Buckley: Were there quite a few movies during the 1920s and 30s?

Baker: Well there were not so many at that time. There was…well there was some view movies alright. Danny Arbuckle come up here. Do you remember…you don’t look that young?

Buckley: I remember seeing pictures of him.

Baker: Yeah. He was up here and Alan Hale was (___) Alan Hale was up here.

Buckley: Is that Alan Hale Senior?

Baker: Well I think it was. I don’t know if he’s still alive or not. Alan would be pretty old but he ended up in here.

Buckley: There’s a younger Alan Hale in about his 40s now I think and I think it’s his son.

Baker: Uh-huh it must be his son, yeah. Well this fellow he’d be up and he lives if he’s alive now. He’s a big man, nice fellow too.

Buckley: Did you work on High Noon?

Baker: Yeah I worked on High Noon.

Buckley: As a fireman or an engineer?

Baker: I was firing, yeah; I think I was firing for Swanson at that time.

Buckley: Which engineer got most movie jobs?

Baker: Well the three and U2s the 18 like this picture you see here.

Buckley: And which engineer usually ran the engine?

Baker: Huh?

Buckley: Which engineer? Was there a certain one that had seniority that he could always get them if he wanted?

Baker: Well Swans…after McCollum left, then I got them all, see.

Buckley: As engineer?

Baker: Yeah I got all the engineer after…he used to have quite a few of them.

Buckley: Were you here on Man of the West? Did you run that one?

Baker: Man of the West I don’t know?

Buckley: It was a Gary Cooper one 1958.

Baker: Well if it was with Gary Cooper, I was with him quite a few times.

Buckley: He was up here a couple times I think.

Baker: Yeah that’s right Gary Cooper.

Buckley: How about Tales Wells Fargo with Dale Robertson?

Baker: Yeah, yeah, yeah Dale Robertson. (___) (___) (___) (___) *too much background noise 2:15-2:26* operated 12 years (___) (___).

Buckley: How about Rawhide?

Baker: Rawhide…

Buckley: Were you working (___)?

Baker: I don’t think…did they have Rawhide up here?

Buckley: I think so.

Baker: (___) that’s right with (___), see.

Buckley: Over the depot there’s a picture of the Rawhide actors in number 3 but it might’ve been after you left. I guess they didn’t film Rawhide up here. I know myself I saw the picture there.

Baker: Well I don’t…I tell you just like I tell you, I don’t know whether I was in so many of them I don’t know what they were, see.

Buckley: When Sierra switched over to diesels, were you sorry to see the steam go or did care really?

Baker: Hell I didn’t…it took me out of a job that’s the only thing. When they put in diesel, that put me out, put me back in the shop. I’d have been alright if them guys take their pension, see. This Shirley he way up in the 70s he gonna quit when Shirley…I mean Shirley could’ve quit when Miller was off, see, but he wouldn’t do it. He just kept working, wanted to work more, work more. He died on the job, see.

Buckley: Did he die on the job?

Baker: They both died on the job, but Weldies they were working when they died. There was a same (___). If them fellows had took the pension, I would’ve been out on the road more. I wouldn’t have been in the shop so much, see. I was in the shop working there but…well Swanson worked a year over his limit too, see. There was another one he was a year. He didn’t quit until he was 66, see. He could’ve took it at 65 (___) but them fellows wouldn’t quit, see.

Buckley: And you believe when you get to retirement age, you should retire?

Baker: Yeah you got a lot of men who wanting/needing work and…

Buckley: Good thing.

Baker: See I was on this one too. I don’t…this one…I don’t know.

Buckley: Oh yeah. Now two years ago on May 1^st, 1971 the Sierra fixed up Number 28 and ran the excursion to Cougar’s Town which I think you rode on; memory of her (___) injury time.

Baker: Oh yeah, yeah.

Buckley: That was what you can call a rebirth of steam on the Sierra Railroad. What did you think of that time when steam would come back for excursions or…were you glad to see that?

Baker: Well I like (___) come back, sure. It gives work. It gives the guys work and it’s alright and fine. There’s a picture of me when I…I was firing for this when we had a 20 up there when I left the Angels branch, see. They had the 18 down at Oakdale. We used to change engines, see. We went that…we changed engines, see.

Buckley: Uh-huh.

Baker: And that’s the Old Priest spot there.

Buckley: I see.

Baker: And that’ll take them around about 1920. (___) (___) Jim Baker. I don’t know who looked (___) I never (___). I don’t know (___) (___).

Buckley: Who used to take most of these pictures? Did photographers just happen to walk by?

