The Story Of A Cummins Suburban (Lots Of Pics)

[mosesburb]

I guess things are getting a bit boring around this thread as I haven't been doing much except driving this thing lately. So, with that being the case, I will bore you some more with some fantastic pictures of my recent adventure. Actually they are not that fantastic, but hey, maybe it will inspire more people to get their tin in the wind as opposed to having their junk in the driveway.

On with the boredom!! Well, there was some spring break activity around the house so plans were made. Those plans quickly deteriorated as the plans were a bit ambitious for the time given to complete the adventure. I decided to put a plan together to see if some dirt could be put under the BFG's. Success was achieved.

Once upon a time, long, long ago, before the age of highways (or cars for that matter), there was a mining community called Jerome (yeah, the same one as before--what can I say, I like the town). In this town they mined copper. The only way for supplies to get into town and ore to get out was to pack it on mule/burros and haul it out. This is a very expensive way to transport ore (especially when copper prices drop). It was decided that a better way needed to be developed. The better way was a railroad. There was no easy way to get there though. That minor detail did not stop them from building one anyway. So, this railroad had to be narrow gauge because of the terrain it had to traverse. It is claimed that it was the crookedest railroad in the world when it was built--I have not verified this, but in the twelve miles right out of Jerome, there are 126 curves in it just right there, so I would say that it is a plausible statement. When finished it would run about thirty miles over to a town called Jerome Junction (now called Chino Valley) where it met up with the standard gauge railroad.

Sometime after the invention of the motor vehicle and improved road systems, this railroad was deemed obsolete as supplies were brough up through the valley instead of over the mountain (and there were smelters on site at this point), so the tracks were pulled up and it became just another dirt road. Well, this dirt road still exists today, and we ran it (again). The last trip to Jerome came into town from the east, this one comes in from the west.

Ok, enough of the blah, blah. Here are some pics.

The rail road starts out in high desert scrub and is basically just a long straight dirt road. After a while it strts gaining some altitude and starts bending and weaving more. It is a nice narrow shelf road once it hits the hills:



It continues on and there are several narrow cuts through hills/mountains:



Along the way, years ago, I found this thing that I guess would be best described as a culvert. It goes under the rail bed and is made of red rock monoliths.



The craftsmanship of this thing is gorgeous!! This was made to be functional--not aesthetically pleasing, but the men who built it crafted it in such a way that it is amazing to look at. This thing would be a steel tube today. This is all hand finished red rock:



This 45* bend in the abutment is on the downstream side of the culvert. I have no idea why it is there on the downstream side, but it gives an idea of the quality of workmanship involved:



This is the only one that I know of on the line, but it is so hard to find that there may be several more and I just never saw them. It is very well hidden and even knowing where it is, it is very difficult to re-find. Along the trail the color of the rock being driven over changes regularly. In the middle of this pic you can see the rock change from grey to red (right to left was the direction of travel at this point):



Somewhere along the way, my orange Suburban became camouflaged with its surroundings--kind of a rare occurence with an orange vehicle:



That pic was taken with my phone because at some point, in the middle of nowhere my phone goes off. I have a text message. It was the guy filling in for me at work texting me to say he hates the area that I work in and that I need to come back to work so he doesn't have to run it anymore. Well, being the comassionate person that I am, I began taking pics every few minutes and sending them to him. He did not see the humor in it that I did. Some people.

The limestone that was used in the smelter was quarried not too far from town on the railroad. This is near the quarry:



Gratuitous truck shot: (another phone pic)



Well, this gets us close to Jerome. I have pics (and stories) that continue on from here that I can post if anyone would like some additional boredom, but I am out of time for today.