Nowhere in particular.

I’ve been lucky enough to have had more than my fair share of adventures that have taken me places that the average tourist doesn’t give any thought to. And I have been lucky enough to have shared those adventures with good friends.

Yes, a lot of miles. A lot of miles… More than a few of them to places that the average person would need to look three or four times to find on any map, let alone understand why anyone would travel there.

Take this one for example.

It was a trip to a ridge of a hill in central Nevada. A spot that overlooks a bend in the Humboldt River, out in Eureka County. A road, a dirt one, does lead to the spot and if you really track down the place, you will see it on Google Maps. In the big picture of things, it is place that doesn’t matter much. Yet, friends and I made the trip there a while back.

We were out in this part of the Silver State on what could best be described as a photographic expedition. Back in the era before digital cameras, when Kodachrome 64 ruled the world of photography, the goal was to get the best quality images and use the least amount of exposures in doing so. Okay, so I was shooting black and white film just because it was different from that of everyone else. Not to mention that I have found black and white allows a greater way to take advantage of light and shadow…

So, why was I there? A worthy question.

Not far from where we were that day was the spot where the streamliner City of San Francisco derailed at what the Southern Pacific called Harney, on August 12, 1939. At 9:39 pm that night, while passing over the fourth crossing of the Humboldt River, the train left the rails. The result was the deaths of 24 and injuries to 121 passengers and crew. Officially, the railroad blamed sabotage and the incident remains unsolved to this day, despite a $10,000 reward having been offered by the Southern Pacific.

My own connection to the location is a family one, as my great grandfather, Chris Walker, was a locomotive engineer with the Southern Pacific, and he later ran the City between Sparks and Carlin (along the route through Palisade Canyon and over these same rails).

Two other points figure into the area with Chris. In November of 1881, not long after his birth the previous month, his father had opened The Pioneer Saloon in a nearby mining camp, called Safford; not far from this location.

And Chris had a memorable incident one day in the years after the end of World War II, while running the City through the same area. As related by his fireman, Jack Bradley, when they took over the train from the incoming crew at Carlin, the previous engineer complained that the diesel electric locomotives powering the train that day were not up to standard. They had trouble maintaining the usual 90 miles per hour speed. The train was almost an hour late at that point. Quite the embarrassment and one that would not go unnoticed by the big brass. Someone would have some explaining to do.

So Chris and Jack headed off west from Carlin, through Palisade Canyon. The hope was that they could coax a bit more speed out of the locomotives and make up some of that lost time out on the open range across country. But things changed as they came out of the Canyon and were heading for the next manned station at Beowawe.

A track section gang had were getting their tools and track car clear of the mainline as Chris and Jack approached them around a corner. Chris later recalled that he only had a split second to act and he lifted his foot off of the dead man pedal. This was designed so that if the engineer should become disabled, he would not be able to keep his foot pressing on the pedal. By lifting it up, the electricity that powered motors on the axles of the locomotive was interrupted and the train braking system automatically went into a full emergency application.

The track crew all got clear, with the exception of one man who was still holding onto the track gang car as it was hit by the train. He suffered a broken arm and shoulder from the impact. Once the train came to a stop, Chris and Jack checked on the track crew and then consulted with the train’s conductors as to the passengers. While it had been a rough stop, no one was injured. That was something Chris was intensely proud of years later after he retired in 1951; no passenger aboard any of his trains had ever been injured.

The train was inspected at the scene and the decision made to head for the station at Battle Mountain, some 30 miles west – albeit at a much restricted speed. When they arrived, it became obvious that this would be a very long day for Chris, Jack and everyone else on the City that day. Every wheel in the train had been flattened by the emergency stop. With over 200 miles to go to Sparks, it was going to be a very slow and bumpy trip.

Eventually, Chris and Jack used up all of the 16 hours of on duty time they had. Years later, Jack remembered the meal they were served in the train’s dining car, by a crew from the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad (one of the trains partners, which also included the Union Pacific.) When the train finally reached Sparks, it was annulled and the passengers heading west, put on another train.

So, with all of those points of history, how could I not have made the trip to that spot? But that’s only one of many adventures, and I hope to have many more.