Railroad motorcar enthusiasts stop in Yacolt, offer glimpse of railroad history

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YACOLT – An adventurous group of railroad motorcar enthusiasts took to the rails last week, gathering in Yacolt to explore that town’s historic Chelatchie Prairie Railroad on Sept. 15.

“This is a multi-day trip,” explained Dave Balestreri, the tour organizer. “We started on September 11 and end on September 30.”

The group of motorcar operators brought their historic railroad cars – built throughout the 20th century and used as railroad inspection cars until the late 1980s, when they were phased out and replaced by converted pickup trucks – to Yacolt for an excursion that took them from the heart of town to Moulton Falls and back again.

“Today we have 19 people with us,” Balestreri said. “In total, we have 34 people joining us for various parts of the tour.”

The railroad motorcars, which are also known as “Speeders,” were used to inspect rail tracks for defects and to help maintain the nation’s railroad tracks. After the railroads phased out the small, open-air cars for sturdier pickups fitted for traveling the rails, enthusiasts bought the old cars and organized the North American Railroad Operators Association. Today, the association organizes excursions throughout the country. Some of the tours are one-day trips covering 25 miles, while others – like the one that stopped in Yacolt – are multi-day, multi-state tours that cover 1,000s of miles of railroad tracks.

Balestreri, president of the Motorcar Operators West organization, lives in Sacramento, California with his wife, Carol, and owns a restored, 9-person railroad motorcar built in 1984. He says his love of the old inspection cars started about 11 years ago, after he visited a railroad museum and heard about the various motorcar tours.

“This guy told me about a 700-mile trip he’d just come back from, and I knew I wanted to get my own,” Balestreri said.

Within a few months, he and Carol were hooked.

“This is our version of camping and hiking,” Carol Balestreri says, gesturing to the inside of the cherry red railroad motorcar that she and her husband have taken on dozens of railroad tours. “You get to see places that other people never get to see.”

Karl Hovanitz, president of the San Luis Obispo Railroad Museum in San Luis Obispo, California, agreed with Carol. Hovanitz and his wife Stephanie brought their 11-year-old niece, Grace, from Vancouver, along for the Yacolt portion of the railroad motorcar tour.

“You get to see everything up close,” Hovanitz said of the motorcar tours. “We’ve seen some really beautiful parts of the country.”

In fact, most of the motorcar enthusiasts present at the Yacolt station on Tuesday had explored railroads throughout the western United States as well as Mexico and Canada.



“My favorite was probably Alaska,” Carol Balestreri said. “That was a 20-day trip!”

David Olson, of Arizona, was at the Yacolt station Tuesday with his historic railroad motorcar, having just come back from a 5,000-mile tour on the East Coast.

“I’ve been to 31 states and four Canadian provinces so far,” Olson said. “And I’m here for this entire tour. We’re going to Washington, Oregon and Idaho.”

The tour started in Eugene, Oregon and will end up in Cascade, Idaho with trips to nine different railroads in between. Balestreri said the Yacolt stop followed the previous day’s tour of the Mount Hood Railroad, which runs from the Columbia River Gorge in Hood River, Oregon, to the foothills of Mount Hood. On Wed., Sept. 16, the tour moved on, with trips to eastern Oregon and Idaho still ahead.

“We’re really enjoying it,” said Kristi Erakamp. “This is our first time here.”

Erakamp and her husband, John, take their 1941 Fairmont railcar out about six times a year, to join up with various railroad tours in the western United States.

“I’ve always loved trains,” John Erakamp said. “We bought this about seven years ago and fixed it up.”

 

With their open sides and metal construction, the tiny railroad motorcars are not the picture of luxury travel. In fact, most of the participants on last week’s Chelatchie Prairie Railroad tour were bundled up in sweaters, jackets, scarves and hats to keep warm. Still, it was clear from their smiles and laughter, that the group is in love with this historic mode of travel.

“It’s slow, but you see things from a different point of view,” said Stephanie Hovanitz. “It’s a fun way to travel.”

To learn more about the motorcars and their organization, visit Motorcar Operators West at www.MOWonline.org or the North American Railcar Operators Association at www.narcoa.org. For more information about the historic Chelatchie Prairie Railroad, which operates excursion train rides out of Yacolt, visit www.bycx.com