Middle Period Documents Relating to the Ballard Southern Railroad

When reports appeared that extensive documents relating to the middle period of the Ballard Southern Railroad, along with some miscellaneous railroad memorabilia, had been found in a time machine shipping box in an old attic on the Internet, historians were agog and couldn’t wait to have access to them. However, as with all such things, much study and authentication was required before they could be released. While much still remains to be learned, it appears that someone using the time machine had brought the papers back, but then decided they weren’t worth keeping and left them in the box, along with the packing.

Researchers at the Ballard Scholars University (BSU) have been able to establish that the papers are, in fact, of the appropriate age, but, do to the complexities that time travel has introduced to historical study, cannot actually provide provenance or vouch for their authenticity. However, they do constitute the only known record of what historians call the “Middle Period” of this unique local railroad, and due to the intense interest in the Ballard Southern on the part of Ballardites, we are publishing the papers here. We at the University believe them to be genuine, but, as noted, cannot say so with absolute certainty.

It should also be made clear that the authorship of these documents cannot be positively established. They are attributed to someone called “Doc Wightman”, but may, in fact, represent the combining of materials from several sources.

Note: For information on the origin of the Ballard Southern Railroad, see:
"A Study of Typical Puget Sound Shortline Railroads", Doctoral Dissertation in Ferro-Equinology Submitted to Rainier State University by Richard P. Wightman, January 1983

Middle Period Documents Relating to the Ballard Southern Railroad

Right of Way

If you have suffered through the previous railroad page or pages, you know that I have been essentially railroadless since moving to a smaller home not quite three years ago and having to give up my large O scale layout. I tried, really, to get enthusiastic about HO, but it just wasn't happening. I built a system of shelves for an HO layout in my office/computer room, but it just became a surface to store junk on.

I finally got very frustrated, especially when I saw that Atlas was now offering 2 rail O scale track, and actually tried to see if I could design an acceptable very small O scale layout on my shelves... I couldn't. The cars were just too big.

Enter On30, which is small narrow gauge trains in O scale, running on HO track. The track guage is 2 foot 6 inches, as opposed to normal railroad guage of 4 foot 8 inches, or the more common narrow gauge size of 3 feet. Shorter, smaller cars, but still in the large 1/4" scale means better modeling, and seemed a compromise I might be able to live with. I knew Brent had some equipment in this size and asked him to bring it over. It looked workable and with a bit more research, I am now starting a new version of the Ballard Southern, in On30. This makes the BS a very much re-sized railroad. Concieved in N scale, it has seen layouts in N, HO, O, G and now On30.

I will need to do some serious "re-imagineering" to make this latest adjustment. My thinking of the BS for the past number of years has been in diesel, circa 1950 - 1960. Most of the best On30 equipment is based on the period of the turn of the century. Such equipment would still have been operating in the 1930's, right up to WW II. With a rough date of 1940, I can squeeze a few early diesels in, and still have a great working roster of steam logging engines, so that's what this one will be.

This set of pages will undoubtedly grow larger than most folks are comfortable with, but I plan to record the creation of the new Ballard Southern from its beginning.

Historical Note #1:

Engines on the BS have, historically been a controversial issue. Originally a logging hub, with some waterfront industry, the BS had only geared locomotives. This was based on a strong opinion expressed by the founder, Norwegian immigrant Thorvald Thorvaldson, that no engine should go faster than 10 mph. "Ve don't vant to scare der horses!" Even when the BS obtained non-geared locomotives, and later diesels, the 10 mph limit was still enforced.

Even into the 1930's there were still horses in Ballard, pulling various carts... ice, milk and bakery delivery, scrap pick-up, etc. There was even a contractor who used a horse cart to go around the streets and collect manure. In fact, at one point, there was something of a scandal when it was discovered that the contractor was in fact collecting manure from outlying farms and bringing it into Ballard. Since he was paid by the weight of manure he turned in, this was regarded as unethical. When it was revealed that the contractor was Swedish, rather than Norwegian, Thorvald Thorvaldson commented, "Vell, he's a Svede. Vat can you expect?" Subsequently, it was pointed out that the city was actually getting a good deal, as they used the manure for fertilizer in city parks. Thorvaldson, who was also mayor at the time, still cancelled the contract. "No Norvegian is gonna take no s- - - off of no Svede!" he shouted, in the City Council meeting.

