Page 18
Illinois Valley News, Cave Junction, OR Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Lowell and Valina Ford, and ‘Engineer Lowell’ with his railroad hand pumper. (Photos by Bryan Harley)
Kerby couple use tracks for tracts at PS&G RR
By BRYAN HARLEY
Staff Writer
One man’s trash is an-
other man’s treasure.
This proverb has been
taken in hand on Lowell and
Valina Ford’s property.
Their fodder consists of dis-
carded bed frames, bicycle
cranks, washing machines,
truck hubs and abandoned
buildings.
Through Lowell and
Valina’s toil, their 3 acres in
Kerby have been lovingly
crafted into the PS&G Rail-
road. It’s complete with
more than 2,000 feet of
track and more than 30
buildings modeled from a
period in U.S. history when
rail travel was at its peak.
“I bought the property
with the railroad in mind,”
said Lowell.
His appreciation of
trains started as a child.
Growing up in Oakland,
Calif., he often visited the
train station with his father.
In an upstairs room, Lowell
still owns a miniature rep-
lica of a hand-carved train
yard that his grandfather
skillfully constructed, the
menagerie so meticulously
detailed you could sense the
engines chugging and rail
cars rolling down the tracks.
You might say trains have
long been a part of Ford
Family lore.
During a recent tour for
a visitor, Lowell donned his
blue-and-white striped engi-
neer’s cap to further the
sense of nostalgia. From the
shelter of the depot, the first
building of the tour, he
urged caution in walking.
The dark hand-treated
wooden tracks glisten from
the afternoon heat, a few
splintered from wear, but the
majority are expertly placed
and sound.
He pointed out “first
building,” the one with a
ladder balanced against the
steep pitch of the roof, and a
bucket sitting more precari-
ously on top.
“In the roundhouse, if
there’s a spark on the roof,
then they’d get the bucket,”
said Valina, smiling.
Lowell stopped next at
the first of his self-titled
“mystery vehicles.” The
speeder looked fun to ride,
with handlebars, cranks and
chains -- in essence a bicycle
converted to run on rails.
He continued the tour of
what he calls his poor man’s
railroad.
The next vehicle was a
hand-pushed green engine
with yellow striping con-
structed with plywood sides,
the first rolling stock of the
PS&G Railroad.
“PS&G stood for push,
shove, and grunt,” Valina
said, “because that’s what it
took to get it in motion.”
Lowell kept the tour on
schedule.
Next in line was a rep-
lica steam shovel Lowell
made for his son, using one
of his toys for the design.
Complete with a func-
tional front shovel operated
by a complicated sequence
of pulleys, the vehicle can be
rolled anywhere tracks lead.
The steam shovel had a
larger counterpart, Crane
Number Two, the Big
Daddy of the rail yard, with
a lifting capacity Lowell
estimated at approximately
500 pounds. He used it for
moving ties to be treated
before placement, and to
cart firewood in the winter.
The tour passed through
the tangle of trees and lat-
tice-work of lines and laid
tracks to arrive at the rail-
road station, a scaled ver-
sion with the trainmaster’s
room upstairs. Downstairs
are six doors, a baggage
room, a waiting room, and a
dispatcher’s desk.
Siding from the old
Selma store decorates the
outside. Turn-of-the-century
logging and railway photos
of men building fantastic
trestles are tacked on the
wall behind the counter.
Lowell paused at the
next building, a church fash-
ioned after the historic
Golden church near Wolf
Creek, complete with one
pew, the remnants of a pul-
pit from Valina’s childhood
church, and a standing 8-
foot-glass cross, both a win-
dow and adornment.
He professed his pri-
mary reason for his work as
“witness for the Lord,” and
gives Him all the credit.
Lowell led the tour fi-
nally to “Ant 2,” the proto-
type motor-driven engine he
began in the second phase
of the PS&G, aptly dubbed
the Pugetville Summit &
Glendon Railroad for their
home. Started in 1987, it sat
for 14 years after its initial
conception.
Lowell finished fine-
tuning the engine when they
tired of moving the big
green plywood engine
around by pushing, shoving,
and grunting.
Lowell loaded his wood
tracks and his hand pumpers
most recently for their an-
nual public appearance at
the Pottsville Antique Trac-
tor and Engine Show in
Merlin on Father’s Day.
They have attended the
show for the last seven
years.
The hand-pumpers are
manually powered flat carts
where people standing on
opposite sides push the han-
dle up and down in a see-
saw motion, giving the cart
power.
“It would take four men
to load the prototype hand
pumper,” said Lowell.
At Pottsville, Lowell
and Valina were able to give
away some 200 Gospel and
children’s tracts, and many
received rides on the hand
pumper.
The PS&G, currently
the Proclaiming Salvation &
Gospel Railroad, enjoyed a
successful weekend of
reaching out to children.
They plan to take their
show on the road next to the
Illinois Valley Lions’ Club
Labor Day celebration in
Jubilee Park.
The property is not
open to the public, but
Lowell said that it’s OK for
people who want to “talk
railroad” or about PS&G to
contact them.
Pests’ locations sought by Oregon ag
Help in detecting the
presence of two exotic
wood-boring insect pests
that are known to kill trees
in other parts of the country
is sought from the public by
the Oregon Dept. of Agri-
culture (ODA).
The Asian long-horned
beetle and the emerald ash
borer have not been found in
Oregon yet, but the potential
damage they can cause is
prompting ODA to issue an
alert.
“This is the time of year
Asian long-horned beetles
are likely to emerge from
feeding inside tree trunks
and damage by either insect
can be seen,” said Kathleen
Johnson, supervisor of
ODA’s Insect Pest Preven-
tion and Management Pro-
gram.
“These are two pests we
don’t want established in
Oregon. We hope they have
entered the state. But if they
are here, we need to find
them early.”
The Asian long-horned
beetle is native to China and
Korea. Infestations have
been found in Illinois, New
Jersey, and New York and
in Ontario, Canada, leading
to emergency eradication
and quarantine programs.
Currently, the only
known effective means of
eradicating the pest is by
cutting and chipping the
trees. This is often supple-
mented by tree injections of
insecticides.
The Asian long-horned
beetle is black with white
spots, 1 to 1 1/2 inches long
with extra-long black and
white antennae. It attacks
living healthy trees by bor-
ing deep into the bark and
wood.
Adults leave large,
dime-sized holes in the
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trunks, limbs, or exposed
roots of infested branches,
and around tree bases.
The beetle prefers ma-
ples, but will also attack
poplars, willows, fruit trees,
and horse-chestnuts.
The emerald ash borer
has caused extensive dam-
age to ash trees in Michigan
and parts of Indiana, Ohio,
and Ontario, Canada. Adult
beetles are metallic green
and about a half-inch long.
Tree removal is used to
eradicate emerald ash borer.
Signs of the insect in
ash trees include small, D-
shaped emergence holes,
branch or tree dieback with
branch or root sprouting
below the dead tissue, and
serpentine feeding tunnels in
outer sapwood and phloem
layers.
ODA survey techni-
cians are looking for telltale
signs of the wood-boring
beetles. Any members of the
public seeing similar evi-
dence are encouraged to
contact ODA’s Plant Divi-
sion at (800) 525-0137.
Remember -- Monday,
Aug. 22 is the deadline
for your announcements
in the ‘I.V. News’
Community Calendar
Go confidently in the
directions of your
dreams! Live the
life you’ve imagined.
As you live your life,
the laws of the
universe will be simpler.
- Thoreau -
Cause & Effect!
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Saturdays
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phone (800) 922-1025