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ALL COLOR 2014 CALENDAR


THE CHICAGO & NORTH WESTERN HISTORICAL SOCIETY IS PLEASED TO ANNOUCE THE PUBLICATION OF IT’S ALL COLOR 2014 CALENDAR,


CONTAINING 13 PHOTOS OF C&NW AND PREDECES- SOR ROADS. INDIVIDUAL COPIES ARE AVAILABLE FOR $13.49 (including postage) ILLINOIS RESIDENTS PLEASE INCLUDE $1.05 CENTS TAX FOR EACH CALENDAR ORDERED. PLEASE ORDER FROM:


CNWHS-C, PO Box 1068, North Riverside, IL 60546 order online at www.cnwhs.org


Bear Bait!


                   


            


       


          


             


The Anchorage NRHS Conventionphoto stop ground crew consisted of (standing L-R) Denis Connell and T


conductor Kenny Smith, NRHS train operationms coordinator Bart Jennings and Emily Moser  54 NOVEMBER 2013 • RAILFAN.COM


THE ANCHORAGE CONVENTION of the Na- tional Railway Historical Society (page 42) was a heck of a lot of fun. In fact, the last few conventions have just seemed like more fun than in the past. The national organization had a convention committee for many years that seemed to have an attitude of planning the conventions around the use of luxury private railroad cars — let’s run some trips where we can take our PV’s, and we’ll sell coach seats to help defray the costs. Runbys? A nuisance that should be ignored. Rare mileage? PV’s on an Amtrak route would be better than a coach-only trip down some little- used branch. That’s the way it seemed, anyhow. In the last few years the convention com- mittee has undergone some major changes. Runbys were made a priority for the Chat- tanooga convention a few years ago. And even more recently, a guy with a reputation for running rare mileage trips with multiple photo stops, Barton Jennings of the South- ern Appalachia Railway Museum, has got- ten involved with the planning. Last year’s Iowa convention and this year’s Alaska con- vention had all the hallmarks of a “Bart” trip with good mileage and good photo stops, all planned to the precise minute. The habitual- ly late convention trips have largely become a thing of the past with Bart’s input. To top it all off, Bart’s personality has injected a “we’re having fun” attitude that filters down from the top and influences everyone on the trip. More fun stories and more cool things just seem to happen when Bart is in charge. For the Anchorage convention, Bart as- sembled a team to coordinate the photo run- bys. At every photo stop the first six people off the train would be Bart, Alaska Railroad conductor Kenny Smith and the three photo line coordinators — Tom Nemeth and Denis Connell, both from Railpace Newsmagazine,


and yours truly. The sixth person off the train was Emily Moser, who was shooting video for R&R and her own website using a GoPro camera mounted on the locomotive. Now initially Tom, Denis, and I were told that we were off the train first to set up the photo line. The real reason we were off the train first was to see if bears would attack. If bears didn’t attack us, it was safe for the train to unload. We became known as the Bear Baits, with Denis as Bear Bait 3, Tom as Bear Bait 2 and I as Bear Bait 1. Just af- ter the train stopped the six of us would hop off the train first. Bart and Kenny would walk the train to see which coaches had good ground next to them for dropping stepboxes to unload. Meanwhile, Tom, Denis, Emily and I would be out in the field checking the photo angles. We would soon be dubbed “Goldilocks and the Three Bear Baits.” On the Friday trip around Anchorage our last photo stop as at the restored section house and rotary snow plow along the ARR main line at Potter. The train was ready to depart, so I wandered out next to the high- way to look for any stragglers. About that time I hear Bart yelling, “Steve, there’s a bear behind you!” Almost simultaneously, my NRHS radio goes off. “Greg Molloy to Steve Barry. There’s a bear behind you.” (Greg is NRHS president and the de facto convention chairman for Anchorage). Well, I knew Bart and Greg were nowhere near each other, so this probably wasn’t a joke — there was likely a bear behind me. I turn around, and see nothing. Hmmmm. Well, the bear had wandered behind an RV across the street and soon came back into sight. I was so surprised I didn’t even get a shot off. Ken- ny Smith and Tom Nemeth went across the street to flush the bear out so the folks on the train could get pictures, but the bear was


om Nemeth of Railpace Newsmagazine and Steve Barry and (seated L-R) ARR .


GREGORY MOLLOY


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