Historical Note #2:

Some folks have questioned the 30” gauge of the Ballard Southern. Certainly the majority of railroads in the area at the time were either standard gauge or 3' narrow gauge. Money was very tight when Thorvald Thorvaldson was trying to start up the BS. It was obvious that the road would have to be narrow gauge. He sought investment money wherever he could, and one of the principal investors (not a controlling interest, fortunately) was the noted Robber Baron Brent Lambert, owner of the Everett & Monte Cristo.

(Researcher’s Note: See Thesis "A Study of Typical Puget Sound Shortline Railroads", referred to above.)

Thorvaldson wanted to build in 3' gauge, while Lambert, widely known as a skinflint and miser, wanted to build in 2' gauge. They argued this point endlessly, until one day, their Chief Engineer, a canny New Englander named Ezekiel Simmons, came in and invited them to come out to the waterfront and see the first mile of track. Thorvaldson exploded! "And how can you show us a mile of track ven ve haven't even decided on the gauge?" he roared! "Ayuh," said Simmons, "I could see one of ya was crazy, and the other Norwegian. I knew neither of you'd ever give in, so I split the difference!"

Historical Note #3:

For most of its history, Ballard was known as "Snoose Junction"... not officially, but by common usage. This name derived from the habit of the loggers, sawmill workers and fisherman of using chewing tobacco and snuff, rather than smoking. The reason for this was simple... fire was an extreme worry in the woods and mills, and fishermen's hands were always wet, making it difficult to handle cigarette papers. When the Ballard Southern instituted passenger service, they came up with the slogan "The Route of the BS'ers!" While it was catchy, and appeared on their cars and in their literature, it never caught on with the locals, who continued to call the passenger service "The Snoose Junction Flyer" up till the day it made its last run. Spittoons were a feature of the BS passenger cars, but on nice days, everyone wanted the windows open, and good advice along the line from Ballard to Tacoma was, "Never stand too near the rails when The Flyer's comin' through!"

Historical Note #4 -The Ballard Southern's Dainty Ladies

Inquiries are sometimes made about the scale of various locomotives and rolling stock on the Ballard Southern, especially in regard to some of the logging engines, which seem quite small. The BS needed a lot of engines when it started up, and Thorvald Thorvaldson, who could never resist a bargain, came across a receivership auction for a 2' guage logging railroad in New England. He knew that it was questionable whether these engines could be regauged to 30” cost effectively, but he got them for almost nothing,

Thorvald had once done a great favor for Commodore Vanderbuilt, and he asked the Commodore if he would return it by loading the small 2' gauge locos onto flat cars and shipping them west to the nearest railhead. The Commodore, in an expansive mood, did better than that. He had them loaded on one of his steam ships and carried 'round Cape Horn, delivering them directly to the dock in Ballard! So, there was Thorvaldson with five 2' gauge engines, and a 30” gauge railroad. Ezekial Simmons, Railroad Engineer, and Colonel Lambert, the primary investor other than Thorvaldson, were outraged and called Thorvaldson a crazy Norwegian fool for buying the engines and using up a favor owed by a powerful man in the railroad world.

However, Thorvaldson had great faith in a man named Harvey Stivers, the head mechanic/machinist for the BS. Thorvaldson had seen any number of instances in which the educated engineering types were stumped, only to have Stivers look the problem over and say, "Wellll, if you was to hook that up to there, and steal a part from that machine over there, and maybe grind away a bit here..." and before long, Harvey would have a machine doing what couldn't be done.

Harvey looked at the little 2' engines and fell in love. "Welll, what dainty little ladies you be," he said, and he had the first one hauled into the shops. It was a 2-6-6-2 Mallet, and while small, was quite a powerful locomotive. It took nearly six months, but Harvey managed to get it re-gauged and it became a stalwart workhorse of the BS, mostly making the lumber runs to and from Crown Hill.

