The Stanton Line, Chapter 2 - Moab Station

Author note:  These first couple of chapters aren't too long and I'm pretty comfortable with my current edits, so I'll just fire off the next one.  I'm up ahead writing in Chapter Five tonight.  Part of getting my chemo treatment earlier today was a shot of steroids to help with the side effects, which itself has the effect of keeping me awake.  So I can write or take a sleeping pill.  Welcome to my world.


         Roy Gibson, Conductor of the Stanton Line of the Colorado Canyon and Las Vegas Railroad, stepped off the short yellow caboose which served as his home on the job. The sun had finally come over the ocher-shadowed hills and cliffs rising above Moab on the eastern side of the canyon. They’d be departing within the hour.
          His first duty of the day, as it had been for thirty-two years, was to inspect the train. Half a century ago, he had started out as the cook. When the Great Depression came, he was made to take on the positions of porter and brakeman as well. Then it was assistant conductor, which didn’t change anything but his title. The train’s original conductor retired before the war and Gibson was offered the job. He was married by then and hired his wife, Denise, to be the cook and porter. It was the best fifty years of his life, but they were all ready to retire.
          The train didn’t have a choice; it had a tough haul all its life. In the early days it was a company train and most of the passengers were miners. But the mines went bust and faster lines were built going around the canyon. During the Great Depression it became the red-eye to Rio Colorado—the great port of the Gadsden Territory on the Sea of Cortez. The tickets were cheap because it took a week to get there. But when you’re looking for a job, cheap is good—and you could always find a job in Rio.
          After the second world war the train became popular with tourists. Twenty years ago had been the heyday. The company had renovated the train and it became a real classy thing to do. Folks came for the journey and the wonder, not as a means to get someplace. They finally discovered what Gibson had known all his life…this was an awesome place made accessible to the masses by a tame line of steel.
          Eventually, the company had four coal-fired locomotives running between Moab and Las Vegas. As time wore on, the ecology-minded folks of the National Park Service became concerned with the railway and moved to make an acquisition, breaking an uneasy truce that had been stewing for years. The company created a public spectacle by accusing the government of stealing their profits. The case ended up in the Supreme Court. It was a unanimous decision. The government had financed the construction of the railway—they owned the tracks. The company lost and the reputation of the railroad took a beating.
          The Park Service treated the railroad more like a novelty than a serious business. They quickly retired two of the locomotives…leaving just the Brown and Stanton Lines. Ticket sales were sluggish because they didn’t promote it—in fear of creating demand. They dropped the Brown Line after the announcement to replace the two trains with a new-technology, natural gas locomotive and modern coaches; a plan that quickly gained public support and excitement.
          The Stanton Line had grown shorter over the years and it never sold out lately—not even this, the last time. Half the passengers were employees of the railroad or their relatives; celebrating the last run and attending the party at Bright Angel Lodge. The rest were a smattering of humble folks getting in on the adventure before the new trains made it three times more expensive. They were arriving to the platform at the usual dwindled pace.
          The only thing resembling fanfare was a small group of quasi-rainbow-child protestors standing near the locomotive. “WeFeRs” they called themselves—for the Western Free Rivers movement. Earlier, they had sung a few “going away” songs and half-heartedly waved their signs, ‘WFR FOREVER, We love FReedom!, WEST FREE FOREVER.’ They’d probably been drinking or toking, but they appeared harmless. At the moment they were just hanging out. The engineer was leaning out his window and Gibson could hear him chatting with them, his friendly brogue partly muffled by the hiss of the locomotive.
