Baker: The (___) of ’18, there sure was the biggest engine they had here for a long time, see, ’18 had her own freight.

Buckley: When you were a boy, did you like trains?

Baker: Well I wasn’t…I didn’t think a lot about them. I…up around here but I never…I was at work. I didn’t care much about it as far as trains were concerned, but after I rode up, I used to like to (___)…I used to…but I went over when I was a kid; I was up there the biggest part of the time up there playing. They had lots of lumber yards and they had a place where they hauled in all (___) and (___) up there go up there and (___) tag and we used to have a place up at the warehouse where we’d get up there and tie them around you know and play tag and jump down on the salperts. Used to haul a lot of salperts out of here when them mines were all running you see.

Buckley: A locomotive number seven, do you know what Sierra ever did with that?

Baker: I don’t know what ever became of him seven. I don’t know whatever it was….she was the same as a six. (___) the six and the seven were almost the same. I don’t know whether they went through this sold ‘em. A lot of…there was 11 and the 10 was the same as 11, but the 12 was bigger. See she was a pre-truck. This was only a ’02 truck. I mean she was a bigger engine. There was a four truck (___) but (___).

Buckley: During this time around 1910…

Baker: Huh?

Buckley: During this time around 1910 you say there was one *too much background noise* (1:55-2:00)

Baker: Nineteen…yeah. (___) (___) (___).

Buckley: And one passenger train.

Baker: It went one down and one back, yeah.

Buckley: How many coaches would usually pull it?

Baker: Well they had four coaches, two baggy cars, and two coaches. I (___) made a mistake at that time. You see when we come…they come in here Angel branchers would be on the side there and used to move a lot of freight and lots of people traveled and they had them too. Those coaches used to be filled every night and they hauled the mail too, see, and they come in here and they transfer all that stuff in to the Angel branch and the Angel branch haul over to Angel. When they come back in the morning, they bring a bunch of people and we didn’t have so much stuff coming this way; not like (___) express, see, but we always had the mail (___). We had a lot of mail at that time and we used to have two or three box cars of groceries every day, see, used to bring them in here. The freight used to come in here and they’d transfer all of the freight into one of the other box cars and they’d…that would go to the next (___) and go that afternoon, see, and used to have lots of freight come back by; oil used to go over there, used to take car loads of oil, powder…used to use a lot of powder. Not very much lumber because they had the sawmill over there and they got to (___) all the (___) there, but we had an old…we had a turntable over there in Angels. We used to have to turn around, me and the engineer and the brake and one of the conductors helped us turn the engine off. It was the same kind of turntables they had up here; all wood in those days.

Buckley: There’s only one train on the Angels branch (___).

Baker: Well yeah that’s right over in the morning, but when we hauled, we hauled all that blacktop for Angels over there. We used to come over and didn’t get…had them hoppers and we used to take them over and dump them and then come back. (___) all that blacktop over down in there at that time. I was over there in Swanson’s place for three months and then…I think that’s why he laid off for three and I caught all that…used to have two engines one on the front and one on the back and we used to go down through them turn…them switchbacks and we had to divide up the cars, see, because you couldn’t get the whole clean them, see.

Buckley: Which locomotive is worth…?

Baker: Well at that time we used the 30 and the 32, but we did use, while I was over there, did use the 12 over then the nine.

Buckley: How many passengers rode the Angels branch? This time it was very popular to ride.

Baker: The years…the (___) it was. When the…before the others, it was when the most money come, there was lots of it, but after they got the horse and buggy and the stagecoaches then that knocked the Sierra (___) out of the jobs, see.

Buckley: Were you working for Sierra when they had that accident in Angel’s branch when the two women were killed? I think two freight cars escaped near Tuttletown, ran into the passenger train and people were killed.

Baker: There…not…nobody ever got killed when I was over there.

Buckley: Must’ve been before I guess.

Baker: Yeah before my time. I was a kid here when the potter trucks car blew up.

Buckley: Oh.

