Photographs here are from the Ron V. Nixon collection at the
Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, Montana, and are copyright
by
same. Please visit there to view more of the collection, or
contact them for a beautiful, high resolution print.
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I
had intended to post here a brief history of a steam engine, Northern
Pacific 1356, but I find it's impossible to write about that engine
without also writing about my father, photographer Ron V. Nixon. He is,
in a way, a part of her history, or she's a part of his. Including him
makes this, for me, a personal story. But maybe all train stories are
in some way personal.
For those who want "just the facts," here are some:
The Northern Pacific Railroad came to Missoula in 1883,
the primary event that changed a town of 300 to a city of 12,000 people
by 1920. In 1901, traffic was growing and the railroad needed motive
power. The 1356, one of fifty new engines from Baldwin Works, arrived
in 1902 and was first assigned to the North Coast Limited between
Missoula and Spokane. Her longest stretch of service was on the Coeur
d'Alene Local between Missoula and Wallace, Idaho. She is said to be
one of the rescue engines from Wallace in the 1910 fire. She put in
over a million miles of service, working every branch line on the Rocky
Mountain Division, until her last run on June 16, 1954. When the
diesels came she was sent to Tacoma to go under the torch, but the NP
gave her to the city of Missoula and brought her back home. On November
10, 1955, she was dedicated to the city with a brass band and speeches.
For over fifty years now she's been at home in front of the old NP
depot at the end of North Higgins Avenue.
Tales of her life are many, because the 1356 was
everywhere on the Rocky Mountain Divison. This is where her history and
my father's entwine. In the Ron V. Nixon collection at the Museum of
the Rockies, there are shots of the 1356 helping clear tracks of snow
in the high country; of a bridge that collapsed during the 1910 fire
just after the 1356 took her rescue run across it. He photographed her
on all the branch lines--in Polson, on the Couer d'Alene local
(Missoula to Wallace) run, going from Missoula to Butte, on the Marent
Trestle. In 1943, the 1356 attempted a bridge over the Bitterroot
River, not knowing that a span had been washed out. She went in the
drink, then the wrecker went in on top of her. It took three weeks to
get her out, and six months in the Livingston shops to get her running
again. The photographs are all there.
He photographed her last run, helping a 19-car
Mainstreeter to the top of Evaro Hill, and took pictures when she was
being hauled to South Tacoma to go under the torch. Then he went to his
job at the depot, got on the telegraph key, and continued his petition
to save her until the Northern Pacific agreed and revoked her execution
orders, prettied her up, and brought her home.
My father was not employed by the Northern Pacific as a
photographer, though he did have occasional formal assignments. His
full time job was as wire chief in the Missoula depot, where he worked
an eight-hour shift, six days a week. Photography was his other love,
along with trains, but it happened mostly on his own time.
Why so many pictures of The 1356? It's not that he was
obsessed with her in particular. He was obsessed with trains, period:
specifically, steam engines. He took pictures of trains from the age of
5 and continued to do so throughout his life. His collection numbers
over 30,000 photographs, the vast majority of trains. The 1356 wasn't
his favorite engine, although she was certainly high on the list. I
think if he had a favorite, it was probably 2626 (The Four Aces). The
1356 did have the number one spot in my uncle Maynard's heart, but
neither of my father's brothers worked for the railroad or travelled on
the trains like he did.
Which leads us to the question: what earns 200,000 pounds
of steel a place in a human heart?
For my father, I can guess at some of the answers but I'll
never know all of them. In part, I think it was because his heart and
mind were as wide as the country and the trains he loved, and I think
shooting them, recording them, satisfied some need to validate who he
was.
For me, the most obvious answer to why I care about
trains, is that they, in a way, keep him alive. The 1356's story is a
tale of redemption, of being snatched from the jaws of death. The 1356
to me represents my father's pioneering spirit, his penchant for going
after things, just doing it. It also has to do with his ability to
place a value on what he did in life, and the way that's represented in
his work--not only his photography, but his excellence as a railroader,
which is legendary. I like to have the spirit of these things hanging
around, and if for me they're embodied in a 200,000 pound inanimate
steel object, so be it.
But the love of trains goes deeper than that, as I suspect
it does for a lot of us, and here's one of the reasons: Trains
represent the ability to dream, invent, imagine. At what point in human
history, after discovering how to make fire, did we realize that we
could also produce steam, and begin to imagine steam would propel us
across a new continent into a wilderness? Trains are a concrete example
of the way inventing, imaging, can become reality, and the ways in
which that reality can then open up new doors, different worlds, wider
vistas. Someone realized that steam would propel an engine. Because of
that someone else found themselves in the wilderness, and the
wilderness eventually became a city called Billings or Missoula or
Seattle. Magic.
Which is one of the reasons kids love trains. Kids
believe in magic, and trains are a simple and possible magical
adventure. They roll along on wheels, they go on their tracks, just
like they're supposed to, child propelled, and they open up the world.
Definitely, I've gone astray from "A Brief History of The
1356!" But, any history worth knowing connects to human value--which is
why the 1356 is important, because standing in front of the old
Missoula depot as she has these many years, she still represents some
things that matter: magic and adventure.
If you'd like the straight scoop about The 1356, with
photographs and
no philosophy, the R. V. Nixon essay, Tales of a Ten-Wheeler,
originally appeared in the August, 1956 issue of Trains magazine. That might be a
bit hard to find, but the Summer, 2006 issue of The Mainstreeter, the Northern
Pacific Railway Historical Association's publication, ran an article on
the occasion of her 50th anniversary in Missoula, also titled "Tales of
a Ten-Wheeler." That issue is available through the NPRHA, and is accompanied by
an excellent selection of R. V. Nixon photographs, including all on
this page.
Jeannine Nixon
Missoula, Montana
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