          Today Gibson wore the light-grey cotton vest and blue-striped pants, his favorite uniform for summer. He had a short round black hat with the same color grey and blue in a band around it, adorned by the line’s yellow emblem above the bill. He carried a spiraled-oak cane though he didn’t need it to walk—it was useful at times. He was a barrel-chested man standing six foot four with the chocolate sheen of his Bermudan ancestors. He could intimidate people if he needed to, but he didn’t like it. His friendly nature is what protected him...the cane was backup.
          He began, as always, by reversing around the back of the train and starting up the far side, checking the brake lines and couplers as he went. As he approached the tender, he could hear the fireman heaving shovelfuls of coal into the firebox. Harry Ferguson, the engineer, was on the far side of the cab still chatting with the protestors.
          “Might as well get this over with…” Gibson mumbled to himself as he rounded the front end of the locomotive.
          The young woman who was talking cut herself off when she saw Gibson’s imposing bulk approaching. They didn’t need to, but they all took a step back to make room for him to pass. “Mornin’, Gibson.” Harry called out, breaking the silence.
          Gibson stopped below the cab. “Good morning, Mr. Ferguson. Everything check out?”
          “Pressure’s a wee high with Dan going for a shovelin’ record here, but we’ll be fine.” Harry looked out to the clear blue sky, “It’s been raining for a week, and it clears this morning? That’s a good sign if you ask me.”
          “We’ll see, Harry. We’ll see.” Gibson was never comfortable until the train was rolling. He patted the side of the cab then turned and tipped his hat to the protestors. They stood silently staring as he turned again to continue his inspection.
          “Don’t worry about him, he’s okay…” Harry’s voice blended into the background again as Gibson walked. On this side of the train, he checked that stairs were clear of debris and that doors and gates were secured open to ease the passage of luggage. Passing by the dining car, second after the tender, he stopped long enough to see Denise amid a mountain of food and supplies that she was organizing into various cupboards and iceboxes.
          Kaya, the Gibson’s granddaughter and the only other onboard employee, would be in the sleeper coach packing linens. There was a small cabin for the cook in one corner of the dining car. Since Denise slept with Roy in the caboose, she let Kaya sleep in the cook’s cabin. The engineer and fireman usually had a small room provided for them at each of the overnight stops.
          Beyond the dining car was a regular riding coach followed by an open viewing car that had cloth awnings for shade and metal benches running back-to-back down the center. The rear of the train was brought up by a single sleeper car, another open viewing car, and Roy’s little caboose—painted a deep yellow because the rest of the cars were yellow.
          Satisfied with the inspection, Gibson returned to the middle of the train and pulled a silver whistle from below his vest. Blowing sharply twice, he then shouted “All aboard!! First call for the last run!”
          The protestors grabbed their signs and their packs, waved to the engineer and headed for the train. Gibson’s grip on his cane tightened in reflex. “Howdy, folks. May I help you?” he called out as they approached him.
          “I suppose you can,” the taller of the two men said as he held out his hand. They had tickets.
          Gibson hesitated before replying, sizing them up. “You can’t bring the signs aboard.”
          “Oh—okay.” said the young man, looking confused since the nearest trash bin was too small. His friends were scanning the platform area—their abhorrence to littering left them in a quandary.
          Gibson pointed, “There’s a trash bin behind the old depot building.” They set off on their mission, lingering behind the depot a few minutes longer than they needed to. When they returned, Gibson asked them pointedly, “Are we going to have a problem?”
          The other young man with long brown curly hair and a goatee answered him in a mock Aussie accent, “No worries, mate. We won! We’re here to celebrate. That’s it. We swear.” He held two fingers up in a peace sign and nodded to his friends who murmured affirmations of his comment and also gave peace signs.
          Gibson believed them. They weren’t going to be a problem, maybe just an inconvenience. “Welcome aboard, folks.” Each of the four of them, appearing to be two couples, came aboard with a stuffed rucksack on their back, a sleeping roll and blanket bundled tightly below it. None of them had reserved a bunk; self sufficient, camping sites were easy to find at all the stops.

