The Times-News from Twin Falls, Idaho • 33

Inside Classified E2-F8 and Classified The Times-News Friday, May 9, 1997 Section Re-enactment ranger's labor of love iGCUS 41 Ceremony marks big day in train history The Associated Press IN ONE DAY IAPRIL 28 18G9 A PROMONTORY SUMMIT, Utah When he became chief ranger in 1992, Rick Wilson fell in: love with both the story behind the Golden Spike National Historic, Site and its desolate vistas. 1 A year and a half ago, he! moved permanently inside the; remote site 90 miles northwest of Salt Lake City. A few distant ranches, and the coyotes, are the 37-year-old bachelor's only neighbors if you don't count the ghosts of the May 10, 1869, celebration of America's first transcontinental railroad that Golden Spike commemorates. "I love the quiet, solitude and peacefulness of it here," the Sioux City, Iowa, native said. Each of the past 45 years, the site re-enacts the driving of the final spikes joining the Union and Central Pacific railroads.

Overseeing the event is part of Wilson's duties, along with acting as Promontory's primary law enforcement officer. "It becomes all-consuming the last few weeks leading up to the ceremony," said Wilson, who relishes a retelling of the site's reason for being. Some 20,000 Chinese and Irish immigrants created the engineering miracle of the 19th century. They did so with little more than sweat and muscle, accompanied by the so-called "Grand Anvil Chorus" three blows to the spike, 10 spikes to the rail, 4,000 spikes and 12,000 blows to the mile. Like many rail buffs, Wilson mourns Amtrak's decision to end its Pioneer passenger service to nearby Ogden on the same day he expects 5,000 visitors to celebrate the 128th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad.

The end of the line for an era Run ends exactly 128 years after transcontinental line was established Above, National Park Chief Ranger Rick Wilson stands along what was the track bed, left, of the nation's first transcontinental railway last month. Today the bed Is used as a roadway as part of a scenic tour of the area. Below, a notice is taped to the window at Union Station in Ogden, Utah, last month to inform the public that the Pioneer run will cease Saturday. On the same day In 1869, Central Pacific officials drove the spike to complete the transcontinental railway. The Associated Press noting the continuing importance of rail travel in the United Kingdom.

"I can't believe that a modern society would want to stop trains nowadays." Amtrak pleaded economic hardship in excising the Pioneer, which lost $20 million last year amid declining federal subsidies. The historically significant termination date was mere happenstance, said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari. "It's not something we really wished to do. Great Basin theocracy created by Mormon pioneer leader Brigham Youngv "It really opened up-' Utah ToY the first time to national, even international trade," said Cooley, at 79 considered the preeminent authority on what he calls "the wedding of the rails." Before 1869, Salt Lake shopkeepers relied on wagon trains making a six-month round trip to Omaha, the nearest railroad hub at the time, to stock their shelves. "Half a year to stock your establish 'To have it begn and end at the same time just doesn't seem ment, Cooley said, at an expense that meant a 100 percent markup for consumers.

"After the railroad came, prices dropped about half. It really put Utah in communication with the world." Ogden Mayor Glenn Mecham tried for nine months to find ways to keep the Union Station ticket clerk Anita Flitton Information. THE PIONEER TRAINS 2526 DISCONTINUED EFFECTIVE MAY 11, 1997 PROMONTORY SUMMIT, Utah Each year on Saturday, thousands gather at the Golden Spike National Historic Site to witness a re-enactment of the completion of America's first transcontinental railroad in 1869.. But this year, the colorful drama at this windswept desert spot commemorates more than the engineering marvel that bridged the frontier with 1,700 miles of iron: The day also brings the much-mourned end of passenger service to nearby Ogden, a rail junction vital to settlement of the Old West. "How very ironic," Mel Holyoak, a conductor for Amtrak's Pioneer passenger train, said of the dual milestones.

"It's absolutely asinine that things have gone to this point. I feel about as sad as anyone could." Still another irony attends the Pioneer's demise. It was the coming of passenger rail service to the West that ended the covered-wagon convoys being celebrated this year on the 150th anniversary of the Mormons' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. Amtrak is ending its Pioneer run 128 years to the day after Union Pacific and Central Pacific officials somewhat the worse for the liquor-ridden festivities tapped in two silver and two gold spikes (quickly replaced by iron ones) to complete the coast-to-coast span. The Pioneer first rolled into Ogden on its Denver-to-Seattle run in 1971, the same year Amtrak was created by Congress, but years after the city had reached its peak as a busy rail hub during World War II.

On the day the Pioneer dies, Amtrak will restore the California Zephyr's daily service from Chicago to San Francisco, via Denver and Salt Lake City, 35 miles south of Ogden. Pioneer's Seattle-to-Portland link will be turned over to the Coast Starlight running between Seattle and Los Angeles. In Ogden, Ron Addison, on vacation from Leeds, England, was surprised to learn his first trip on the Pioneer would be his last, that the city's venerable Union Station would no longer echo with calls of "All aboard!" "I'm amazed they're stopping it," he said, Doaptto mttfatl ant ubtUnti concoffl by morv tlataa no lorn cmmitmnta ha boon mM to hM rogiacortiant arvca too th Dwr SoMilo routv el honoot. Thvtfot. tHwtv wth tha Amv ttrwrtto cntnq on VW Mv 11.

