Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 33

TUCSON. SUNDAY. DECEMBER 24. 1972 THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR SECTION PAGE THREE' Freight Train, Passe "One thin? did hanoen thoueh." he contin We asked Wiley what a conductor does when he's not conducting. "Well," he smiled, "I count the creosote bushes along the way.

So far, I'm up to 19 million, 41 thousand 'an 640." He allowed he may have counted some twice once up, once back. The caboose does have one little feature that deserves recognition. It has a habit of swaying sideways while the train goes forward. It's the only caboose in the country where you can windup getting seasick. Which is the reason for the extra toilet, evidently.

As the train clackety-clacked along, Wiley, always the personable host, gave a running history of points along the way. "See that old cement house over there?" pointing to a hill halfway between Childs and Rocky Point. (Pf ZZ ued. "We had an air hose on the brakes pop one day when they pop they go with a bang. "Anyway, when that thing went off every one of those guards jumped outta their skin and came rushin's up with their guns and rifles and everything." Ray chuckled at the recollection.

"Funniest damm thing you ever saw!" Brakeman Elvin Jacobs has been with PD for 17 years and was an engineer on the ore trains in the open pit mine but took a drop" in seniority just to transfer to the railroad. The youngest of the three-man crew, he Is also the quietest. "When 'ol Wiley gets started, it's hard to get a word in edgewise, so I just let him do the talkin'," Elvin conceded. "He will anyway!" Wiley didn't have an answer for that one. The train doesn't carry the payroll anymore, just freight and passengers.

Some of them are local, but many come from out of state just for the experience of riding in the caboose. "One day we had a bunch of Boy Scouts from California. There must have been 30; of 'em," Wiley smiled. "Talk about togetherness, we had 'em packed in here all over the plaice, but they had fun. At 8:30 a.m.

right on time the train arrived in Gila Bend where the crew switched the engine around, dropped off the four cars they brought this day, and picked up five more for the return trip. ki By WADE CAVANAUGH Star Staff Writer AJO Five days a week and on every other Saturday at 7 a.m. sharp, the little train with the clackety caboose toots away from the depot here and chugs for Gila Bend. The local folks call it the Tough Coming and Going Back Railroad. Those who've ridden the caboose call it the Terribly Creaky and Groaning Bottom RR.

It's official name is the Tucson, Cornelia and Gila Bend Railroad, and for 56 years the Tee Cee and Gee Bee RR has had a distinctive claim to fame all its own: The only freight train in Arizona, and possibly the West, which welcomes fare-paying passengers. in the caboose. Those locomotive giants like Southern Pacific and Sante Fe may turn down their corporate noses at the thought of having to tolerate mere humans, but not the TeeCeeGee. They love to have people ride their little train; so much that they haven't even changed the fare in almost 25 years. A one-way ticket for the 43.8-mile trip is an inflation busting 97 cents, tax included.

Round trip is $1.94. The last fare hike was in March, 1948. Nobody's gotten around to making another one. Tom C. Wiley has been conductor for the past 16 years and a more jovial soul you'll never meet.

According to regulations, Tom is supposed to collect a nickel penalty if you buy your tickft from him on the train instead of at the depot. No one has ever explained exactly why. But it gets a little lonesome in that caboose when there are no passengers, so when some come along, Tom is so glad to have company to talk to he sometimes forgets that business about the little ol' nickel. "When the railroad was started by Phelps Dodge back in 19 and 16," Wiley explained, "they printed up a batch of passenger tickets. We just ran out a few weeks ago." Either business must have fallen off, or that was the biggest batch since the Butterfield Stage people started headin' through the pass.

PD still owns the railroad which has been toodling along from Ajo to Gila Bend since 1916, when there wasn't much in Ajo but copper. The train itself whistles up the track at a blinding 28 miles an hour, past those Arizona metropolises of Childs, Rocky Point, Midway, Black Gap and Stout Spur. if ff "Dunn' the war, 'usta be an 'ol boy who worked at the mine and thought the Japs were going to bomb the place, so he built that place by himself out there in the middle of nowhere and then died before he got a chance to live in it." Near Black Gap, the wreckage of an old Air Force fighter plane lies a few hundred feet from the tracks. "Lessee," recalled Wiley, "that was in 19 and 65, somewhere back in there. They had this helicoptor haulin' that wreck out to the gunnery range for a target when the cable broke and the thing just fell where it is.

"Those ol boys never came back for it. Can't blame 'em; it's just a piece of junk anyway." Engineer Ray Phillips has been with the railroad for 27 years and told of the great train robbery that almost was. "It was back in 1954, 1 think, they got a tip from Washington, the FBI did, that these guys were going to hold up the train." Before Ajo had a bank, the mine payroll r.nd money for the various businesses in town were hauled in by the TC GB. "We had some damm big payrolls," Ray Earliest Equipment TMs 1916 custom-made, convertible, wliat-eveiv 'car on the Tucson, Cornelia and Gila Bend Railroad. Two cf these is, powered by an old White autocar engine, was the first passenger were made by craftsmen in the shops at Ajo.

(Phelps Dodge Photo) Total trip time is 90 minutes one way, an extra five minutes on the return run because of a little grade. There are some children in Childs. For the rest, well, the point is rocky, Midway is not an island, the gap is black and the spur stout. So much for geography! Wiley's been with PD for 26 years and can and usually does tell you the history of The origin of the name of the railroad is buried in antiquity somewhere. The Tucson part came about when first plans called for running the line from Gila Bend to Tucson.