Author note:  Shameless admission—the names of the engineer and fireman are an homage to the world of the Hogwart's Express:  "Harry" Ferguson and "Dan" (For Harry Potter and Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who plays him.)...and, of course, the engineer Scotty on the Enterprise was Scottish.  Yeah, yeah...pretty lame, eh?  But don't get too attached to the characters, they don't have any significant role in the story (at least that I've thought of yet).  Shameless admission #2—I can't say it in the text, but my mental image for Gibson is a cross between James Earl Jones and Al Roker.  There's a reason he is Gibson (to be revealed later), though Roy was randomly chosen.  His wife, were she "Denise Gibson" would have the name of a girl I had a crush on in high school—but Denise's last name isn't Gibson—that also comes later.  Kaya, I chose from a list of Hopi names...it means 'wise child.'  Denise, Kaya and the Wefers will feature in the story but I haven't written much of their parts yet.

The Stanton Line, Chapter 1 - Running the Falls

          The song of a canyon wren echoes across the gorge as they float over the calm pool of water gathered for a quarter-mile above the rapid—the great canyon above trapping them in a cascade of massive rock terraces. Gripping the rear sweep, she feels for the myriad of eddies and whorls that could send them adrift. It’s important to keep the boat straight; no mistakes this time. She knows what she has to do.
          This must be the one they were warned about. They scouted it—they should be lining it. They had flipped in a much smaller rapid near the start of their journey. ‘A lesson,’ he had called it. Ahead of them, a roaring line of froth stretches from bank to bank, disappearing over the tongue of a recent debris flow that had come down the side canyon on the left. She wonders what lesson they should have learned.
          “If you’re gonna run it, stay to the right,” they said, “between the wall and the big hole.” Their rim-bound outfitters had been full of advice…most of it wise, she reckoned, but it was second-or-more-hand knowledge. Only a handful of river rats had ever completed the journey. They saw how nervous she was. But did they know why? Sure. The river scares the hell out of her. Why shouldn’t it? She has no business being here.
          The boat slips neatly onto a lick of smooth water entering the rapid; on the left, a seething hole of back-churning froth—to the right, an imposing wall of black lava with a jumble of rocks at the base, their edges cut sharp by ages of spring floods. He is in front of her standing at the forward sweep, his feet in leather straps fastened to the deck. He leans to brace for the first wave.
          She lets go of the sweep bar and grabs the paddle which is usually lashed, now unlashed, on the rear deck. "We're drifting!" he yells without looking back. She swings the paddle around with all of her might. He is heaving on the forward sweep and shouting more orders. "Left…!"
          The paddle strikes him just below his right ear, stopping dead with the satisfying firmness that she had been imagining for days. She doesn't so much hear his skull crack as feel it ricochet back down the handle. He goes down instantly; faster than the wave which immediately crashes onto the boat as they plunge into the maelstrom.
          The impact knocks her off her feet and she falls into the back of the boat, dropping the paddle. Another wave crashes over them as she frantically grabs for something to hold onto. The sweep bar swings above and she latches onto it with her elbow. Jamming her feet into a corner she gets some leverage and pins herself in. It seems the boat is still facing down river but she can't be sure. The boat lifts upward and she hears the ugly sound of a boulder scrapping across the bottom. Holding the sweep firm she feels it bite into the current. The back end swings around and drops sickeningly as the river pulls them off the rocky pivot. Just when it seems she would be drown, an immense crest of water propels them skyward. The boat pirouettes in mid air and lands askew, the front end slamming down in a tremendous splash. As if for good measure a final wave washes over them. The boat is swamped, nearly submerged but upright. She pulls herself up to her knees and leans on the rear bulkhead coughing and catching her breath.
          She is afraid to look, but she must. He’s still there, floating, face down. One leg is grotesquely twisted as it goes under the water, his foot still in the makeshift stirrup. He looks dead. She startles as his arm seems to reach out. The boat drifting through a riffle animates his body but there is no will to its movement. She lets him bob like a soaked cork. It will take a while to bail out this much water.
          Later that day, their boat settles gently against a sandy bank after drifting into a large eddy just above a small rapid. She had collapsed into a dreamless slumber after bailing the boat. On waking, she climbs out of the boat, ties up to shore and surveys her new world—a world with no obligations and no insane quests in search of fame and fortune. She lays down on the beach and sleeps some more.

The Stanton Line - A Preface

This novel was largely inspired by a love of the Grand Canyon; the landscape and the lore.  A favorite bit of real history is the two Stanton expeditions (1889-1890) to survey the Colorado River for the construction of a railroad.  It was as much a harrowing adventure, if not more so, than Major Powell’s more famous expeditions 20 years earlier.  The railroad was deemed feasible but was never built in real life.

That is where I unravel the strings of history.  It’s the early 1970s but this is not the American west you are familiar with.  Events and history have changed.  Both state and international borders have shifted.  Political, technological, and urban development of the west flowed down a different course.  There is a new state, old territories, and an old war never fought.  The geography of the west is intact, though not all the action takes place somewhere you could find on a map.

