Saratoga News

Willys Peck peruses some of his railroad memorabilia.

Saratoga Stereopticon

Willys Peck

The birth of a backyard railroad in Saratoga

Sifting through the debris of the ancient settlement of Saratoga as they seek to learn how the natives lived, archaeologists of some future eon may happen upon a small, metallic oject, sharpened at one end and flattened at the other, and gilded over like a piece of jewelry. They would have found the Golden Spike from the D.I.& A.N.R.R., relating to an event back in A.D. 1977.

Twenty years later, I look back on that event and wonder how it ever got put together. The initials stand for the Dangerous Instrumentality & Attractive Nuisance Rail Road, a less-than-public utility that has gotten its share of ink in this and other publications. To recap briefly, it is a 2-foot gauge railroad encircling my yard, utilizing steel rails and flanged wheels from the little tray-carrying cars in the once-prevalent fruit-drying yards around the valley. The motive power, Engine 44, is a copy of the wood-burning C.P. Huntington, on display at the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento. Hardly a wood-burner, Engine 44 is powered by a seven-horsepower gasoline motor linked to a garden-tractor transmission, in turn connected by a motorcycle chain and sprockets to the wheels on the rear truck. The engine pulls a flatcar capable of holding many children and/or adults.

As an old newspaperman, I was accustomed to crowding deadlines. As a lawyer, I knew something about civil liability for hazardous conditions, hence the name of the railroad. The Golden Spike ceremony, celebrating the completion of Engine 44, stretched both of these concepts to their limits. For one thing, I was working on that locomotive almost to the time of the ceremony, which I'd already had to postpone for a couple of weeks to May 28.

Taking my cue from the Golden Spike ceremony in Promontory, Utah, in 1869, when the transcontinental railroad was completed, I wanted a California governor to drive the spike. Jerry Brown couldn't make it, however, but the state historic preservation coordinator, Knox Mellon, could. With him was his wife, Carlotta, who was the governor's appointments secretary. I could thank Jerry Smith of Saratoga, then a state senator, later an appellate justice, for expediting their attendance. It seemed only appropriate that this official representation should be commemorated by something associated with the governor, so I chose one of his utterances, "Lower your expectations." The main station on the D.I.& A.N. is at Lower Expectation.

Also on the platform were county Supervisor Rod Diridon, a railroad brakeman during his college years; historian Clyde Arbuckle; and Los Gatos Mayor Al Smith, a friend from Boy Scout days and miniature-railroad entrepreneur of no mean accomplishment.

Not having two locomotives to meet head-to-head as was done at Promontory, I had the flatcar, with Diridon valiantly struggling with the brake wheel, coming down the hill from one side, and Engine 44 coming from the other. They met at the laurelwood tie. The spike itself was wired to a telegraph sounder.

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