Over the next couple of years, Harvey managed to salvage all but one of the bargain locos. That one had simply given up too many parts to be made operational again. Engines not immediately needed by the BS were leased to small local logging companies, which, in return, gladly shipped their logs and wood on the BS. Unwilling to see the one engine that couldn't be saved scrapped (and thereby admit that it wasn't a bargain), Thorvaldson had it cleaned up and placed in a local park. "It don't gotta run for the children to enjoy it," he said.

For many years, right up to WW II, fans of the Ballard Southern enjoyed and treasured what became known as "Harvey's Ladies"... the dainty little 2' guage engines that Thorvaldson bought and Harvey Stivers saved.

(Researcher’s Note: One of these engines, a 3 truck Shay, is still in use on the BS today.)

Historical Note #5

Many people are startled by the huge stack on BS #1. Back in '86, an engineer came to a tree that had started to fall across the track but hung up in another tree. The engineer thought he could make it under the obstruction, but he was wrong, and knocked the stack off of the locomotive. Thorvald Thorvaldsen had a fit, but ordered a new stack from Lima, without specifying the gauge and size of his little locomotive. Lima sent a standard size stack. Thorvald would never admit he had erred in making the order and told the shop to install the stack anyway. They did, and it worked, but somehow there was a slight air leak in the bottom seal that they could never quite fix. This gave the loco a funny, thin whistling sound as it chuffed along. People got used to it and just said, "Oh, that''s nothing... just Old Thorvald blowing his stack!"

Historical Note #6

Some of the more literal folks have been trying to take me seriously (can you believe?).

It has been pointed out that some of the names and positions in my current historical notes on the Ballard Southern do not necessarily agree with the same as described in my thesis. Hey, you didn't really expect me to go back and read something I wrote in the 1980's did you!? Chalk the differences up to "further research", and always bear in mind these important quotes about history, which I learned, or which occurred to me, while earning a degree in same:

"History is best defined as a current understanding of something that happened in the past, as interpreted by the historian in accordance with personal and/or current sociological and/or political needs."
Doc Wightman

"It is so much less demanding to invent information as you need it than to store it and look it up."
Captain Dick

"Differences in statement of facts between any two primary sources constitutes a reasonable topic for a Masters thesis. Differences between three sources is worthy of a Doctoral effort. Therefore, when writing history and/or citing sources, always include some differences of opinion and/or fact, for the benefit of students yet to come..."
Doc Wightman

I was going to become a professor of history, but found the strictures of academe much too binding, and so became a storyteller instead. I found it a more honest approach...

The following is a statement from my show: "I'm often asked if my stories are true... they are... while I'm telling them... give or take a lie or two..."
"Doc" Wightman

Historical Note #7

People are constantly confused by the apparent differing scale of things on the Ballard Southern. This is, in reality, an optical illusion. Everything is normal size, just built for different gauges. Historical Note #2 addressed the issue of the actual gauge of the BS, and how it was arrived at. Historical Note #4 dealt with the unusually small scale of some of the BS's locomotives.
Comments are frequently received regarding the very small box cars and other rolling stock, almost diminutive in some cases, that are seen on the BS from time to time. These are actually 18" gauge cars being transported as part of an interchange program with the Everett & Monte Cristo. Full size boxcars in this gauge are generally about 20' x 5' x 5', and some cars may be smaller yet!

As noted earlier (see Thesis: "A Study of Two Typical Puget Sound Railroads"), the E&MC ended up in the hands of the founder's idiot descendent, Brent Lambert II, who became convinced that he was in fact his father and was in charge of a major railroad power. His wealthy wife, Pat Lambert, indulged her husbands delusion to the extent that she could. The line is presently owned by Brent Lambert III, who, oddly enough is also married to a wealthy woman named Pat. Just what Lambert believes in relation to the railroad is open to question.