A final note, regarding my, perhaps, blasphemous treatment of the Grand Canyon by building a railway through it.  What I offer when pondering this for myself is, in this world, Lake Powell never was, Glen Canyon still is, and the status of native peoples of the southwest has been raised by giving them a land with statehood.  I won’t say it’s a better world, just a different one.  I hope you have fun exploring it with me.

Would You Like to Read a Novel?

I've been thinking of taking my blog in a different direction.  Part of the reason I started it was to stimulate my creative-writing process and return to achieving one of the most ambitious goals on my bucket list...writing a novel.  Alas, I seem to have found a way to write about anything except a novel.  I haven't done any serious work on it in over a year.

So my idea is simple; to write my novel here.  Not all in one post, of course...but perhaps at the rate of a chapter every week or two.  About a third of it is already written (some 20,000 words), including the first four chapters, parts of the climax, and the development of a flashback story (told throughout the novel) for one of characters.

Hopefully I won't write myself into a corner on the way.  I feel pretty confident about the story even though there are a lot of smaller details I haven't worked out yet.  Much of the outine and specific setting I had to develop during the initial writing phases.  I'm not always so linear and was writing sequences from throughout the story.  When a good idea hits, you just want to write it down!  Worry about working it in later.  Eventually that catches up with you, and you need a roadmap that is going to join all these great ideas and mark the waypoints for your characters to follow, both physically and emotionally.  I've done a lot of that work already and now I think it's time for a more linear approach to get this thing done.  If it reads well, I'll create some audience anticipation to inspire me to the end.  And, hey, if I actually got it published someday, that would be cool too.

Oh, I'll still tell you about any adventures I take, and update you with that icky stuff from time to time.  But things are slowing down here in the desert summer heat and I really don't have any plans except for swimming and sweating out the next few months.

Saying Goodbye to My Little Friend

TMI ahead but it's good news...my chest cavity has dried up and Dr. Daniel has removed the catheter.  Yay, no more tapping myself and in about ten days I can go swimming again!

On the flipside, my fevers have mostly cleared up and it's back on chemo again.  We're getting a better handle on the side effects, so without colds and fevers on top of it, this round should go better.  My hair isn't falling out either, but it is growing...very...slowly.  Same thing happens with my fingernails and toenails; leaving behind subtle growth rings that document my treatment history.  How's that for a weird observation?

Now it's time to hang out and plan that night out (without Brendan) at Starr Pass, a surprise-gift from the parents of Brendan's kindergarten class.  Thank you, you have no idea how much we need this!

Life is Throwing Lemons

I wish I could excuse all my breaks in posting for being off on some adventure.  Alas, the last few weeks I've been dealing with blood-count crashes, a cold, and now a minor infection where I have the plural catheter installed.  Most of it has left me feeling pretty tired and weak with recurrent afternoon fevers.

I spent a day at UMC getting IV antibiotics for the infection; hanging out in my street clothes in the room.  It's a bit like staying in a hotel; even had a nice view of the mountains.  Getting to know the folks up on 4NE too, which makes it nicer still.  They take good care of me.

As for my infection...hmmm, it's a bit mysterious though apparenty not anything serious.  The incision site is red, sore and just a bit swollen; not like a painfully-enflammed abscess or something.  It seems to just be simmering as my body mounts a half-assed immune response to it.  Hopefully the antibiotics will kick in and kick its butt.  My fevers seem to be easing up slightly but nothing to get excited about yet.  It's not getting worse either.

The good news is that my plural effusion has decreased dramatically (the fluid I draw out of my chest through the plural catheter).  TMI warning:  It's gone from the color of red wine to raspberry lemonade and gone from an average of 450ml/week down to just 125ml.  If it stays under a 100ml for a few weeks they'll remove the catheter.  The reduction could mean that this chemotherapy is working, despite its propensity for killing off my blood cells.  I'm taking lots of iron supplements now and I have a great excuse for eating red meat...my hemoglobin, and my energy, is already coming back.