Baker: I was remember I was up with the people that the morning that (___) (___) back and had a big explosion and rode up on “Gee Whiz Point” over there and I was playing where the kids father who was running engine, Bruce Barton. His father was engine. Him and I used to play together up there. He lived right across from the depot there in the warehouse. (___) there’s houses down low below them.

Buckley: Yes.

Baker: (___) houses (___). He lived in there. Bruce Barton his father was engineer and he was kind of worried about his father. He didn’t know if that (___) had blowed up or not. They really didn’t know. It killed I think one guy was riding on top and it blowed him all to pieces; blowed the cars all…I was…wasn’t very (___) that time. I remember it well.

Buckley: Did you hear an explosion?

Baker: Yeah we…there was an explosion. Well…so that’s…a long time ago.

Buckley: I read in a book once that you and I think engineer Miller were number 20 once and you found out a bridge was burned out in front of you. Can you tell us that story?

Baker: Well they made a mistake on that. They made a mistake. I was flying for Joe Cavenaro at that time and we was building the Don Pedro…we was building he Don Pedro and we were going down to get some timbers from (___) and we went out ahead of the passenger train that morning and Joe…I was flying for Joe. They got Miller in that name of that (___). I read the book, yeah. No, Joe Cavenaro was flying. They made a mistake, but we just…the worst part of it (___) (___) is two rails across that big bridge there, see, but if the passenger train had went down ahead that morning, he didn’t know where to stop. He’d had went into it. He couldn’t because he couldn’t stop. He was too close to where we gotten. We just didn’t get stoppers hell when we weren’t going traveling as fast as the passenger train. The passenger train used to (___) (___) engine and they used to pad along pretty fast, see, and there’s just right around the curves this big bride. No…they got in…I give that…I told them about that. Al Menuto’s sister wrote the book.

Buckley: Yes.

Baker: And…

Buckley: Do you know of any other accidents that you could tell us about; any experiences that you had which…?

Baker: Well…experiences? Well I was…when I was helping Mokelumne up to Hetch-Hetchy Junction…up Hetch-Hetchy Valley you have to (___). I used to help them up and they’d cut me right off and I’d come back ahead of them.

Buckley: Uh-huh.

Baker: And I had Engine 32. She was bigger than the 30 and you tie…you give them that (___) and we used to tie up with Hetchy. Well I’d come back down ahead of me one evening and I come around the corner and the…when I come around, the engine sank way down on one side and I just didn’t get over it, see. Well if Mokelumne come down that day, around that coal with that big Engine 36, he would’ve went clear over the west club, so I pulled down a ways and I stopped. I stayed there and waited ‘til he’d come and I stopped and went back and flagged him and then we couldn’t get over the engines; couldn’t get over it, see, but the big…from the outside, see, when I hit it with that 32 and I thought you were going to tip over, so that’s one accident. Well I don’t know any other that I’ve had.

Buckley: When you first started working on the Hetch-Hetchy railroad the first time, was that working for the city of San Francisco or the Sierra Railroad?

Baker: No I worked for Landy. Landy had the contract to build it, see.

Buckley: Oh I see.

Baker: Landy the license to build it. I worked for him and this…the bachelor hitch was…was a (___), see, and I went to work for the city afterwards and when they popped the engine and they (___) (___). You see time cut me out of the…the army, so I didn’t go back to that (___) anymore, see. I could’ve went…I guess if I could’ve got out, I could’ve went back and see when…then when I left, they hadn’t have started. They were just started in and they hadn’t started to use the head upon your train over there you know. My brother ran the (___) over there and they paid more money than Sherriff. Yeah they paid more than the Sherriff. That year I worked for Landy up there in the city…after the city took it over, that one winter all I did was kept the engine hot and we played cards and kept the coal, got paid just the same. They were good to work for the city of Frisco’s good. They did pay .10 cents an hour more than the CRG did.

Buckley: Which locomotives did they use…cities locomotives.

Baker: Huh?

Buckley: Is that the City of San Francisco’s own locomotives at that time? Did they use?

