Society News

June 6, 2014

2014 Conference – A Great Success!

Posted by: Webmaster

Society Members at MockOur 2014 conference went off without a hitch. Thursday afternoon society members met up at the Pizza Factory in Lone Pine for the meet and greet. Later that evening we reconvened at the Lone Pine Film History Museum for our first round of presentations. Randy Babcock gave a fantastic talk on the progress on locomotive #18 sharing many slides and answering questions about the restoration project. Afterward we were treated to a DVD created by Ed Flemming showing more images and video of the restoration progress.

On Friday, the society met early in the morning for our first field trip to Tinemaha cut and a hike along the grade. The weather made for a nice warm day along the reservoir. After Tinemaha we continued north to Zurich where we drove along the grade south to Beneme, location of the northern end of the post-1928 reservoir realignment. Located here was a wye and a siding up to the site of a mine and quarry in later years. We returned to Zurich for lunch before heading south to Mock. At Mock we explored the remains of the quarry before returning to Lone Pine for the evening programs.

Saturday morning society members met up at the Lone Pine Film History museum before continuing on to Cerro Gordo. Our hosts treated us to a tour of the site and lunch was had in the historic American Hotel. Our society donated $500 to the Friends of Cerro Gordo, along with much welcomed a supply of water and household paper products. Later in the evening we held our annual meeting to attend to society business. Among business of the meeting was the auction of signed watercolor print by John Coker of locomotive #18 at Kearsrage in a custom frame made of siding salvaged from Perlite Car #73. By close, the piece sold for $700 with the proceeds going to fund future society projects. We were also pleased to  announce the winners of our recent election: President: John Friend; Vice President: Dennis Burke; Director at Large: Ellen Grau.

Society Members at Lone Pine Depot

Sunday morning the group met at the Lone Pine depot for a tour by its current owner. Nature was less than cooperative however, and strong winds were in force. After Lone Pine some members took a trip along the ROW of the Jawbone branch to explore the site of Black Rock City from the film Bad Day at Black Rock. From here the conference officially ended.

Look for a more detailed article on the conference in the next issue of the Journal.