Baker: Well Alan (___) did. Alan (___) give me all these pictures about these. I never took any of them, see. These were all taken. I never took any of them, see.

Buckley: No.

Baker: They were all given to me. Do you know Al (___)?

Buckley: Yes.

Baker: That’s when I was in the shop up there afterwards. That was after the…there’s Harry Nicole’s him and his…

Buckley: Uh-huh.

Baker: You see when they pulled the jobs off, they pulled me and Harry off, see, and put McCollum back to firing and so we laid off and Harry said, “Let’s go over and see Taylor and see if we can get…give us a job.” So we went over and talked to him and he says yeah he says, he’ll give you a job and you guys go on the bridge gang, so me and Harry went on the bridge gang. And then they needed some men in the shop, so then he called me and Harry to work in the shop and that’s where we working in the shop at that time. That’s the (___) (___) that’s (___) (___) business store keeper guy and this one was (___).

Buckley: I see it took quite a few men to keep the engines going in those days.

Baker: That’s right.

Buckley: A lot of work to be done.

Baker: When they had lots of engines, they had lots of engines up there and they had them (___) and (___) and the rod engine they had the four spot and the six spot and the seven and all that; it was a lot of work, see.

Buckley: When they got the diesels and you were working the shop, was that in Jamestown shop or the Oakdale shop?

Baker: I was at the Jimtown shop.

Buckley: What were they doing there if the steam man pulled off so…what were they doing?

Baker: Well they kept me and Mike (___) the boiler maker up there at that time and the other (___) stayed in here in the shop and I did the extra running and the extra (___).

Buckley: What did you then being they weren’t using the steam engine anymore?

Baker: Huh?

Buckley: Was that after the diesels came?

Baker: That’s after the diesels came.

Buckley: What would they do with the steam engines?

Baker: The steam engines were laying around up there and then they got rid of some of them; they got rid of a lot.

Buckley: They just kept you there to keep an eye on them then more or less?

Baker: Well the fiddle…(___) (___)…let’s see all they were using were diesel at that time after that it was for the movies. (___) (___) (___) (___) or something like that, see.

Buckley: Didn’t Jim Connan become master mechanic?

Baker: That’s right he come out with the diesels and he stayed in them; that’s right.

Buckley: He was mostly in Oakdale though wasn’t he?

Baker: Well yeah he was in (___) in Jimtown. He would take them up there every now and then all the time and he’d tell us what to do and…

Buckley: Did he come after Bill (___) (___)?

Baker: Yeah that’s right.

Buckley: And do you think that this new Railtown 1897 will catch on as a big thing with people coming through, wanting to go through the old round house and drive the trains?

Baker: Well I guess they’re doing pretty good up here in Jimtown. They’re gonna run it all this summer. They got a lot of schedules there; lots of…already bargains for so I guess (___) what they do (___) (___) if they can make it.

Buckley: You ever have the desire to run the engine again?

Baker: Oh no I’m getting too old. Oh I would if I had to run it again, but years from now when I run engine if I had a hotbox…driving box, I’d used to have to go down and crawl under it myself, but I shouldn’t got…they tell me the engineer don’t have to do that no more. He got the other fellow goes down there and he crawls under and does all the work.

Buckley: Oh.

Baker: You know it’d be pretty tough for me to crawl underneath now. I used to crawl up and underneath when they got those sellers…the presellers, why, if you get a hotbox, it’s run out of grease when you…and if it runs out of grease on you, you gotta get underneath there and put some grease in that, but they say (___) don’t have to do it up here.

Buckley: Yeah.

Baker: It would be very hard to run an engine now but you’re right. If I had to get and crawl underneath there now, you know, it (___) (___) it would be too much for me.

Buckley: Ok, let’s go back a little ways. Now you worked on the Angels Branch a number of different times such as you were there around 1919 and when the branch closed up, let’s compare a little what business was like those two times. When you were there in 1919 or about that time, was business pretty good on that branch?

Baker: Business was good, yeah, we hauled a lot of freight in there and I think yeah things were pretty good. We hauled lime stone out of there. We used to go down when (___) was down, they had us square down to the Lime, uh, Lime (___). We used to haul that stuff that they put on this (___) (___).

Buckley: Is that by Jeffersonville? You mean the marble?

Baker: No Jeffersonville…here we all walk out of Jefferson, used to bring marble down there and loaded it at Jeffersonville. They had a crane there that they…we used to give them placard. They took big, lots of cards, you know, I mean some marble on the placard.