Baker: Well when I worked for the city, yeah, yeah. They bought…they bought two…they had one and then they bought another hystler. When I went down there…I went down there fire the hystler. They have another one there acute engine. I don’t know where they got that. In those days they didn’t make very…well we did like to share one of the…share that…the…grounds at that time when worked and there was a kid. The engineer and the firemen and (___) conductor got paid so much a month and you (___) and you never get…when you get through in the morning you stay out there…you got through maybe 12 hours. In those days there were 12 anything, see. I think the engineer at that time got $75 a month. That was big pay and I forget now just what the firemen got, but that was…when you started out early in the morning 6:30, six o’clock and you get…never…nine o’clock at night; you just so much a month.

Buckley: There was no union then?

Baker: No union. When I was a kid in those days in the shop, they worked nine hours a day, six days a week and when I was a kid, they had me go in and help the plumber. I got $30 a month, six days a week and nine hours a day. That’s what the status pay I got.

Buckley: During this time, what was the Standard Lumber Company and the Sugar Pine Railway doing?

Baker: Well the Sugar…the Standard practically owned the Sugar Pine Railroad, see, but I don’t know why they named that and they were staying down here. You know they had…they had quite a box factory there in Sonora at that time. Did you ever see the pictures of them?

Buckley: Yes.

Baker: And so Standard moved up…Standard Lumber Company moved up where that plant is now.

Buckley: Pickering?

Baker: Yeah Pickering. It used to be Standard at that time and they moved up there and moved everything out of Sonora there, but when I fired for Tom Walling at that time went up there in ’20. We had lots of switching boys switch, switch, switch in store there. They had to box (___) aquarium (___) and all that. We used to get a lot of cars on there, see; switched them for like two hours. Switching cars out and switching in empty’s for them and, you know, turning the cars around for ‘em. I …

Buckley: But the men who worked on the Sugar Pine Railway, worked for different company than the men on Sierra Railway? I mean Sierra didn’t know them in the Sugar Pine.

Baker: No, no, no the Sierra didn’t have…that had nothing to do with it; had nothing to do with it.

Buckley: Now was Thomas Bulock ahead of the Sierra when you were…

Baker: That’s right Tom Bulock. When I was a kid, he used to have a special car. It had one of them (___) (___) (___) it was a push bottle (___) and he had wheels put on it so he could ride it all over. I remember as a kid he always wore a duster and hat, you know, and his wife with him and she had a hat on and she put the railroad in here and they used to set up there and they had a chauffeur that drove them all around. A pay mat….they had a pay mat for here with a motor cart too. He used to go around…well they had a section gang at Paul’s (___) and they had one at Waterville and then they had one up at…they had one at Chinese and they had one here and one at Sonora and one over in Tuttletown and one at Carson Hill. So he had to go around and pay. At that time, he used to go around and pay all them men that they had working, see.

Buckley: And you’re working on the track all that time?

Baker: Yeah working on the track, yeah that’s right, work on the track.

Buckley: Was it more necessary at that time than it is now?

Baker: Well at that time, they had 40 pound rail…

Buckley: Oh I see.

Baker: …and you had to keep it up good. You couldn’t do it the way now. There’s nothing…the rails go to pieces, see, now. Of course you got big rails, it makes a big difference. You got little small rail…

Buckley: Yeah.

Baker: …and them cars well they won’t stand it see.

Buckley: And each section camp had a foreman?

Baker: Oh yeah (___) that’s right and he lived there with his wife and they had a regular house for the workers there. It used to be all Mexicans. They had a place there where they could cook and sleep.

Buckley: Did they have speeders as such now or hand cars or how’d they get around?

Baker: Well they…they had hand cars first; hand cars and we went out with the push cars, see, and they mostly worked in, see. Then they got the motor cars after that... after they got motor cars come in.

Buckley: I see.

Baker: Used to have track walkers. We had some track walkers. He had one of those things that you could…you ever see those?

Buckley: Yes.

Baker: …with three wheels…

Buckley: (___).

Baker: Yeah, yeah that’s what the track walker had…had a track walker.

Buckley: How about the Westside Lumber Company? What were they doing at this time?

