Good grief! I'd forgotten about this. But was just looking at the calendar page for this month. May 5, 1957, we left the farm, for a jaunt into town. We'd been celebrating two birthdays, those of my brother and grandmother, who were just two days apart. A fine Sunday afternoon. So far... Our reason for heading out? To chase a Casey Jones steam excursion on the Snoqualmie Branch. All was going very nicely, as we paced the train. Their track was parallel to the four lane highway. We were less than fifty feet from the train. Dream scene! BAM!!! Ummm. Slight difficulty- The driver, my dad, forgot about traffic. And rear ended the car in front. Who was also pacing the train. We were doing 40-50mph. My brother and I were in the back seat of our family '51 Ford 4 door. He ended up wedged under the front seat. I flew over the front seat, and hit the dash with my forehead. Wow did I have a lump, and a headache! Dad was bruised and shaken. Mom hit the windshield, and suffered facial injuries. Which a scar recalls to this day, that fateful afternoon... BTW- They made good cars back then. The only damage was two bent bumpers. Fifty years ago. Seems only a month or two instead. Time has flown away... mg: Boxcab E50
WOW! I have that video of one of those excursions to Snoqualmie! There is some pacing shots of the train on that same stretch of U.S. 10, but I didn't see that! Glad you and the family came out ok and weren't more seriously hurt. Nowadays, the speed limit is 70 mph thru there and the old roadbed is now an asphalt trail.
I'll need to look at that video again. That's a Maynard Laing film. See what the date is that Greg lists. Believe it might be from more than one chase. There were sevral Casey Jones trips to North Bend. If memory is correct, over a couple of years. I do have one very lousy scan of a faint photo taken from inside our car. That was on their outbound (eastward) morning trip. Same place... Warren Wing has a shot of that same train crossing the old US 10 Issaquah trestle. Taken only minutes later. BTW- The Hundman NP book (page 66?) misidentifies Issaquah trestle as Fall City. It's not! I know that line intimately. I saw both of those bridges, nearly every day, from my birth, until their removal. BTW- West of the power lines over I-90 at Preston, the access road between High Point and Preston is atop, or partially atop the old NP r-o-w. Until the road curves around the houses at High Point. That same section where we had our accident. At the west end of that road tangent, if you look closely in the reeds and East Fork of Issaquah Creek, is a rotting little RR bridge. We were right next to that, when, bang..... West of that little bridge, the old r-o-w is under the west bound lanes of I-90, to Exit 20 at High Point. The paved trail starts at the east end of that tangent. Where the old Wentworth Dairy Farm was located. Boxcab E50