Buckley: Where was this lime spread you’re telling me about?

Baker: That went out of Oakdale; right out of Angels Camp. It was three-quarters a mile, I guess, out. It’s (___) out down to this granite plant they called it and that’s what they used to put on this roofing. You know this roofing…

Buckley: Uh-huh.

Baker: …(___) used to haul a lot (___) out of there.

Buckley: At that time did they use both little combine, the little coach numbers 5 and 6?

Baker: Yeah that’s right, that’s right. Then they got down the (___) that…got down and after that, just one; just the mail and Wells Fargo.

Buckley: What’d they do with the little coach number 6? Didn’t they sell it to the Hetch-Hetchy Railroad?

Baker: I don’t know but she’s up there now. They got it up there now. The five and the six is up there; I don’t know if they sold it to them or not.

Buckley: I think they used it for a while didn’t they?

Baker: Well they might’ve; they might’ve.

Buckley: How about that combination caboose coach that you have a picture up here Number 9?

Baker: Well…

Buckley: These out in the Angels Branch (___) (___)…

Baker: Well that…yeah when they had lots of…when they had to do…they had a big engine…they put that in instead of the little one, see. It was (___) (___). It was fixed for a bag each and to hold more passengers too, see. Used to be lots of…passenger trains used to come in there and there used to be a lot of Wells Fargo stuff and stuff and sending that time, lots of mail, plagues of mail, see, and they transferred it all right there because we had mail for Tuttletown and we had mail for Carson Hill and Angels Camp and we used to have freight for Carson Hill, freight for Tuttletown, and freight for Malones; we got mail for Malones too.

Buckley: Were any more than one train a day be runned though or just the one?

Baker: Just one unless…well when I was over there with Gus, he took…used all three months and we hauled all that back rock that’s on the street over there, but we hauled a lot of it out; I don’t know how many cars. We used to come over in the morning and then take the two small engines and move with a load and come back. We used to take six of them, see, so we could get by the switch axe over there, see, used to cut off and go down and the other guy would take the other engine (___) and then he’d come on down and then we’d go on through and do switchbacks over there we had to divide them up because it wouldn’t hold anymore, see.

Buckley: And that was in 1919?

Baker: Yep…no let’s see…no that was later…a little later.

Buckley: I’ve seen one picture of Numbers 30 and 32 double-heading a train over to Angels. This picture, I think, is taken right over here out of Jamestown. I think 32 was on the front end and about three cars back was 30 and the rest of the train was (___) (___)…

Baker: Well (___) (___) that’s when we was doubling them roads over there…blackjack, see, they loaded them blackjacks and opium. They had a plant down there that made the (___) rock and we used to haul it out of there, see.

Buckley: How about the large mill that was in Malone’s canyon? I think the Carson Hill mine…they shipped much stuff by rail.

Baker: Carson…they…used to get quite a bit of freight in there. We had strong (___) freight there, but not very much stuff ever went out of there.

Buckley: I see.

Baker: But we used to bring a type of copper that’s down there every morning from Carson’s Hill. You know ever notice that hill up on the side of Carson’s Hill where it’s all (___)?

Buckley: Uh-huh.

Baker: Well that’s all been hauled downed. We hauled all that stuff down through (___). Huh?

Buckley: Where the dam is?

Baker: Well you know where…oh over to Carson…you know where Malones is?

Buckley: Uh-huh.

Baker: Well you know where the…above Malones where the town was?

Buckley: Uh-huh.

Baker: They had a great, big mill there and we had a spur up there and we used to bring these hoppers down…

Buckley: Oh I see.

Baker: …with five of them in the morning. That was around about 1919 and ’20 at that time.

Buckley: Oh that’s where they got trucks and (___).

Baker: Yeah.

Buckley: I didn’t know that.

Baker: We hauled all that. We’d bring 5,000 and when we go back at night, we’d pick up the empty (___), put them up, pick them up ahead of us and then when we’d go up to Carson Hill, we’d shove them in to Carson Hill and leave them and the next morning we’d pick them up and take them down there in the morning.

Buckley: Did you have straight air on that run?

Baker: No (___) (___) (___).

Buckley: The hills weren’t that steep then?

Baker: Well no (___) (___) (___). They didn’t have no straight air over there. We had straight air when we was down on Don Pedro. There was straight air down there in that (___) (___).

Buckley: Gee on the Don Pedro on the straight air, did you use those cars that side dump cars?

Baker: I don’t know.

Buckley: With black jets?