Some time back, Lambert II wanted to expand his railroad. His wife was willing to finance this effort, but only up to a point. The cost/permissibility point on that project was reached at a modest extension of 18" gauge line. This ran up into the mountains to serve a few small communities to the north and east of Everett. This extension was called the "New Everett & Monte Cristo", or, as it was popularly referred to, the "E&MC2". As Lambert commented, when comparing his very, very narrow gauge line to full size railroads, "It's a matter of relativity".

Oddly enough, the communities served by the new line were enormously grateful. Even though 18" is actually barely larger than most zoo and amusement park railroads, and the cars were very small, their businesses were also mostly small, and they didn't really need full size boxcar loads. Hence, the E&MC2 developed a thriving trade in loads for its diminutive boxcars, shipping goods and raw materials to the thriving businesses in Ballard via a car ferry to the Ballard Southern. Faced with this success, Lambert adopted the motto "A Relatively Good Railroad", for the E&MC2. This has been continued by Lambert III.

In order to make this interchange program work, the BS financed a transfer point at the E&MC end, where E&MC cars were lifted off of their trucks and placed on specially designed 30" gauge trucks with very small wheels (12") before they were run onto the car ferry. In Ballard, the empties would be refilled with the needs of the up-river businesses, loaded onto the car ferry and returned to the E&MC.

Lambert II, when in the throes of his delusion, liked to see boxcars from other railroads all over the country running on his line. To please him, his wife frequently paid for the boxcars to be repainted in the colors and logos of other railroads. The E&MC actually only owned about 20 cars, but with this frequent repainting, as many as a hundred different railroad liveries might appear on the E&MC2 and the BSrails. Folks along the line made a hobby of "car collecting", trying to get photos of as many different railroad liveries as possible. As a matter of tradition, Brent Lambert III continues this practice today.

Here is a very mixed train on the early BS is seen swinging through the sidings on it's way into Ballard. Reading from left to right, the cars are:
a standard 26' 30" gauge boxcar
a large, newer 23' 18" gauge exchange car from the E&MC, painted for the Louisville and Nashville
another standard 26' 30" gauge boxcar,
an older 18" gauge 20' exchange boxcar, painted for the Gorre and Daphetid
a 30" gauge gondola
a standard 30" gauge combine.

Historical Notes re Some Other 30" Railroads - Found with the Ballard Southern Material

Research into some of the historical background of On30 gauge railroading has also continued. Recently, our historian was able to obtain authenticated copies of correspondence about the once extensive 30" railroad empire that served the sugar cane industry in the Ohio River Valley. The correspondence follows. The first letter was from well known Ohio railroad entrepreneur Stumpy Stone, and was in response to some postings regarding an exceptionally fine example of a 30" sugar cane plantation railroad in Cuba. These posts included photos a very fine articulated locomotive and related material...

(Photo of Locomotive Lost)

" Okay, I need expert advice here! Did Porter ever build articulated locos? Why couldn't sugar cane be grown in Ohio? Gee, that was too simple.
Stumpy Stone Snacking on dinorroni and cheese pizza in Martins Ferry,OH."

"Mr. Stumpy,
As a former Ohioan (born and raised not 40 miles from the Shay Mecca of the Known Universe), I'm ashamed of your lack of historical knowledge about the Buckeye State. In 1845 near the current city of Piqua, great fields of sugar cane grew wild along the Miami River.
Settlers moved in and began to cultivate it. The Ohio & Erie Canal was built to export the product to Cincinnati for shipment up the Ohio River to Pittsburgh. But as technology progressed and the need for more sugar grew, a narrow gauge railroad was built through the hills of southern Ohio to bring the "white gold" east even quicker. The Hershey, Pittsburgh & Western, formed by Milton Hershey in 1870, used compound triple articulated Porter locomotives (0-4-4-4-0) to bring the sugar to the Hershey chocolate factory in PA. The Miami Valley also provided Hershey with fresh milk. The HP&W began twice daily express sugar trains (called "The Sugar Rush" by the locals) and reefer milk trains between Dayton and Hershey in 1885. The Porters were strong performers in the mountains, but slow. These new high-speed trains were eventually powered by Lima-built narrow gauge Pacifics (double headed from Stubenville to Pittsburgh). In 1900 experimental Lima "super-power" narrow gauge 4-6-4's were developed to meet Mr. Hershey's need for speed. This service was so fast that the Wright Brothers used the HP&W to ship their gliders and the 1903 Flyer to Pittsburgh for connections south to NC.
The great flood of 1913 wiped out the sugar cane fields and western portions the HP&W. With cheap imports of sugar coming into the country it wasn't profitable to grow 'cane in Ohio any longer so the farmers switched to corn and a funny little bean from China.... But that's another story.
Andy Leininger, Willow Spring, NC"

