Staying on Track is published monthly by the LMRA - David Lamberts, editor.
Visit us on the Internet at http://www.railserve.com/lmra
E-mail me at DWL1944@cs.com
Our mailing address is PO Box 53674, Lubbock, TX 79453
By Wilma Rugh Taylor, as published in Guideposts, April 2001, p. 23.
We visited St. Paul and were able to turn up clues to other surviving chapel cars. Before we knew it, Norman and I began a quest that was to consume the next five years of our life.
We crisscrossed the county, hunkering in church historical societies and libraries, sifting through letters, journals, and faded monthly reports, piecing together the forgotten story of America's chapel cars. Vivid details leapt out from those dusty old reports
"We conducted several meetings to which came a number of Montana cowboys," chapel car evangelist Boston Smith wrote in 1891. "A murder, a lynching, and the killing of two Indians were among the happenings of the town . . . where the gospel is surely needed."
The chapel cars could be blazing hot in the summertime and frigid past imagining in the punishing western winters. Diseases from influenza to smallpox were constant problems. Dust storms covered everything with grit, insects swarmed, cars broke down for days or weeks or even longer.
There was also human persecution to cope with. Saloon keepers dreaded seeing the Word of God roll into town. Ministers awakened to find their cars covered with angry graffiti or coated with eggs. Ku Klux Klansmen left notes on Catholic chapel cars threatening far worse than that.
Yet there was also deep gratitude - sometimes from the most unexpected quarters. "The car was sidetracked right in the slums," reverend E. R. Hermiston of the chapel car Emmanuel reported of a stop in Cle Elum, Washington. "It was certainly a wicked place. Any hour we would wake to hear them singing their Bacchanalian songs and sometimes fighting." The minister and his family were warned by townspeople that preaching God's work in a town like Cle Elum would be foolish and even dangerous. But Hermiston insisted on holding services anyway, and found an eager audience. "They came and filled the car night after night," he wrote. "The saloon men and publicans and sinners and some women from the re-light-district."
There was humor in the accounts as well. "That night it was hot, 102 degrees in the car," one Catholic priest recorded in his journal, "and so I did not preach on hell."
Chapel car Reverend Charles Rust instructed the children of one Wisconsin town to think "danger" when they saw liquor or saloons. After the services, they took the Reverend's words to heart, chalking DANGER on the doors of all the saloons in town. One railway worker summed up the chapel cars' whole history, and the feelings of thousands of rail workers across the West. In a letter to the chapel car Evangel's reverend John Killian, he wrote, "I have not been in church for years, but you have brought the church to me."
When I'd first seen Grace as a teenager, I'd had no idea how instrumental chapel cars had been in meeting the spiritual needs of our country. From the great storm of Galveston to the San Francisco earthquake, chapel cars had helped keep faith alive during dangerous and unruly times. Norman and I decided to chronicle our five-year-journey in search of the lost history of America's chapel cars in a book. We titled it This Train is Bound for Glory.
Wherever Norman and I are these days, the chapel cars are never far from our minds. At a lonely railway siding in a small town, we'll imagine a chapel car there - oil lamps glowing, the sound of an organ, and voices singing, "Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound . . ." [you may order a copy of this book, Judson Press, 1999, by calling (800) 458-3766, ed.].
Once again, it is time for the fall layout tours. Those people who have graciously volunteered to open their layouts to the club will be announced by Jack Seay at the November meeting. In the past, the club members have met at the church and then dispersed to the various layouts around the city. It is a good experience for everyone.
Hi, Jack. This is Doyle Davis. I was a longtime member of the Lubbock club but have lost touch over the years. I recall "Rip" Maples, John Lott, Paul Schacht, and a few others. They were all great guys!
I am seeking photos o the AT&SF and FW&D railroad depots that used to be in Lubbock. The FW&D might still be standing. I want to put the photos on my web site, giving credit to the photographer, of course.
Can you contact any of the ol' gang and ask them to send me any photos (or especially 35mm slides) that might work? I will digitize them and return them unharmed. If you have a moment, check out my web site: http://www.sat.net/~swphq.
Tell anyone who remembers me "hello" and ask them to contact me. I now live in a railroad modeling desert!
Doyle.
Feel free to contact Doyle. If you want his regular address, let me know and I will get it for you (ed.).
I found the Lubbock site tonight and was going to see if anyone in your club might have photos of the Seagraves/Whiteface train line I lived in Seagraves Texas for about 20 years but I live in Indianapolis Indiana now. About a year ago I took an interest in trains and I am building a layout now. I would like to have a locomotive of this train line but need pics and road numbers. Any help in this matter would be great.
Roy Roberts, Indianapolis, IN
Same comment. If you need his home address to mail him photos, let me know and I will get it for you (ed.)
by Neil Besougloff as published in CLASSIC TOY TRAINS
Mark your calendar for Thursday, November 15. You've got an extra rider to take to work that morning. You can pick him up in your basement. He's your favorite toy train, and November 15 is Take a Train to Work Day.
The event is part of the ongoing "Worlds Greatest Hobby" promotional campaign, an effort to publicize model railroading of all varieties and get non-model railroaders to join our hobby. November already is National Model Railroad Month, and I can't think of an easier, more effective, and more enjoyable way to celebrate - and to spread the work about toy trains - than to bring your favorite F3 diesel, 2025 steamer, Zephyr streamliner, or tinplate caboose to work.
To participate, there's not much required besides a train and somewhere visible to set it down at work. Curious co-workers naturally will ask question. Your goal isn't to sign up hobbyists like a wartime military recruiter, but to let your co-workers know that toy trains are alive and well. Let them know you're proud to spend hours alone in your spare room or basement (just kidding), and that you can help them get started.
How? Invite them to see your layout or collection. Offer to accompany them to a hobby shop or a train show. Pass along a copy of CLASSIC TOY TRAINS or another model railroad publication. Direct them to greatesthobby.com. Tell them to call the World's Greatest Hobby toll-free hotline at 877 426-5082 for an introductory booklet.
That's all it takes to make Take a Train to Work Day succeed. Once the whistle blows, and it's quitting time for another day, pat yourself on the back. You've personally played a role in the World's Greatest Hobby campaign
The November clinic will be the annual National Narrow Gauge Convention report by David Lamberts. Once again, he will show countless slides of the events in Salt Lake City and badger and cajole people into going to next years meeting.
I recently received the new Green Frog Railroad Catalog in the mail. Green Frog calls themselves the leader in railroad entertainment. They produce videos and their inventory is stagering! They carry videos of many of the railroads in the USA plus a wide selection of "how-to-do it" videos. I will bring the catalog with me to the next meeting (ed.).