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I deeply regret it," said Mecham, 61, who spent his youthful summers unloading lumber from freight trains. Mecham also is incensed Pioneer's end falls on May 10, until now an upbeat local holiday: "It seems perverse on the face of it, doesn't it?" But the mayor isn't admitting defeat. On his mental drawing board is a commuter rail system that, within a decade, would stretch 90 north-south miles between Ogden, Salt Lake City and Provo. For Holyoak and other Pioneer employees, though, the future is bleak. "I have seniority enough to hold another run, but Pm not sure where," said Holyoak, 58, who since 1987 has taken a bus, from Salt Lake to work the Pioneer.

Union Station ticket Anita Flitton and her husband, Mike, an Amtrak agent, face their second railroad-related relocation. Five years ago, closure of the Pocatello, Idaho, station forced the couple's move to Ogden. "To have it begin and end at the same time just doesn't seem reaL" she said, shaking her head from behind a ticket window. "I'm still hoping, somehow, that it doesn't come off." May 10 just happens to be when the six months funding Congress gave us to run the train ends," he said. Holyoak, a 35-year railroad employee, remains bitterly perplexed by Amtrak's decision, first announced last September.

The triweekly train has steadily run with more than 300 passengers, or two-thirds or more capacity- "But what the heck, one jumbo jet will carry that many, and they (the government) subsidize the heck out of the airlines. They say it doesn't make expenses. But what country in the world doesn't subsidize its railroad?" While rail service is continually upgraded in Europe and Japan, Congress has told Amtrak it must pay for itself by 2002. Magliari said Pioneer would still lose money with all seats filled. "We need both strong customer demand from passengers and mail and freight customers," he said.

"That just isn't there." Everett Cooley, a retired University of Utah history professor whose testimony helped convince Congress to create the Golden Spike site in 1965, said it is impossible to overstate the importance of the continent-spanning railroad. The feat spelled doom for the free-roaming buffalo, and the culture of the Plains which depended on them. It also made wagon trains obsolete and sounded the death knell for the Ho vt, TM OoMM. lok HMfcort, PwWo1; i GoMt. BMf Crtr.

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ftt VttWt mtonntlion, toMttt vt AmlH fcctot ot literal Ofwfl, to AntttaH toU-ThM dOCH u4A Los Angeles train buffs bid a nostalgic farewell to Desert Wind run Los Angeles Times Tuesday, some Desert Wind passengers, though sympathetic to Amtrak's plight, complained that the rail service contributed to the line's decline by replacing daily trains with thrice-weekly service in 1995. Amtrak said it hopes to bring back a more profitable Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas train as early as next year. It is looking into the feasibility of running a faster, glitzier train between Los Angeles and Las Vegas one that would cut the trip to 5 12 hours and "capture the excitement" of Las Vegas with neon lights, videos on how to play blackjack and maybe even showgirls aboard trains. $225 million this year. Also being phased out is the Seattle-to-Denver Pioneer.

Amtrak is seeking a half-cent from the 4.3-cent federal gasoline tax currently earmarked for reduction of the federal budget deficit. "Fm very optimistic about our chances if we can get the half -cent," said Amtrak President Gil Mallery. "Without the half-cent, it's not a pretty picture." Amtrak plans to shift the Desert Wind's rolling stock north to restore daily service on the California Zephyr, which runs from San Francisco to Chicago. "We have to put the resources where we can get the best return," said Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari. It is a day distant in more than time from the one 91 years ago, when the first passenger train traveled between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.

The press and popular opinion greeted the new service as a sign of progress, convenience and commercial promise. The 11-car train had plenty of empty seats when it left Los Angeles Tuesday, carrying 100 passengers. But Thursday's final train is expected to be near full by the time it arrives in Las Vegas. Amtrak officials said they had no choice but to cancel the Desert Wind, whose ridership has declined along with the railroad's federal subsidies, which have gone from $720 million in 1981 to Like a geriatric patient, the train is expiring from a host of seemingly inexorable ills the decline in federal rail subsidies, Amtrak's consequent budget problems, the fierce fare wars among deregulated airlines, the repeal of the 55-mph highway speed limit and the perennially rushed Angelenos' impatience with a nearly seven-hour train trip to the dubious promise of Nevada's slots. The loss of the Desert Wind leaves Los Angeles lacking another thing besides a pro football team that Oakland has: a train to Salt Lake City.

And it leaves Las Vegas, which began life as a railroad town, without any Am-trak service. LOS ANGELES They are mostly train buffs and nostalgic retirees with time on their hands. But in their hundreds, they have come to Los Angeles' Union Station over the past week to take part in the latest bittersweet chapter of the long goodbye that America continues to bid its passenger trains. When the last Desert Wind pulled out of Los Angeles Thursday morning, the sight of its last car receding into the distance will put a melancholy period on nearly 100 years of railway passenger service between Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. jPOOR COPY).