A Skunk Train Ride Through the Redwoods

Along Northern California's Pacific Coast is another day for the world-famous historic skunk train, attracting visitors to Fort Bragg from near and far. This is Stothy Pappas, the general manager of the skunk train, and this is his locomotive, the Santa Cruz Portland Cement No. 2. He brought it out for the Days of Steam event. It was built in 1909. Having my locomotive here has sort of primed the pump to say, yes, people love the steam locomotive. They love the history that it embodies. And so it's time to rebuild our own. Steam locomotives have fascinated Pappas since he was a boy. When he was studying to become an industrial archaeologist, he was struck with the idea to buy one. So back in 2006, I walked into the restaurant where this locomotive had been a billboard, painted up like a circus train for many years. It was Pollardville's Chicken Kitchen. And I asked to speak to the owner, who happened to be Neil Pollard, and I asked, well, are you guys interested in selling this locomotive? And the answer was, yeah, at a price that was a little more than I was going to be able to pay as a starving academic. But it didn't take long for him to get his prize. Four months later, the locomotive was his, with a rubber chicken tied at the front to commemorate its origins. He operates it with his fireman, John Gradin. This entire box from the back to the front of the cab is all firebox up to about here. So you have a great big oil fire in here that's boiling all the water in the entire boiler, keeping up that pressure so we can keep her moving. The boiler runs at about 360 degrees. The more pressure you have on the vessel, the more heat it takes to boil the water, the pressure brings the boiling point of the water up. The pressure is not what makes the locomotive run. It's the expansion of letting the water vapor out of the boiler that actually moves the engine. It runs on recycled fuel oil and has since 1909. Gradin explains how he and Pappas work together to get the train going. And then on this side of the engine, when he's running over here, he's got the bar for direction, the throttle, and the brakes for the train and the engine that he's controlling. So it's a marriage between both sides. He has to have me to do his job. If he's not doing his job, there's no reason for me to do mine. So we work together to make everything happen all in a balance. The skunk train's peculiar name came from how bad its exhaust smelled. When the California Western Railroad bought its rail buses that were gasoline powered, everybody sort of derisively in the local communities called it the skunks. You know, oh, those skunk cars that they use to haul people now. But the management at the time actually embraced that. I mean, hey, you know, it's a good nickname, right? Okay, so you call it a skunk. Well, let's make a logo of a skunk. So Mr. Skunk, the mascot was created, and it became the root of the skunk or later on the skunk train. Pappas explained the train started in 1885 as a lumber hauling railroad. It served as part of the Union Lumber Company. Over the years, the tracks stretched further east until it connected to the city of Willits. This railroad was in many ways the lifeblood of the community here in Fort Bragg for so many decades. It hauled all the goods and services in from the outside world and hauled the timber out. That made most of the money until the lumber mill shut down in about 2002. It still carries fright, but its economy has changed to focus on passengers. People discovered the beauty of the Redwoods during the second half of the 20th century. Passengers started to ride the train for the scenery. From the Fort Bragg station, visitors can go on an hour-long round trip through the Redwood Forest. The train moves at 15 miles per hour, so people can enjoy the scenery both inside and out. And the cars date back to as early as the 1900s. So these are all very historic. The interiors, they have the original walkover seats in them, you know, so the Hale and Kilbourne walkover seats. It's an authentic experience of being on an old-time train. The train stops at Glen Blair Junction for about 20 minutes. There, people can wander through the forest and enjoy the quiet surroundings. Rail bikes are an alternative option to see the Redwood Forest. They share the rails with the trains. On the driver's side, I don't know if you can quite see, but there's a little black box up there that is a little motor. So whenever a driver is pedaling, they can, it will basically give them an electronic assist as they pedal. Because the bikes do weigh in at about 250 to 350 pounds, so they're pretty heavy. So that little electric motor does help you on out whenever the driver is pedaling. There's also a throttle. If we have people who don't feel like pedaling or they can't pedal for some reason, they can also just use a throttle. According to Price, anyone three and older can ride it, even 90-year-olds. But after the quick stop, the train sets off into the woods once more. If you talk to anybody sort of in this part of the world, and you say, I work for the skunk train, everybody says, I remember riding that with my parents or my grandparents, or I took my kids there. And so there's such a legacy here of people, you know, cross-generation coming to ride this train to see the scenery, to enjoy a nice cool day in Fort Bragg, California on the coast, and look at the ocean, have some seafood for dinner at the end of the day. It's a magical institution. It's one of the flagship institutions in the entire heritage railroad industry, and it feels great to get to be a part of it. The skunk train also departs from Willits on a longer, two-hour round-trip journey into the Redwoods. There are five historic trains, with special event trains running throughout the year. Eileen Ang, NTD News, Fort Bragg, California.