The Better Slide Rule

THE SPRING 2000 ARTICLE ABOUT calculators (“How the Computer Got Into Your Pocket,” by Mike May) shook loose a memory for me. In 1974 my high school precalculus teacher recommended that we buy slide rules to aid our calculations. Almost all of us ordered and awaited delivery of the mysterious devices. The big day arrived and I expected we’d spend the hour learning the rudiments of our enigmatic new tools. Instead, we crowded around the teacher’s desk to ooh and ahh over his new Texas Instruments SR-50 calculator—his reward for meeting a slide-rule sales quota.

Jerome Elisha
Covington, Wash.

Atom-age Prospecting

AS A NINE-YEAR-OLD, I WITNESSED firsthand the excitement described in Tom Zoellner’s article “The Uranium Rush” (Summer 2000). My family was one of those living in trailers in Moab, Utah, in 1956 while my father drilled core and ventilation holes for Charlie Steen and others. We kids marveled at Steen’s ultramodern castle perched high on the sandstone cliff, and the many prospecting trails provided us with access to the caves and formations that dotted the hills behind the town. The only thing that marred this juvenile wonderland was attending Moab’s single elementary school while a second one was being frantically constructed. The crush of new residents forced the school to schedule double shifts, 7:00 A.M. to noon and 1:00 to 6:00. We all agonized over our fates, either having to rise as early as 5:00 A.M. or being stuck in the classroom until after dark. The romance of the rush thus faded quickly on school days and was rekindled each weekend as we followed the always eager and optimistic prospectors.

Stan Myles
Naples, Italy

Rails Up The Mountain

THE ARTICLE BY JOHN H. WHITE, JR., about the two U.S. cog railways (“East Is West and West Is East,” Summer 2000) gave welcome recognition to both the world’s oldest and the world’s highest cog railways. There are a couple of errors regarding the Manitou & Pikes Peak Railway. First, the sidebar states that the trains are air-conditioned. That is hardly necessary at the altitudes at which they travel; as the conductors are fond of pointing out, the two silver knobs on the windows make it warmer when you push up to close the window and colder when you pull down to open it. Second, the general manager in 1990 was Martin Frick, not Walter Zellermann.

The railroad’s modern operations are a direct consequence of its popularity in one of Colorado’s most important tourist destinations. The historic equipment wouldn’t have a chance of handling today’s traffic and would be quickly worn out in the process of trying to do so. However, four of the steam locomotives have been preserved, two of them on the railroad’s property. One occasionally operates, pushing the elegantly restored wooden coach No. 104. In the late 1930s the railroad’s own shops built their original diesel streamliner, tiny railcar No. 7, when streamlining was popular on other U.S. railroads. No. 7 is preserved, as are several of the first-generation General Electric-built streamlined diesels that followed it. Several of them still operate in work-train service, and GE locomotive No. 9 sometimes pushes GE coach No. 12 to the summit on excursions for railroad and history buffs.

Mr. White indirectly points out one problem with railroad preservation efforts. An authentic historic experience on many U.S. railroads includes dented equipment sitting outside in dirty railroad yards. Preserving historic equipment from further deterioration requires that it be well maintained and stored indoors, out of the elements. Also, the increasing popularity of the largest of U.S. preserved railways calls for well-maintained equipment to reliably handle large numbers of passengers. Should a preserved railroad wear out its most historic equipment in regular service or use more modern equipment for daily operations?

Though it has existed for more than a century, I doubt that the Manitou & Pikes Peak would view itself as a preserved railway. It is a modern transportation system that moves a large number of people to the top of what many consider America’s most famous mountain. Thank you for your efforts in reporting on these two unique railroads.

Claude A. Wiatrowski
Woodland Park, Colo.