Baker: Well they were running up…I didn’t know which (___) or which side. I never worked for the Westside, but they used to have a big bunch of crews up there. I never worked for them. I don’t know much about that Westside. I couldn’t tell you anything about that. Tuolumne was pretty (___) place. They had (___)…they had a place for the engine across the bridge there. They had a water tank there and people there…I used to…when I come home when I was a kid afterwards, I went up there…I think I went up there one or two nights after I come back from the war, and they had a wipe…they had to wipe the engine up and sweep the coaches out and build the fires and put water in the…in those days they had the coal fire so they had a stool…

Buckley: Oh I see.

Baker: …a coal fires. They build a fire in the morning, put water in, sweep out, and wipe the engine all up and have everything all ready in the morning when they went to work.

Buckley: How about the Dutch Mine Railroad? Did you ever see that?

Baker: Well the Dutch all they did was they had us burned out (___) (___) into the Dutch. The freight used it; didn’t use it very long. They used to haul the sulfurets out. That’s when they ended away with this sulfuret’s up here, see.

Buckley: Oh you mean Sierra Standard Gauge ran on this spur?

Baker: Yeah.

Buckley: I was under the impression it was a narrow gauge separate…

Baker: Well when I was a kid, they had a narrow gauge (___) (___) (___) that they had a separate rail down to the quartz, and they used to branch off there. They went down as far as Jacksonville, they run out of money. They…that’s how Crocker…Crocker lend them the money, see, for all this stuff, so he’s balling, see, and the Sierra didn’t keep him up, see, and that’s why they foreclosed and the money got (___) (___) (___).

Buckley: Now was it Yosemite Shortline Railroad?

Baker: Yosemite Shortline Railroad they had. I used to go out there when the water tank…when they’d come in. I was a kid then and sometimes he’d give me a ride down to the…down to the turntable (___) (___) (___).

Buckley: You mean a track between Quartz Junction here was Duel Gauge?

Baker: Well they had a ring in the center…

Buckley: Oh I see.

Baker: See your ring the center and that’s how they brought them in, see.

Buckley: I didn’t know that.

Baker: Yeah that’s right. They had the small cars, they had…there’s one…I think there’s one small car over there where the…where the Fred Beaster used to be…used to be warehouse, but it used to be store keeper over there; used to have a store keeper over there (___) (___) and he lived in one of them over there. I don’t know if it’s there or not…one of the small box cars that they had, but that’s where…that’ why they wouldn’t broke. It got down as far as Jacksonville. That ended that up.

Buckley: I guess in those days some of those men had a pretty dreams of…

Baker: Yeah well they had big dreams that’s right. I think…yeah…

Buckley: And the railroad that went to the Dutch Mine was just a standard gauge spur?

Baker: Yeah just the spur to run over to the mill. They had a mill down off the side there, a big mill, and they used to go over there and get the (___).

Buckley: How about the Atlas Branch? (__) (__) (__)…

Baker: Well that was when we…when we…that’s when we built the…that’s when we hauled all that rock out of there for the Don Pedro and the Malones. Bill McCollum was on that. He…that’s when I was down there helping with the…with the grate, I had 24…well I had the 1641 down there. He used to bring out 20 cars, 20 loads in the morning, and I’d help him up the top of the hill and I’d come back and then I’d hit up the freight (___) and after he took them up, he used to go back and get another 20 loads. They used to give him 40 car loads a day besides the (___) down there…the men…

Buckley: I see.

Baker: …and they had other stuff that went in there too. That was a branch rock down there a mile out of Oakdale. That went down in the (___) Plant there. That was a pretty good rock plant, but when they built the Malones, I hauled all that stuff out of Oakdale. I stayed in Oakdale and I gave them 40 cars a day; adding in 28. He had Engine 28. He had Engine 28 and they gave me 28; 20 cars was all we could get over at Arnold Hill. You had to really work hard to get it over, see, and (___) down there on the curve…down on the curve down below well below Arnold (___) the hills that you had to go like the devil around this curve and when we went around the curve there, I told Ronny Hall I says, “I’m gonna go in the ditch there.” I said, “We shouldn’t go that fast.” I says, “We can’t…”
“Oh,” he says, “that’s alright. We gotta get them over the road.” Well there’s nothing else I could do, so by (___) he went in the ditch there one day and the (___) devil (___), so went in the ditch. Then they had to transfer all the passengers, all the stuff off the (___), see, and put on another. Oh that was a terrible mess.