Mirror Mirror

No, this isn't an alternate universe in Star Trek.  Rather I've gone digging in the archives of my old website and given new life to a story I wrote 12 years ago, about moving a telescope mirror to the top of a mountain.  The editor of Tucson Monthly came up with the title as it went into print.  This version is modified just a bit, but I kept some of the changes they made.  Photos link to wallpaper-ish versions; a larger selection of hi-res images is in my gallery.

Mirror Mirror

FIRST LIGHT.  The sun breaks over the Santa Rita Mountains, 40 miles south of Tucson. Silhouetted on the narrow peak of Mount Hopkins stands the Multiple Mirror Telescope, waiting for a new mirror.  The problem is that new mirror weighs more than ten tons and must travel a twisting mountain road often half its width and flanked by rock and precipitous dropoffs.

As I arrive at the MMT Observatory base camp, the crew is preparing an unusual rig—a huge white octagonal box, 5 feet thick and 25 feet across.  It rides almost vertically on the back of a flatbed semi-truck.  Late this summer, the MMT’s new 6.5 meter (21 foot) mirror will be loaded into the box and transported the 12 miles and 4,000 feet up the mountain.  Never before has a piece of glass this large been moved up such primitive road.  Today’s run is the final test.

Warren Davison, Mechanical Engineer at U of A’s Steward Observatory, gets much of the credit for designing a transport box that would cushion the mirror effectively.  Implying that one can easily get carried away with fancy designs, Warren quips, “It took a lot of creativity to make a simple solution.”  He came up with an inner frame that grabs onto the mirror by dozens of cushioned, load-spreading supports glued to the mirror’s back—the same supports that will hold the mirror in the telescope.  The inner frame is cradled within a rectangular ring of steel—connected to it only via three large rubber pads, acting as shock absorbers.  Most of the “box” is its octagonal cake-pan cover.

The mirror was created in April 1992 at the Steward Observatory Mirror Lab, beneath Arizona Stadium.  A technique called “spin-casting,” developed by astronomers Roger Angel and Nick Woolf, uses the centrifugal force of a rotating furnace to create rough castings with the required curved surface—saving the time and cost of grinding away tons of glass.  To reduce the mirror’s weight, the glass is melted around blocks of soft-ceramic material, which are blasted out afterward with high-pressure water.  This creates a mostly hollow mirror with a stiff honeycomb structure, topped off by an inch-thick plate.  After casting, it took more than a year to polish the mirror to fine precision, with the final touches done by hand.  The MMT mirror was the first in a series of giant telescope mirrors being produced by the Mirror Lab.

Now it’s time to take this mirror home.

For the final test, a "dummy mirror" made of steel is hooked up to gauges that measure its motion during transit.  Bundled wires exit the box and thread to a laptop computer riding shotgun in the cab of the truck.  Driver Lynn Harris jokingly expressed the worst-case scenario, “We’ll get all the way up the mountain without falling off, and the computer will tell us we broke the glass!”  Eager to get the job done, nobody seemed unnerved by his prediction.

Lynn hasn’t fallen off the mountain yet.  He helped build the Mount Hopkins Road in 1967, working with Sierrita Mining and Ranching, and has been maintaining it ever since.  Speaking to him, and to others, I get the impression he built the road almost single-handedly.  He’s been hauling heavy loads up this road most of his life and probably knows it better than anyone.  This job doesn’t faze him at all.

As Lynn pulls the rig past the gates of base camp, J.T. Williams is perched on the cab’s running board, ready to run ahead and guide the truck around hairpin turns or kick stray rocks off the road.

J.T., Project Engineer for the MMT Observatory, is in charge of the telescope’s conversion, including today’s move.  Director Craig Foltz describes him as “the kind of guy you’d like have around if you were stranded on a deserted island”—a testimonial to his friendly nature, resourcefulness, and ingenuity.  Of his job, J.T. says, “I’ve worked for the Smithsonian essentially all of my life…I don’t think I’ve ever had a real job.  It’s great fun.”

