Woodland Park Part 5

Woodland Park Memories #5

Start Up and End of Day:

The train at Woodland Park, Seattle, was kept overnight in a tunnel structure adjacent to the amusement park. It was a wood building with very sturdy doors at each end. Each morning, when given the OK by George, the kiddeeland manager, I'd walk around the track to the tunnel or walk over through the car ride and hop the fence down to the tunnel. I unlock the double doors and relock the doors open. Relocking the doors open was important as the park kids might just think it would be fun to close the doors during the day.

The train was parked by placing pebbles from the roadbed behind at least two of the engine wheels. The tunnel had a slight uphill grade, and if the rocks weren't used, the train would drift back into the rear tunnel doors after the service brake vacuum pressure bled off after the engines were off for a time. Now I'm sure I could have crafted up some really fancy chocking gadget, but the pebbles worked and they were always at hand.

I made it my practice to remove my 'parking brake' rocks and go to the front of the engine and push it backwards, gaining enough momentum to get both engines out into the daylight. The track leveled out and the rear of the train would start back uphill at the rear entrance to the tunnel, so if I didn't push pretty hard, and gain some momentum, the train would level out with the engines still in the darkness of the tunnel.

I'd prop open the two hoods, and pull the oil dipsticks (pretty short little things) and then take a stick to check the fuel level in the belly tanks. The G-16 used regular leaded gasoline. If all was well, and it usually was, I'd hop onto the top of the rear engine (B Unit), sitting up on the body with my feet in the operators cab. I'd start the first engine and the train would normally creep forward just a bit until vacuum built up enough to snug the shoes against the wheels. I'd then start the second engine and let it idle just a bit.

I'd stay on top of the engine, release the brakes and give the train some throttle and bring the train around the track and up to the station. During this first run, I'd look for debris on the track, natural (branches etc. that may have blown down) and people created (rocks, or other junk put on the tracks for 'fun').

Up at the station, I'd check the cars for any left over trash or excessive peanut shells. If there were no passengers waiting, I may shut the engine down and walk down to the train garage (where the Spur Track led) to get some gas. The gas was delivered to the amusement park by a local vendor in a truck similar to the size that delivers heating oil to homes.  Within the garage, it was stored in two large, wheeled carts, I'd guess about 100 gallons apiece. Those carts never moved from the garage. To fuel the train, I'd fill two square 5 gallon cans using the pump on the carts and carry them up to the station. I never really enjoyed this part as the cans had narrow wire handles and were heavy over the distance I needed to carry them. I think they were left over paint thinner cans, certainly not the familiar army surplus Jerry cans.

If I wasn't going to refuel right then, I'd lock the cans in the station office for use later. When I did the refueling job, I'd open the hoods, using a prop rod to keep the hoods open, and reach down to the tank to unscrew the caps and place a flexible metal tube with a funnel attached that we kept in the storage compartment in the back of the A (Front, Rounded Nose) Unit. The tanks did not have a fuel pipe extension, just the short cap pipe right on top of the tanks.

The method to determine if the tank was full was pretty low tech. When the gas sputtered out of the tank opening, well then it was full. Once full of gas, it was not required to fuel again that day. One side effect of fueling up at the station was that the while the station passenger platform was concrete, the tracks were filled between the rails there with blacktop to make a flat walking area for the customers. After repeated minor fuel spills where the train stopped, the blacktop under the engine slowly dissolved and became a spongy area of black rocks. The gas diluted the asphalt oil/tar part of the blacktop as gas is a solvent.

There was a period where the fluid couplings (torque converters is the term now used most often) between the engine and the transmission failed and the seals and were leaking fluid. Replacements were ordered, but for a pretty long time (or so it seemed to me), we would have to keep refilling the couplings with a light oil several times a day. That oil was added by stopping the engine and touching the starter to have the fill hole with a square drive plug, on top, or nearly on top. We'd take off the plug and refill the couplings. As the train ran, and the couplings spun, the oil seeped from the damaged seals and was flung away from the coupling, with a fair amount of the oil going up out of the vents, and back on yours truly.

The flung off oil tended to cover everything and made the engines smoke more then normal, as any oil that come down on the exhaust stacks or manifolds would burn. I guess it gave the engines more visual authenticity, to have that bit of smoke rise from the vents. The Wisconsin's, being air cooled, would also blow air (and oil) out of the vents from the cooling air that came off of the engine.

I joked with George, the manager, that I was going to charge him for the extra soap and shampoo I needed to de-oil myself at the end of the day. Without missing a beat, he replied he was going to charge me for the company oil I was taking home. Yep, those weeks were especially fun...

Towards the end of the day, when the manager felt business was slowing down to the point where the train wasn't needed, he'd give me the sign and I'd either make one more run with the passengers waiting, or right away, take the train down to the tunnel. I'd need to pull the train to a pretty precise spot to insure that both doors could swing closed. Not a lot of margin for error here. I'd hop out, find some 'parking brake' rocks and lock the old girl up for the night. It was important that my parking brakes extended out from the wheels so I'd have a good grip to remove them come the following morning. Usually I'd just use a larger rock to knock out the parking rocks. Yep, It was a high tech operation there in the 60's. I'd grab my used ticket box (Army surplus ammo can), securely lock both ends of the tunnel and walk back to the office.

Just a quick note on tickets. The cost for a rides at Woodland park was a Dime (green tickets). All rides in the main kiddeeland were the same price. The train was a dime for kids and twenty cents (orange tickets) for adults. All tickets were torn lengthwise when used and deposited in the ammo cans that had a cut in one end large enough to pass several ticket through at a time. (We had a pretty good wad of tickets from a full train load).

The tickets at the end of the day were not discarded, but dumped into very large plastic bags and returned to the main zoo office of the park. As the kiddeeland was operated as a concession, not directly by the parks department, the used tickets were a double check by the park people as to the volume of tickets sold. The train operator was permitted to directly collect cash train fare, for folks who had not bought tickets from the main ticket booth, but then was required to periodically go to the ticket window and buy tickets, and immediately tear them and deposit the torn tickets into the cans. Those tickets would ALWAYS be the 10 cent Green tickets, as the 20 cent ones passed some threshold and delivered 19 cents to George and 1 cent for a city tax. George sort of worked to avoid 'extra' taxes.

(More Later)

Dad