Depot Memories

I never really noticed it that awful much when I was growing up. I mean, I knew it was there, but it had nothing to do with me or my life..Yet. I was more interested in the vacant lot across Green Street where we would gather as teens and hang out, planning our escapades for the evening. Not even when I talked the engineer on a set of light engines into letting me come up on an engine in 1973 at the crossover did I really notice it. But when I pulled up Friday night, June 13th at about 11pm I sure noticed it. Or what it now was. A pile of charred wood and disfigured metal with one wall still standing. The Tehachapi depot was gone.

I went to work for Southern Pacific Railroad in May of 1979 and first stepped inside the depot that summer. I really didn't think much about it at that time and it was the last time I would be in it until May of 1984 when I went to work on the "peanut" gang (a three man gang with no foreman, just a "Lead Signalman") in Tehachapi. I would share the building for the next 25 years with some very colorful characters. Whether Track, whose office was in the center of the building or the Signal department in the northeast corner of the building, many people called that place home during my career there.

Bill Stokoe: My first Signal Supervisor who later became my friend, mentor and benefactor. He was a true railroad buff. He loved his job and it showed. He was a good signalman and a good man. He always asked about our families and had our kids come down and measure their growth on a door facing of the south wall of the signal office. He once took my step daughter out to Summit and put her on the head end of the work train so she could ride back into town in an engine. He was larger than life and to this day John Wayne makes me think of him. He passed away in 1999 and I miss him.

Phyllis Sparks: She actually ran the place in the 80s as a clerk. Nobody gave her any crap even though she was one of the nicest people I have ever known and someone I have kept in contact with. When I bought my 85 T-Bird I told her about the financing I was doing. When I came in that afternoon she had found a better deal and arranged everything. All I had to do was call and verify some info. She is the one who told me about the Challenger explosion when I came in for lunch that terrible day.

John Sparks: Phyllis' son and one of my closest friends and co workers for ten years. He taught me how to make sense of circuit plans and how to plan work logically so as never to bite off more than we could chew. We had some awesome times, many doing things that would have gotten us fired had we been caught!

Keith Drinnon: He was a Roadmaster. The boss of the track forces up there during the 90s. He was young, loud, cocky, short, stocky, bombastic and a great deal of fun if he liked you (which he did me) and very intimidating if he didn't. There was no doubt about who was in charge when he was around.

Roger Ricou: He took over when Bill retired in 1989. Short, fat, dour, pessimistic and incredibly brilliant. We butted heads on almost everything until 1997 when I went to Maintenance Foreman from Gang Foreman. All of the sudden I was his friend and confidant and remained that way through his retirement(I put together and MC'd his party)and through his death in 2005.

Don Ehler: His dad worked in the Superintendents office in Bakersfield when it was still a division HQ. We all thought he was a snitch when he came to work with us, but after the first week of him and me carpooling to Palmdale and drinking both ways, I knew he was OK. I was right. Today he is my best friend.

I could go on for hours, but these are a few who stand out in my mind. All shared the inner sanctum of that venerable building with its green interior of redwood tongue and groove. It's heavy wooden stairs leading from the offices to the upper shops through what I always thought of as secret passages to which the public were not privy. The heavy sliding doors of the upper shops. The front shop with its huge freight scale last tested and balanced in the 50's and still dead assed accurate the last time I weighed myself on them in about 2000. Its beam and weights were solid brass.

The back shop was the signal departments and that was where we kept gate parts and the big workbench. Back in my band days we actually set up in that shop and did some recording while Keith watched us and made sure we didn't burn anything down! I spent many an hour at night building gates to take to the crossing at Monolith, my biggest hitter where broken gates were concerned. I also built about a million track batteries in that shop. Geez! We don't even use those anymore except in very remote locations.

The lower shop was on the north side of the building at ground level and it too belonged to the signal dept. We stored our tools and pole line equipment in that room.

Some time in the late 80's the old wrap around deck on the west and north ends of the building were removed for safety reasons. It made the building look like someone had taken its pants off.

The restrooms were both in the signal office and were side by side replicas. The ceilings were twelve feet tall (as were all the ceilings in the building) and both sported dual handle sinks with little mirrors with the old safety stickers that said "You are looking at the person most responsible for your safety". There were also the requisite "writings on the wall". One that always comes to mind was obviously penned by a trainman..It said "Uphill slow, Downhill fast, Tonnage first, Safety last".

