Getting a Hobby, and History, on Track

The railroad first arrived at this quiet agricultural village in the Central Valley about a century ago, linking its fruit orchards and farm fields to the big world beyond.

Now a train hasn’t been seen in a couple of decades. The tracks to Linden seemed destined to go the way of so many rail spurs across America -- left to twist and rot, historical remnants abandoned for a different transportation future.

But a dogged band of rail buffs has a different outcome in mind. Determined to make the rails hum once more, they’ve established their own railroad.

A couple of times a month, the enthusiasts ply a 10-mile stretch of tracks between Linden and Stockton in boxy little antique vehicles once used to perform rail-bed maintenance throughout the United States. Dubbed motorcars, or “speeders,” the bright-hued mini-locomotives seat a couple of people and putt-putt along the tracks like overgrown Tonka toys.

The sight of the speeders is both amusing and fascinating. Squat as a VW Bug, the motorcars can reach speeds up to 40 mph, lurching on two forward gears powered by 20-horsepower gas engines. On the exterior, the vehicles have a cartoonish quality, a SpongeBob SquarePants panache.

Aside from pursuing their hobby, motorcar enthusiasts hope their little locomotives will help them chart a new possibility for the West’s endangered short-line railroads. There’s history in those tracks, they say, a link to the past worthy of preservation.

“When we lose a set of tracks, we all lose out,” said Larry Bowler, a former state assemblyman reborn in retirement as a motorcar aficionado. “We’re rail preservationists. We want to protect track.”

With two fellow “sport railroaders,” Ric Masten and Tod Hill, Bowler formed the nonprofit Recreational Railroad Coalition Inc. and set about persuading the owner of the Linden line -- the Stockton Terminal & Eastern Railroad -- to lease the tracks for $1 a year.

In exchange, the group promised to maintain the right of way, which over the years had become a weed-strewn eyesore. Along some spots, decades of neglect left railroad ties broken like toothpicks. Steel track once straight and true was warped by bonfires set to burn orchard pruning debris.

Undeterred by the state of the rails, Bowler, Masten and Hill recruited volunteers for a series of work weekends to clean up the tracks.

The siren song of new track has spread throughout the railroad hobbyist community. They arrive on weekends and the occasional weekday to try the Linden line, carting their motorcars on trailers and muscling them onto the rails (at about 1,000 pounds, the speeders can be lugged onto the tracks with a few good yanks of the handles that fold into their undercarriages).

Steve Paoletti recently rode the Linden line.

He first saw a railroad motorcar at a rail fair in Sacramento in 1998. Drawn by the possibility of touring America’s waysides in his own rail car, Paoletti took the plunge (the speeders cost as little as $3,000). Now he owns three.

“Once you feel those railroad tracks under you,” he said, “it’s hard to get it out of your blood.”

The hobby, with several clubs and hundreds of participants throughout the U.S., usually involves multi-day excursions on working railroad lines. They often travel the same tracks as lumbering freights and fleet passenger trains.

Excursions are held nearly every week of the year -- into the Grand Canyon, across western Canada, and down into Mexico’s Copper Canyon, a formidable nine-day run that has numerous trestles, switchbacks and spooky tunnels.

What the Linden track offers, in contrast, is an easy-to-reach proving ground, a place to test equipment or certify a new participant (the activity requires proof of insurance and a license through one of the clubs).

California has about 30 short-line railroads, most of them barely surviving in an age of big-rig trucks. Railroad museums have acquired tracks for sight-seeing excursions and dinner trains. But others have disappeared, uprooted to make way for bikers, hikers, in-line skaters, joggers, horseback riders and mothers with baby strollers.

While locomotives and railroad stations have a natural constituency for preservation, tracks can be a harder sell as a historical artifact.

But the oldest of the lines “are a significant part of our history,” said Kyle Wyatt, curator of history and technology at the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento. “If we completely lose them, we lose something. A piece of us goes away.”

Not that everyone cares. Just look to the experience in Linden, population 1,103.

On a recent sunny afternoon, Bowler and half a dozen rail enthusiasts unloaded their motorcars on the edge of town. They buzzed with excitement, ready to hit the rails.

Before they could depart, a few neighbors descended, greeting the colorful fleet of cars like a storm of angry bees.

In no uncertain terms, they complained about noise and traffic and fretted about the possibility of a wayward motorcar hitting a car or a cat or a child.

“I’m telling you,” said Roger Bowley, a retired agricultural lender, “someone is going to get hurt.”

A few said they wanted to sue. Others simply wanted to vent.

“Why in the world are you guys doing this?” Elaine Reed asked Bowler. “What do you get out of this?”

“Why do boats go on the river?” Bowler calmly replied.

“Children could be hurt!”

“Children love this!” said Bowler. “It’s a sport. Why does anyone play baseball?”

Over to the side, Tod Hill watched the sidewalk debate with a smile. “Most places really enjoy us coming in,” said Hill, himself a retired farmer in the area. “These people are the vast minority, and they’re sore because they’re losing. They seem to think they own the land right under the tracks.”

After several more minutes of back-and-forth, Bowler excused himself. He had a little train to catch.