SAMOA, Calif. — A massive amount of lumber was needed to rebuild San Francisco in the wake of the devastating 1906 earthquake and much of that lumber was transported by railroad from the redwood forests in Humboldt County.
Felling massive redwoods and loading them on trains required tough lumberjacks. The job was not just dangerous but deadly, and there were no ambulances. There were, however, railroad speeder cars.
“Extreme physical labor and extreme danger, and they had these crew cars if they needed to run someone back to camp,” said Thaddeus Wuest with the Timber Heritage Association.
From spring to fall, the Timber Heritage Association offers speeder car rides down different sections of Humboldt County’s old logging tracks.
“At one time there were 53 different independent railroads,” said Wuest.
Speeder cars were like the utility vehicles of the tracks. As their name suggests, speeder cars were not only fast moving but fast-acting because they were generally gas-powered instead of steam-powered.
“A steam locomotive... we are talking four or five hours to come up to steam to move on the tracks as to where these speeders are, they are gas engines and you could fire them right up and get out there,” said Wuest.
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The largest Timber Heritage Association speeder car is actually a crew car, which hauled several workers up to the forest early in the morning so they could cut log before the steam trains arrived.
“Traditionally, you will see speeder as short two-people vehicles. This one was built to take the whole gang out there,” said Wuest.
If you want to see what smaller speeder cars look like, volunteer Joseph Oliver will show you one at the Timber Heritage Museum, which has a whole line of different speeders under restoration. As primitive and as dangerous as they looked, speeder cars were much less labor-intensive than handcars, which were human-powered and very impractical for long distances.
“It could be 20 miles or 100 miles. The railroads here were long and went through mountains,” said Oliver.
Today, the Timber Heritage speeder cars are limited to the remaining historic tracks, which are just a few miles long but very scenic. Passengers get a good look at Humboldt Bay and vehicles along Highway 101 get a unique look at the speeder cars.
“We get a lot of honks and a lot of waves along the way,” said Wuest.
They are not as big and powerful as locomotives but there is something special about cruising along in an open-air speeder car.
Check out the Timber Heritage Association website for speeder car ticket reservations and tour dates of the museum.
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