This was scratched when the Southern Pacific people managed to get there first. Cornelia reportedly was taken from the old New Cornelia Mine, named after a lady named Cornelia, evidently. Gene Templeton, station agent for the line at Ajo, said that passengers comprise a small part of the business but that the railroad will continue to carry them as long as they want to ride. At 9:30 a.m, after a fast coffee break at the Space Age restaurant across the tracks, Phillips gave a couple of toots on the air horn, and' the train started back to Ajo. In the caboose, a small butane heater danced around the compartment to the rock and sway of the train.

Wiley nudged it back in place "I gotta bolt that thing back down. It came loose awhile back, just never got around to Te-memberin' to get some bolts." The TC GB Railroad is like an old shoe; comfortable. You can drive from Ajo to Gila Bend in! 45 minutes. But a trip in the caboose Is something you don't find much anymore. And it beats what Amtrack can offer.

noted. "I remember one time, just before Christmas, we carried over half-a-million dollars in cold cash. Don't you think we didn't have guards all over this train." Ray continued with the tale of the robbery that never was. "Anyway, this time we had armed guards ridin' this thing for two months on account'a that tip. The way we got it, these guys there were four of 'em had a good plan all worked out.

"One guy was going to ride the train, two others were going to meet him down the line with a car. After they got the money, they all were going to take off out in the desert where a plane was going to pick 'em up. "Then they were all going to parachute out of the plane with the money a long way from here, set the plane on a course to old Mexico and let It crash in the mountains." It was never clear why the caper didn't come off. Ray seemed a little sad to have missed the big day. every foot of track and desert along the way, how things are in the copper industry, railroading in general, the state of the nation, the future of the land, political facts of life and other assorted information including the current medical status of his stomach.

Doin' fine now. Had a little trouble 'while back and the doc told me to cut down on the coffee, only drink one cup a day now. Use to smoke five packs of cigarettes a day, gave 'em up, feel real good." Back when the railroad started, PD mechanics rigged up a passenger motor car from an old White auto, put in leather seats for 20 passengers, attached some railroad wheels and old-timers concede it was the classiest thing to come down the tracks in many a day. It looked like a funeral coach that got lost on the way to the graveyard and whipped along with the speed of an arthritic turtle, but it got 'em there and back. Canvas curtains on the side were rolled down whenever a dust storm hit, which was frequent.

The first cor was augmented by another homemade rig several years later; these in turn were replaced by a gas car in the early '20's. One of the old cars now rests on display in Griffith Park in Los Angeles. An oil-fueled steam engine replaced the motor cars and was replaced itself with the present diesel engine. For you railroads buffs, it's a 600-twin, but big enough to pull the loads of copper anodes from the mine at Ajo to Gila Bend where they are transferred to an SP line for shipment to the PD smelter in El Paso. The caboose was built by the company in the Ajo shops and has a compartment on each end with padded benches in one as well as a desk where Wiley does his paper work, two toilets and an elevated observation attic which is the most comfortable place in the car.

They Had A Dream Slaves Grandson Advanced Medicine By REASONS and PATRICK The mass production of cortisone, used in the treatment of arthritis, was made possible by the discovery of an industrial chemist whose grandfather was a slave. Born in the Deep South, Percy L. Julian was advised in his early years not to attempt a career in chemical research. But he dpfied the odds and later went on to unlock chemical secrets leading to the low-cost synthesis of cortisone. That discovery brought relief from pain to millions of persons afflicted with the crippling disease.

But it was only one of many important discoveries credited to Julian during a career in which he won an international reputation. Dr. Julian synthesized another drug called physostigmine which is used to treat glaucoma, a serious eye disease often resulting in blindness. He developed the chemical base for the foam fire extinguisher which saved the lives of thousands of servicemen during World War IL He discovered an inexpensive substitute for casein, an important ingredient in the manufacture of paint Julian made up his mind early in life that he wanted to become a chemist. But his prospects were not exactly promising.

One of six children, Julian was born in Montgomery. in 1S99. in addition he was black, and chemistry was a white man's profession. A friendly dean tried to discourage Julian from the career he had chosen, believing he would find little opportunity in the world of research. But Julian was stubborn.

He made up his academic deficiencies and graduated in 1920 with honors, valedictorian of his class. Julian earned his master's dPTree at Harvard and a VVJ). at the University of Vienna wl. he studied under famed chemist Dr. Ernst Spath.

In between his graduate studies 'he taught chemistry at several colleges. In 1932, Julian returned as a research fellow to DePauw where he succeeded in synthesizing physostigmine, the drug used in treating glaucoma. In 1936. he entered private industry as director of soybean research for a large paint company. He and his associates 42 chemical discoveries.

Most important was his discovery of how to extract white crystals called sterols from soybean oil. From the Dr. Julian produced a chemical compound from which synthetic cortisone could be made. Thus, the rare and expensive drug was brought within the financial reach of everyone. (la Volume III of "They Had a Dream" are 52 portraits and aaerdotes blacks he were significant reentry's devrlopmeat.

Ta get a cepy af this infermathe book, send $1 ta rash, check or moorr order to They Had a Dream, Arizona Daily star, P.O. Box 1111, Las Aageks, Calif. 9053.) CoCYOrt La Anaec Tune A His His father, a railway mail clerk, was the son of slaves. was a schoolteacher. Passenger And Crew Conductor T.

Wiley gives the engineer the olay to head out in the rail yards at Ajo as a passenger, Mrs. Veleta Carpenito, prepares for some early morning shopping in Gila Bend, 43 miles down the line. (Star Photo by Wad Cavanaugh) Julian received elementary and a skimpy higt school education Montgomery, and in 1916 enrolled at DePauw Univtrsity in Greencastle, Ind. He was poorly prepared for college work; Dr. Percy Julian.