" Andy.....I'm ashamed to admit my lack of knowledge in this area of Ohio sugar production. I should have known something was up when we found those old Ohio River & Western cane cars down behind Bellaire last year. Obviously they too were after the then lucrative sugar hauling market!
I have printed your info out for further development.
Stumpy Stone... The dinorronni and cheese pizza was good but the sauce could use a little sugar, in Martins Ferry,OH"

"Andy - you been sipping that stuff in the glass jar again - LOL - cheers
- GWBill"

"Bill... As an old Ohio Valley boy, let me assure you that Andy is pretty close to on target. The 1913 flood did come close to wiping out the cane growing as an industry down there, but didn't quite succeed. There were some pockets in the southern end of the valley that continued trying to make a go of it till the summer of 1932. My grandfather was one of those who were trying to stick it out.
As was mentioned, after the flood, most farmers diversified, growing corn as the main crop and fattening cows on the silage. Some corn was grown for regular eating, but the bulk was intended for movie theaters to use as popcorn. The summer of '32 was the hottest ever recorded, before or since. Fifteen straight days over 110. The fifteenth day it reached 115, and the entire corn crop down in the valley began popping right on the stalk. It was a terrible situation. I remember grandma telling how they had to shovel their way out of the second story windows when the popcorn drifted up against the house. That disaster cost them the corn crop for that year, of course. Even worse, the cows, being stupid, as cows are, thought the popcorn was snow and proceeded to freeze to death.
What, you ask, has this to do with the cane crop? Well, simple enough... the popcorn, drifted up against the cane stalks, absorbed all the sugar. Thus, the farmers stood to lose all three sources of diversified income... corn, cows and cane.
It was at this moment that my grandpa had his personal collision with destiny, and, virtually single handed, saved agriculture in the Ohio Valley and simultaneously revived the narrow gauge Hershey, Pittsburgh & Western RR. Grandpa was feeling pretty low, but was the type to always try to find some good in every situation. He organized a huge snowball fight, using the cane soaked popcorn. Some of the folks got hit in the face and found that the "popcorn balls" tasted pretty good! Grandpa contacted the HP&W and had a string of flat cars run around to the spur by his fields. He hired the local kids to gather the popped, cane soaked corn and form it into balls. They were sticky enough that you could load them in layers on the flat cars. Grandpa shipped his to the Ohio State Fair, where they were a great success and provided income that saved the farm.
Within a couple of years, the popcorn ball industry was huge in the Ohio Valley, with farmers having to import the cane syrup because the local crop couldn't meet the demand. I still remember as a boy seeing those huge strings of flat cars loaded with popcorn balls being sent off to county and state fairs everywhere. It was quite a site, with those 0-4-4-4-0 Porters and 4-6-4 Lima Pacifics double headed to pull the long strings of cars up out of the valley.
By the time I was in my teens, grandpa was too old to farm and was raising racing chickens, which he had invented, but that's another story....
Andy, you hang in there and keep researching history... it's an important subject.
Doc Wightman