Perhaps not having so much fun is MMT Engineer Bill Omann, who quips, “They’re punishing me for building [the trailer]”  His punishment?  Clouds of dust kicked up by the rig.  He is riding on the open flatbed next to the box with his eyes fixed on an inclinometer measuring the tilt of the trailer.  To compensate for the shifting weight of the box, Bill drives a 5-ton lead counterweight attached to rails under the trailer.  Surprisingly, his precarious perch doesn’t seem to bother him much; while his equipment is well secured, Bill coasts on a rolling office chair. It seemed a rather odd choice for the job, so I asked him why. “I want to be able to get off this thing quickly…at 10 degrees I stand up, at 12 I’m jumping off!”  In theory, the trailer is stable to 17 degrees but that’s with no wind, and this box might as well be a sail.  With a maximum tilt of 8 degrees during the test run, Bill didn’t even roll closer to the edge.

Staying ahead of the pack, I wait on exposed turns, the road below disappearing into a sweeping vistas of the Santa Cruz Valley and southern Arizona.  And always, Lynn and his parade of support vehicles come snaking up the mountainside.  They’re making excellent progress—you’d have to run to keep up on the straight-aways.  The longest delay—a flat tire—was far from the worst thing that could have happened.  And while most tire changes don’t take three people an hour of hard work, it was still a routine process.

Underway again, we near the rocky peak of Mount Hopkins and the steepest sections of roadway.  The final approach skirts a dizzying precipice at a grade of 26 percent—6 percent merits a highway warning sign!  But then, highways don’t have heaters under them to melt the ice.  Not unexpectedly, Lynn’s heavy-duty rig spins its tires about a mile short of the summit.  Standing by to help is a front-loading tractor, also from SMR.  With an 8-foot section of telephone pole lashed to its shovel, the tractor comes up from behind to give the rig a shove. “I sure felt it when he took it to 2,200 rpm!” says Lynn of the feeling as the tractor helped propel him to the top.  J.T. is right, it does look like fun—big boys and their Tonka toys.

After the move, I asked J.T. about what went right. “It didn’t fall over!  It didn’t fall off the mountain, the wind didn’t blow it around…none of those horror stories happened.  It was a great testimonial to our modeling and engineering.  The idea of carrying a large expensive piece up a mountain road like that, when you look at the whole problem, it overwhelms you.  But…you start with the basic laws, principles, and physics and you start breaking the problem down piece by piece…then it starts to feel more plausible.”  More than plausible, they made it look easy.  And the computer says they did not break the glass.

Reflections on Multiple Mirrors

Built in 1979 and jointly operated by the Smithsonian Institution and the U of A, the Multiple Mirror Telescope has always been a leader in telescope technology.  It was the first optical telescope to combine the light from multiple mirrors, in this case, six 1.8 meter mirrors with an equivalent diameter of 4.5 meters.  Doing that successfully was itself a major breakthrough.  Its altitude-azimuth drive, which both tilts the telescope and rotates the entire building, is the world’s most accurate pointing system.  It could line up on a basketball in Tucson if you simply entered the ball’s location into the computer.  Other innovations allowed astronomers to combine starlight in ways never done before, including being able to “tune in” specific colors of light, a key in the search for extra-solar planets.

The new MMT Observatory is scheduled to see “first light” by the end of 1998.  Research will resume early next year.  The 6.5 meter mirror will more than double the telescope’s light gathering surface area—and at $20 million, the cost is a fraction of building a new observatory.  In a sentimental gesture, the telescope’s name will not change with the shedding of its multiple mirrors.  “It’s an acronym in search of a name,” declared Craig.  But it does have a cool new logo.

The reincarnated MMT won’t be the largest telescope in the world.  That honor goes to the twin 10-meter Keck Telescopes in Hawaii.  Several 8 meter telescopes are also under construction, as well as two telescopes that will use multiple 8-meter mirrors, one in Chile, the other on Mount Graham.

What Mount Hopkins has is nearly the best “seeing” (quality of observation) in the continental United States, rivaled only by Mount Graham.  Our clear, dry weather and unique geology make Arizona prime for astronomy.  And the proximity of the U of A to observatories like the MMT and Kitt Peak allows students and researchers easy access to world-class instruments, encouraging innovative projects.

The lights of Green Valley, Sahuarita and Tucson.

Eric J. Anderson has been working for Steward Observatory since 1987, after a failing classmate tipped him off that “the eggheads over there need some kind of drafting done…you’d get along well with them.”