In the signal office sat three desks. Bill's desk (we called it that even after he retired) sat at the window facing north overlooking the tracks and 'H' Street, the Gang desk looked out the east windows at Green Street and the Maintainers desk sat against the south wall between the restroom doors. The old circuit plan(we call them prints)cabinet sat against the east wall of the office and was my seat until I became the Lead Man on the peanut gang then later the Tehachapi Maintainer. I would sit on that old print cabinet and watch the morning rituals of the railroad go on around me, involving myself when necessary, but preferring to just take it all in as I prepared myself mentally for the day.

It was common practice to go outside and "roll" trains by as they passed and some mornings there would be so much train traffic that it was impossible to get anything done so we would forego the roll-byes once in awhile. The tracks were about 20 feet from the depot and talking on the phone was impossible if a train were passing so it was common to just pick up the phone if it rang and say "Call right back".

There were three phone lines in the depot and when Bill Stokoe was still there and someone in the track office would answer a phone and it was for Bill, whoever answered would shout "Stokoe"! and every track man in the office would follow with a chorus of "POOOOOOOOT". We all laughed every time and it went on for years!

The Tehachapi district, and thus the depot, was part of my territory until early 2000 when my district limits were changed. I would still go on the occasional trouble call on "The Mountain", but rarely needed to go to the depot and I have never even been in the new shop up there.

As the years passed the building began falling into disrepair. The railroad's Bridges and Buildings department no longer worked on buildings and the water service department no longer did plumbing in company buildings so managers(as supervisors were called after the SP-UP merger)were left to try and maintain their offices with their material budgets, something none were loathe to do, and things just got worse for the Tehachapi Depot. About 2004 construction began on a new office on the northeast corner of 'H' and Green Streets (the depot sat on the southwest corner of Green and Tehachapi Blvd) and in 2005 operations were moved to that building and the old Depot was granted to the City of Tehachapi to become the centerpiece of the restored downtown area. It was almost finished last week when the fire struck.

I heard about it on the Friday morning conference call. It was a busy day for me on my own district, but about 1pm my boss called and asked if I wanted to work on repairing all the signal lines and cables that were damaged in the fire (our pole line was directly over the building). I said OK and went home to rest for the night of work ahead of me. I arrived about 11pm. The smell of the fire was still very heavy in the air. I couldn’t really see much in the dark and I went to work bypassing the melted mess of cables and wires. Two of the men I was working with had also worked out of the old depot at one time or another and we traded stories about things that had happened to us there.

It was a long night and when the eastern sky began to glow, I was almost apprehensive of the coming light. I almost didn't want to see the aftermath. Just working next to the only standing wall left with 4x4s keeping it from falling on us, was bad enough. But like it or not, the sun rose and the damage was there in front of me. "Burned to the ground" is the term used for such a fire, but actually, the heavy wooden foundation of the upper shops was still there. What was left of the scales, tubing, pipes, wires. It was all there in a twisted mass. The sub floor of the lower level exposed for the first time since 1904. I'll bet there are some pretty cool trinkets down there waiting to be found.

As corny as it sounds, it was like losing an old friend, or acquaintance at least! All the history of that building. All the memories of all the people still alive that had worked in, on or around it. The knowledge of what was in there. The marks still on the jambs (last time I looked) of the heights of Cassie and Pam (my girls), Brandy and Robbie Baines and Missy and Robbie Hollett. Who knows what notes on some job written on a wall somewhere and who knows what else in there that meant something to someone? All the work of the City folks, paid and volunteers, who labored to re create the glory days of that building. Truly blood, sweat and tears.

Later Saturday morning I took a break and walked across the street to Kelcy's Restaurant for some breakfast. Every single person who walked in had something to say about the blackened heap across the street. Some were questions, some comments. I heard a waitress talk about some person who had come in earlier in tears. Well, it didn't have THAT big an effect on me, but there is a place in my memory that is now forever changed. They say they are going to rebuild the depot, but it will just be a replica. The real depot will just have to live on in my mind.

My Depot Memories - motopoet's Blog - Tehachapi News

Depot Memories