Baker: No they were the (___) (___) (___) used these black jets at (___). They were a bigger car than these ones here.

Buckley: Oh they aren’t the same ones?

Baker: Well no they’re not the same ones because when the Sierra got through with the Don Pedro, they sold them.

Buckley: Oh I see.

Baker: They were a bigger car than what these here are. They haul more.

Buckley: Oh.

Baker: They hold more, see. Those other ones that support from side they were 100,000 capacity and these here they hold about 80,000.

Buckley: (___) (___) now I think came from Grey Northern.

Baker: Huh?

Buckley: These they have now came from Grey Northern Railroad.

Baker: I think they did somewhere around one of those, yeah.

Buckley: What did Sierra buy them for?

Baker: Well that’s when they started to build the Malones.

Buckley: Oh I see.

Baker: See they didn’t know they were going to build the Malones. They sold them, see. Somebody wanted to buy them, so they sold them. So then when they bought to build the Malones over there, they had to get some more hoppers, so then that’s (___).

Buckley: How about those side dump cars that Sierra has?

Baker: Well that was in the…they had them when we build the bridges here.

Buckley: Oh.

Baker: That’s where they got bins. We filled a lot of bridges in.

Buckley: Did it have straight air then?

Baker: Well no there was no straight air, but they put in straight air when we built the Don Pedro. We didn’t have straight air over here on the Malones; just on the Don Pedro.

Buckley: Did you have a steep hill that you had to…

Baker: Yes it was steep going down into the place where they (___).

Buckley: Which engines had the straight air on them?

Baker: Well they had the 22 and the 20, 18 I think it (___). They had a valve up in the cabin you could turn off, trade it over you see and you (___). They used to call it a diversion (___) valve, see, that you could (___) (___).

Buckley: How about when they remade the track I think in 1955 when they got the diesels? They probably use those cars then?

Baker: When they in the ….

Buckley: That’s what I read in the book. When they purchased diesels, they laid heavier rail on the whole main line.

Baker: Oh we…yeah that’s right. Well the I run the plume up there; I run that plume laying all that rail.

Buckley: That the plume that’s in the (___) now?

Baker: (___) (___) yeah that’s the same plume yeah.

Buckley: When did Sierra buy that?

Baker: Well it was around…I don’t know…let’s see what year was that? I forget what year that was. I was in the shop at that time. Joe Francis run the…run the little crane that it…the crane that, you know, that used to pick up three and lay it down and we were both in the shop at that time.

Buckley: And they haven’t had plume for too many years then.

Baker: Oh that ran for quite a while. That was the (___) (___) years. I was out of another job five years, so…

Buckley: Was that considered more of a locomotive or a section crew?

Baker: Well it was a section crew alright, but there was a conductor and Joe Francis he was (___) (___) and me; that’s all we had.

Buckley: And an engineer had the right to run that. I mean if (___) said they wanted to have a section crewman drive that out, you guys could protest.

Baker: Well we never…they just put me on that. I don’t know if they…they never had no (___) or anything at that time, see. They put you where your wands at; either take it or leave it.

Buckley: Oh.

Baker: And they told you what they’d pay you and there was nothing you could do about it.

Buckley: And that was it.

Baker: Yeah that’s right.

Buckley: Ok let’s get to when you worked on the Angels Branch and its last years and months of operation. What was business like then?

Baker: Well business got pretty poor. They weren’t making money off it and we were hauling some (___) out of it not (___) but…but limestone. That’s was that…oh I told you (___) (___) (___) but it got pretty bad; it got pretty bummed. We had…we maybe had one boxcar out of…up three a day, see, of merchandise and things got pretty bummed, see, that’s why then they put us over here; it was losing money, see. That’s why Taylor pulled it off.

Buckley: Could passengers ride if they wanted to?

Baker: Well you could get them over to ride it, yeah.

Buckley: Who was the conductor on that train track?

Baker: (___) Medley.

Buckley: Was there a brakeman there or just the one?

Baker: Well there was one brakeman and (___).

Buckley: According to the book, it said that your brother was conductor.

Baker: Huh?

Buckley: The book said that Moses, your brother, was conductor.

Baker: No he (___) (___).

Buckley: They used to call him Moses Cabooser (___) Number Five. You say he never worked on the Angels end in recent years?

Baker: Well he worked for the Angels when they build it (___). There’s one place here where they got…where they had the steam shovel (___) (___).

Buckley: Yeah I think I’ve seen pictures of it.

Baker: Yeah but he never…he never run train over there.

Buckley: Oh.

