THE TWO FOOTERS                

 The following is a short article which appeared in the May 2005 newsletter for the East Tennessee Chapter, NRHS:

ABINGDON, VIRGINIA – Robert Hankla, 76, has been building large scale trains for 40-45 years.  He has built trains in all sizes from 7.5 inch gauge trains, all the way up to standard gauge motorcars.  One of Hankla’s first trains was the 10-inch gauge Climax shown on the mast head of this newsletter [editor’s note: now shown in photo 9 of this article].  He built this for Dr. Scherr, an allergist in Charleston, West Virginia.  In 1968, Scherr founded Camp Bronco Junction for asthmatic children and he asked Hankla to build a 2-foot gauge train to transport children around the grounds.  Following this, Hankla built a passenger car and a gas-mechanical switcher.  Later he transformed the passenger car into a trolley, and, in 1989, he sold the trolley to Wiley Helton.  The gas-mechanical switcher eventually went to Joe Haigh’s Bear Creek & Western in Pennsylvania.  In 1982, when Camp Bronco Junction closed, Hankla bought back his two-foot gage train and later sold it to a car museum in Strasburg, Virginia.  In the last 15-20 years, Hankla has concentrated on 7.5 & 15-inch gauge trains.  He has built a “Tom Thumb” live-steamer, many trolleys, and several gasoline and battery powered trains.

            Today, Hankla is in the process of selling his home and moving to Madison, Virginia, to live with his youngest son, Paul.  A piece of “park-size” train history will be leaving our area.  But since Hankla’s creations are all over the east coast, his trains will prosper.  Just last year, a North Carolina man purchased a Hankla-built 15-inch gauge train on eBay and has begun building his own railroad.  Who knows how many backyard railroads have been started because of Robert Hankla.  It’s a great hobby and those of us that are in it, owe a great deal to Hankla and his ingenuity.

Hankla’s Two-Foot Gage Creations
 

Photo 11.  Standard Gage Speeder

On Sunday afternoon, September 10, 2006, we experienced a very serious derailment – one that almost closed this operation down for good.

Normally the first trip of an operating day we approach the trestle at High Pass in a north bound direction.  That is we are traveling north from the Shade/Pond area, our "south" terminus to El Pozo the "north" end.  To accomplish this we go up the hill from Shade, through the cut at the top of the hill and out onto the north end of the trestle where the High Pass/Look Out station platform is located.  As we pass the balloon track switch the switchman unloads and sets the switch so that after I finish the stop at High Pass I can get out onto the main line to continue the trip to El Pozo.   The switchman, 14-year-old Micah Mann, after setting the switch proceeds back down the hill on foot setting the switch so that we can go onto the El Pozo line with out stopping.  Consequently, on the second run of the day, we approach the balloon/trestle at High Pass from the south end.

So it was on the second run, after Micah had unloaded to change the switch and I continued up onto the trestle, that the derailment occurred.  Micah said he heard the noise but by the time he turned around it was all over.  The approach, in this direction of travel, is a right hand curve coming out of the turnout with a short tangent and then the left hand curve once on the trestle.  While still on the approach at least two ties on the left hand side at a transition rail joint from 20# to 12# rail had become soft enough so that when the right rear wheel of the locomotive passed over the area it sagged allowing the left front wheel of the locomotive to climb up onto the top of the rail and eventually drop the wheel flange outside the rail.  Instead of traveling straight ahead the locomotive immediately started to turn left before we started out onto the trestle.  When we finally came to a stop the right front wheel of the locomotive was against the inside of the left hand rail and the left front wheel hung in space.  The left corner of the locomotive's front foot board rested on the extreme end of a mile post tie, a regular 4"x6" trestle tie that extends an extra 2' beyond the end of the regular 4' trestle ties.  The locos rear wheels remained on and between the rails.  I feel quite sure had it not been for the fortuitous placement of the mile post tie, M.P.14, the loco would have tipped off the trestle and though only about a 3' drop it would have been the end of the DAPR.  Some time in the loco's bouncing over the ties the riding car, with a load of visitors, fortunately became uncoupled and came to a stop about a foot behind the locomotive.  With the help of Micah we pushed the visitors back out onto the main and road the car down the hill using the hand brake to Shade depot and off loaded the visitors.  I told them I was sorry about the short ride but that we would not charge anything extra for the excitement.

Micah wanted to stay and help with the re-railing and with the tried and true method of jacks, lots of blocks and timbers, come-a-long, chain and re-railing frogs we had the loco back in service in a little over 3 hours.  That evening at supper I told Willa I was going to shut the railway down until we could complete a major track maintenance project.  I had fallen way behind in track maintenance since Casey "retired" two years ago after 14 years as an "employee".  Then late last year Jerry Petrizze retired from his job with KNSD-TV and earlier this year we agreed to work together each Monday alternating between our two places.  We had started to restore a large 2' gauge end dump ore car, to be used to spread ballast between the rails, and that project was completed after the derailment.  We are starting to cut and process ties again, we have a large stock of raw material, we have our first 8-yard pile of crushed concrete ballast and a 360' roll of fiber cloth to place on the road bed under the ties before we place the ballast.  The plan is to completely redo the right of way with at least 2" of ballast under the ties.  We also have 2 tons of 12# rail part of which will allow us to install guard rails on all trestles - a guard rail probably would have kept the locomotive on the trestle ties and not let it get over the edge.

Once the guard rails are installed and the trestle approaches have been upgraded we will resume operation while the rest of the work progresses.

Below are a few photos of the water stand we built to fill our tender for #8.  This way we are able to fill the tender from either the main line or the siding.  Now during our parties, we will no longer need to tie up the main line.

We decided against building the water tower.  With the high cost of concrete,  it turns out that steel is not the only thing that China has affected the price of.  Also, the fact that real estate taxes have gone way up with all the new school levies, we did not want to pay for one more building.  We where told that because it would have a concrete base that we would need permits and would be considered a building.  If that was not enough, the just changed the flood plain rules and that would just add more cost to this project.

As you can se by the attached flyer, we have the tank for sale to a good home.  It was an industrial tank and much thicker than the agriculture one sold as TSC.

20" Gauge Cars for Sale – Contact Chris Sylvester, csylvester@noresco.com, for more detail information

 Plans are being finalized for the trip.  We have about 25 people so far but would like about 15 more to make it worthwhile. Please let us know ASAP so we can finish the bus and hotel reservation.  Dates are August 2 to 5.

The Two Footers
534 Armory Road
St. Marys, PA  15857

tpbauer@alltel.net
or
tom@thetwofooters.com

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This just in: There is about 800 feet of 20 lb-rail if any one is interested contact Tom tpbauer@alltel.net