The Feather River Route

Errata for Feather River Route, Volume I

The following errata page was included in Volume II of the Feather River Route. Of course, if you were unable to get your hands on that volume you never saw the errata section for the first volume. And to my knowledge about 800 of you never purchased the second volume. Why? Because the publisher, in reasons still mysterious, saw fit to print 800 fewer copies of Volume II then Volume I.

So for those of you who are in that fickle position, I offer below the errata page for Volume I that was published in Volume II.

While I spent literally hundreds of hours researching the material for volumes I and II and proof reading manuscripts and printer's blue lines, inevitably, either typos or an occasional wrong piece of information crept into the text for each volume.

The world is full of nitpickers, but if it were not for these individuals who spot erroneous facts historical research would suffer indeed. To that end I would like to thank the few dedicated readers who took the time to write me and point out the discrepancies they noted. Below are corrections to take note of in volume I.

- Ken Rattenne


Errata for Volume I

Page 13: Division Street Tower was reportedly a Southern Pacific tower, not a Santa Fe tower, according to former WP employee John C. Miller. The tower was built to protect SP's former main line to San Jose, which pre-dated their Bayshore Cutoff. By the time of the photo on page 13, this line was mostly downgraded industrial trackage.

On the other side of the coin, author and WP historian Ken Meeker states in his article "Historic Niles Tower Closes" (Pacific RailNews 5-86, p10) that Division Street Tower protected a crossing with the Santa Fe. I would appreciate hearing from anyone who can verify either report.

Page 18: The story related on this page was not by Joe Way, but was told to Norman Holmes by Bud Taber. The story was uncredited when it first appeared in print.

Page 51: The WP freight house in San Jose was opened for business on May 1, 1922, not 1953.

Page 54: The uncredited photo on this page is by Tom Taylor. A production glitch is reportedly responsible for the omission of Tom's byline.

Page 103: Engine #22 is not a Mikado but a Consolidation.

Page 103: The photo of U30B 754 on the California Zephyr was taken by Jim Lekas. The original print had no name and Joe Strapac of Shade Tree Books could not remember where it had come from; Jim came forward to claim the honor. He also contributed several more photos for Volume II. (Jim also mentioned that another passenger shooting photos that day was future Southern Railway and Amtrak president Graham Claytor.)