for her last year of high school. Among the guests were the vice consul of Finland and his wife, from San Francisco. It was a gala, well-attended event that I had to miss because I was working a night shift at the San Jose Mercury News. Train rides were a feature of the evening.
At some point in the festivities, a couple of the celebrators pushed a carload of guests down the wrong side of the track, and, when the car hit the tight curve, it went over on its side, hitting the barbecue grill and scattering live coals. It was the stuff of lawsuits, not to mention international incidents, since the Finnish diplomat and his wife were aboard. Miraculously, no one was hurt beyond a few bruises.
My wife dashed into the house and made futile phone calls to summon a doctor, any doctor. When she came back out, she said people were laughing and talking about the mishap as if it were a unique party event. When I got home from work after midnight, I went out with a flashlight and saw the car on its side. It was the kind of moment I hope never to repeat.
What might be called the denouement occurred a few years later when, as a lawyer, I was handling the probate of an estate with a beneficiary in Sweden. The San Francisco attorney for the Swedish consulate also represented the Finnish consulate. After we completed the legal chores, we shot the breeze for a bit, and it turned out he was a railroad buff. It seemed appropriate to tell him about the railroad in my yard.
Oh yes, he said, he'd heard all about that railroad. It seems the Finnish vice consul had related what had happened and, the lawyer said, declared he would never talk about it to anyone else. The lawyer quoted him to this effect: "If I told people that I went to a party down the peninsula and was involved in a train wreck, they'd never believe me."
I never tried to rebuild that car. I used the two four-wheel trucks on a flat car, which couldn't tip over. Also, I wanted to get started on a locomotive. I didn't have far to look for a prototype, a "44" of the type inspired by my childhood book The Wonderful Locomotive. For a long time I'd had my eye on the C.P. Huntington-the Central, later Southern-Pacific engine named for one of the Big Four. The original is at the state railroad museum in Sacramento, and I had plenty of pictures and diagrams to follow.
For one thing, it was a "44," meaning it had the kind of diamond stack used to catch wood sparks. Also, the boiler, cab and tender were on a single frame, and there were only two driving wheels, factors that would make for easier construction. At this point, my law practice served me in good stead. I needed someone who could use an arc welder and could handle the kind of heavy metal I'd need for the frame and running gear. It just so happened that the son of one of my clients was taking metal shop in high school, and he came over to work on Saturdays.
I also needed some of the fabrication done with machine tools, which I didn't have, and I happened to be handling a divorce for a client who had a machine shop. His fee: construction of the rear truck on Engine 44.
"There's a divorce in that engine," I'd tell people, and wait for the double take. Actually, my wife was very much with me on the whole project, which took all of two years and which I'll go into in a later column.
Saratoga, California Since 1955