Baker: He might’ve went over there as a reap man but never run steady over there. They had another fella there right before Charlies Medley name, but…gosh *can’t hear* (22:16-22:18) there’s a tall fella. He was braking over there and then when Buster Holcombe got killed, he took the job. Then they proposed Charlies Medley’s job off and he went over on the Angels Branch and took this fellas job.

Buckley: This Medley was the last conductor?

Baker: Bender was the last one (__) (__).

Buckley: And do you remember who the brakeman was?

Baker: He had…they had this fellow that was running train; (___) a conductor. He…whatever conductor they had him…he went back (___).

Buckley: Oh I see.

Baker: See? I forget his name.

Buckley: Did you ever have any days when you might just have the engine and the caboose or the coach and that’d be it; no freight?

Baker: Well maybe…

Buckley: Did that ever happen?

Baker: …on a Sunday; on a Sunday we might, see. There were there before the times, see, because there wasn’t much to do; it was limited, see.

Buckley: But the law said you had to run anyway.

Baker: Yeah that’s right. You had to go every day; that train was run every day.

Buckley: Did you carry mail?

Baker: Yeah that’s right and used to have the Wells Fargo (___) and used to have…use to have pay all the gold we ship over there; usually all the gold out of Malones. They shipped all the gold through Wells Fargo. Some (___) come in here and he’d have when they turned them around he had to take the gold home with him. He had a conductor (___) take care of it.

Buckley: I read some in a book once where I guess in the 1930s when the government recalled everybody’s gold back, they shipped some more from Angels Camp and they hid them in the tender. Did you ever hear about that?

Baker: Never heard of that; never hid when I was on there.

Buckley: The other one I heard, I don’t know to believe it or not it was in a book, it said when a passenger wanted to ride the train, the crew would go as coins up at the bell and if it hit the bell or something, the railroad got the money and if it didn’t, the crew got the money or something.

Baker: (___) when I was there. I was there for a long time, boy, and afterwards (___) and I…Bill Scott (___) (___) and then Wallet and I were there for a long time with Scott and it never (___) (___) (___).

Buckley: This is what the book said.

Baker: (___) (___) (___) want to fill up the book idea.

Buckley: (___) so.

Baker: Yeah.

Buckley: Then you said before that you were on the Don Pedro or the Hetch-Hetchy project when they finally tore up the Angels Branch.

Baker: Yeah that’s right.

Buckley: Well did Gus Swanson run the engine when they tore it up?

Baker: Well I don’t know who run it; he might’ve I don’t know because I was over there at that time and I don’t know what…I don’t know who tore it up even. They tore it up while I was over on that job, see. They even tear it up…you see me and Gus laid around up three months, see, and then they got that job over on the Hetchy and I went over there, see. I (___) everyone back and forth…drove back and forth to Hetchy, see, and I never knew what was going on here because I’d come in late at night and go out early in the morning and I don’t know who tore it up.

Buckley: But they left in some of the track down here in Jamestown now as far as the Shell Oil Company.

Baker: Yeah.

Buckley: Why did they do that?

Baker: Well I couldn’t tell you that. Well they thought maybe they’d get some business from them.

Buckley: Did they?

Baker: They used to haul all the oil in the (___) in here, see, and now they don’t bring anything. The track is still over there.

Buckley: Did they ever use it though after the Angels Branch was torn up? Did they ever haul any oil down at the end of the track?

Baker: I think they did. I figured they had a few carloads (___) (___).

Buckley: In the daily passenger run which ran between Tuolumne and Oakdale and back, that was made a mix train, you say, when Taylor came?

Baker: Well yeah, yeah that’s right. Taylor was on it. Taylor when they went through bankruptcy, they had to patent your train on, see, and then when they went through bankruptcy, that is when they decided to cut everything, see. They cut down everything, see.

Buckley: And ‘til the end, it always used to leave Tuolumne; it tied up in Tuolumne?

Baker: Yeah that’s right. Well Oakdale lead to SP. SP used to run a train through in there, see. Used to come down below…down below…come through Tracy and Stockton and go on down to Merced and they’d come back in the afternoons, see.

Buckley: That’s about all the questions I have now. Do you have anything you’d like to add to the tape?

Baker: Well I don’t know, see.

Buckley: Ok.

Baker: I think that’s about all that I could do.

END TAPE

General Information:
Interviewer: Scott Buckley

Interviewee: Jim Baker

Name of Tape: The Sierra Railroad

When: April 27 and May 11, 1973

Transcriber: Dee-Ann Horn

Transcribed: 2/18/2018