Buckley: Were you running that train when the ditch?

Baker: Huh?

Buckley: Were you running the train when the ditch?

Baker: (___)

Buckley: When the ditch?

Baker: Yeah that was running…yeah. I told him I knew they were going to go in the ditch there because the car was just jumping up and down and swaying like that, see, and I knew they were going in the ditch. He wanted to get them over, see, so…in those days…in those days we had the freights and the passenger trains and like you run an engine, you had to be in the clear from a certain time, see, and you couldn’t plan well, see.

Buckley: Yeah.

Baker: And you made your own…sometimes you’d get a meet; sometimes you’re stopped and you call in and when maybe you be on time…he’d be late, see. If he was late, he’d give you a meet at another place, see, but you had your timetable and you got to know your time and when you due and when he’s out of there and you got to clear him ten minutes, see. You can’t play around when you got some freight trains and passenger trains running, see. At that time, when I went up to first (___), the first thing you have relation to run. When too good on that, I went in there and he turned me down on that (___) put me out there and told me to make a meet (___) (___) I was going to go down there and make one meet, see. Well I fell down and then he put me in and you got to study up more, so then I studied up more and I got on to the (___) and all about it and the time when I knew I had to figure out relation, I’d have (___) to dig with you, see.

Buckley: What was your first job running an engine?

Baker: Huh?

Buckley: What was your first job as an engineer?

Baker: First running (___)?

Buckley: Yes.

Baker: The first when one I run over there on the Hetchy; Drew Marshalls that come on in and let you run. That was the first time I ever run the engine. So I run over the (___) over there with Jim. Well he fire and he run and told me all about how to do it and this (___). Plus I fired from a lot of these fellows here and they never let me run. They never let me run. He was the only one that really let me run.

Buckley: Is there any company policies you had to be a fireman for so many years before they promote you to engineer or was it mostly (___) (___) (___).

Baker: Well not here. (___) (___) not here. It was (__) SP you had a certain but of course they didn’t let you fire just a little and put you right over there, but you had to fire quite a while before you got to run. But down there in the SP I think you got to fire so long. I fired for some guy that I fired for Miller down there. I went through…I went down and fired out before I got married. Pulled the job, but that’s when they pull the job…helper job that’s when I went down with Miller, see, and he was getting old, see, and we used to have big trains around 25-30 cars every night going down, see, (___), see. And the brakes in those days aren’t as good as they are today. Now they got bigger auxiliaries in there, see. Well one time I was going down there, I got talking to a man who left for his (___) all downhill, see, and I got talking to him and he was telling me all about shooting (__). It was in the first of the week, see. He probably went down Sunday and how he killed (___) (__) and telling me all how to fix with this net and he was very poor man with air. When you…when you draw the air out, you want to put it back; put it in forward reaching and shove the air back, see, but he would just go along and he’s use it up and then he’d put it back on running, let the feeds out. In other words, when you just put it back on running position, you let the (___) out. Do all that and they don’t go back. (___) out was all that is to keep the pressure up when you running long and (___) use it, see. But he would let…try to let the (___) so we got down there below…(___) (___) this side of canyon tank and he was running out of air, so all he did…he big holders and away we went. Well we were just lucky after we got down to (___), it was kind of on the flat, see, and we finally did get them stopped. But from then on, I never started to talk with him going down the hill, see. I just…I just let him…well he just plain around didn’t think, see. He would get (___) through and he was a pork (___) (___) because I used to…the brakeman used to ride up in the caboose and they had a gauge there, see.

Buckley: Yeah.

Baker: And they said, “Well that’s nothing new (___) (___) (___) (___).” But I never talked to him from then on. I never…I never tried to (___) we got talk; we were going downhill because that wasn’t too fast. I was (___)…