What, you may ask, has all of this to do with the Ballard Southern? Well, some years back, the parent company. Engulf & Devour Enterprises (see Thesis) was seeking expansion opportunities and began to look at the sugar cane operations in Ohio. E&D discovered that the Ohio River & Western was actually a holding company for the Hershey, Pittsburgh & Western plus a variety of other enterprises run by CEO Stumpy Stone. These included such operations as Atlantis Submarine Works, U.S. Hydrogen Airship Company, Deep Shade Timber Company and Toothpick Works, Meteoric Moronite Mining, Baltic Stupydium, and Rock Ridge Mining & Quarrying. E&G made a serious effort to corner enough stock to take over Stumpy's entire operation. However, other interests picked up on the opportunity and competitive bidding was begun by Yoakum of the Muskingum Valley Central.
For awhile, this was looking like a serious railroad problem, and became known as "The Miami Valley Railroad War". It appeared that it would seriously interfere with shipping and with the development of a number of promising railroads. However, Stumpy Stone, of the Ohio River & Western, proposed that a different solution be sought. He observed that at one time Jay Gould tried to put together a transcontinental narrow gauge system using existing 3' gauge lines. Stone suggested that the 30" railroaders do something similar and join in a co-operative effort to connect their roads for interchange on a transcontinental basis, thereby gaining the same advantages the standard gauge lines enjoy. It would then be possible to have through traffic with no need to load and unload from standard gauge cars. Participants could even cross gauge lines by using trucks from standard or other narrow gauge lines, similarly to the operation of the Ballard Southern and Everett & Monte Cristo. It was felt that this was much preferable to a costly war between roads. Stone was hailed as something of a hero for coming up with this approach. He even went further and issued a blanket authorization to allow "interchange" from his railroads, (Stone Lines (O three rail, HO, and N standard gauge), STX (the same after 1985), Rock Ridge Railway (narrow gauge), Ferrocril de Costa Rialto (narrow gauge Central America), and Ohio Western HO standard gauge & O narrow gauge). Other participants followed suit, thus creating the North American 30" Stock Interchange Consortium, a network of 30" gauge railroads spanning the continent. Today, nearly all of the railroads involved are on the verge of bankruptcy and/or receivership, but by combining their operations, even though every shipment creates a loss, they make it up in volume.

Historical Note #9

No Ballard Southern page would be complete without a salute to the rich history of 30" railroading. (Yes, there is some that I didn't write and/or lift off of the posts on the On30 Conspiracy list.) In a rare serious vein, consult the March/April 2003 issue of Narrow Guage and Shortline Gazette, which has an excellent article by Bob Riegl on the Weyerhauser Timber Co.'s 30" railroad in Everett, WA.

Historical Note #9 - Locomotive Size Comparisons

On30 - HO converted to ON30 - HO

I recently had a Bachmann HO Shay engine "converted" to On30. On the Ballard Southern, which is 30" gague, the imagineering story is that we interchange with the Everett & Monte Cristo 2, an 18" gauge railroad "exists" in the woods and very small towns to the northeast. In reality, cars from the E&MC2 bear an uncanny resemblance to actual HO cars. I can get away with this, at least to my own satisfaction, because while 18" really is a very small gauge, there were such railroads. I could not, however, accept the appearance of an HO engine on the layout, given the necessity of a human size cab, it just didn't work.

I sent my HO Bachmann Shay off to Tad Dowdy. It came back with a new O scale size cab and oil bunker. I "imagineered" a circumstance in which the BS obtained some 2' gauge engines and re-gauged them up to 30", thus providing for engines with large cabs, but small boilers and wheels and overall size. This was quite successful and the little Bachmann does a fine job on the BS.

Subsequently, there has been some discussion of this type of conversion. I have another HO engine conversion, a brass 0-8-0 tank engine, being converted, and will probably have a Heisler done as well. Some other folks were interested, particularly in considering the Heisler, so I have prepared the following set of pictures to show some size comparisons. The engines in the pictures are a standard Bachmann On30 Shay, the converted HO-On30 Shay, and an unconverted standard HO Heisler.

That ends the documentation found in the time machine shipping box. As noted at the beginning, it is presented here to make it available to those interested. The staff here at Ballard University believes it to be authentic, but cannot actually vouch for its accuracy.

Professor Dick Wightman (for the Ballard Scholars University – BSU)