Restoration Hobbyists Are Loco for Locomotives

It all started out as child’s play, with model railroads in garages or basements and little black locomotives that puffed smoke and went “choo, choo.”

But for guys such as James Carpi and Robert Daum, both of Glendale, the childhood pastime did not fade away with the advent of cars and girlfriends.

These kids have grown up. And so has their hobby.

They rescue broken-down railroad passenger cars from storage yards and work for years putting them back in the condition the cars enjoyed when the locomotive was king of transportation.

“Owning your own (railroad) car is the ultimate in a love affair with the train,” said Daum, who first caught the bug from his father, a train mechanic who repaired refrigerated rail cars and trailers for the Pacific Fruit Express.

Daum, a water systems mechanic for the city of Glendale’s Water Department, owns a 44-seat coach that once traveled between Los Angeles and Chicago on the Union Pacific Railroad. He bought it for $18,000 and may spend as much as $100,000 on it before he’s done.

Daum also helps Carpi on his car, the “Rapidan River.” The sleeping car, built in 1949 by Pullman Standard of Chicago, once carried passengers from New York to New Orleans for the Southern Railway. Carpi hopes to put it back on the rails by leasing it to groups for railroad nostalgia trips.

The Rapidan River is kept on an old industrial spur in North Hollywood, a piece of railroad track that once served heavy industry in the area and is now leased on a monthly basis.

With a soiled stainless steel exterior and battered interior, the car does not look like much. But Carpi believes it is basically sound inside and out.

The train car was retired in 1982, after which it sat in a St. Louis car yard until someone bought it and had it moved to La Mirada. Carpi and a friend, Jim Eldridge, bought it there last year at an estate sale. They won’t say how much they paid, but it’s not unusual for a car to fetch $15,000 or more.

Carpi, who formerly worked in his family’s printing business, is now devoting his time exclusively to the train car.

Carpi, Eldridge and Daum, assisted by a team of paid and volunteer workers, are refinishing the car’s 10 roomettes (which contain one fold-down bed and a toilet) and six bedrooms (which contain bunk beds with tiny bathrooms and 8-inch-wide closets).

The car’s old-fashioned steam-vapor heating system will have to be replaced, as will the 1940s-era 64-volt electro-mechanical power system.

“Just putting all the overhead lights on at one time strains it,” Eldridge said.

A hodgepodge of mismatched carpeting and wallpapers will be redone. So will the in-room ice water delivery pipes and the call system for summoning the porter, plus the brakes, batteries, springs, bearings and other mechanics underneath the car. A sanitation system will have to be installed to replace pipes that used to flush directly from the toilets onto the tracks.

Steve Ablonczy, who has worked on passenger-car restorations for local owners for five years, will rebuild the interior walls, ruined when the car’s pipes froze during a Missouri winter.

Train buffs work together, helping each other by trading parts and period fixtures. And they also compete, getting to know each other’s work at association meetings and trade fairs.

The hobby is both costly and time-consuming.

“It’s sort of like owning a yacht--you have to have a lot of money to put into it, you have to find a place to park it and then you have to work on it,” said Jim Walker, vice president of Interurban Press, a Glendale publishing company.

Upgrading a car structurally to make it compatible with modern rail standards can cost $35,000 or more, Walker said. The mechanical system, electric power and interiors can raise the total outlay to as much as $150,000.

“This is like a great big black hole you pour money into,” said Eldridge, a salesman. He insisted, however, that train-car owners are not all independently wealthy.

Many do not take vacations or have other leisure activities. They just work on the cars and put all their spending money into fixing them up.

“It starts off as a hobby, everybody works on it, then it turns into something else,” Eldridge said. “It’s like an old work bee, with five or six car owners that work together to solve problems.”

The ultimate aim of train-car owners is to lease their treasures out for private train rides that cater to the rich and famous.

“They’re like land cruises, with five-star service, gourmet food and luxurious surroundings,” Eldridge said.

The American Assn. of Private Railroad Car Owners lists about 55 cars in its Private Car Charter Referral Directory for 1991. There may be several hundred other cars in the hands of private owners, Daum said.

Daum said most private car owners arrange the trips themselves, but some specialized travel agencies know about private train trips and set them up.

Realistically, though, Walker said that train enthusiasts can hardly hope to recover their investments, let alone make money on their hobbies. The private trips and special parties are very expensive to run and the demand for them is limited, he said.

So why don’t these railroad nuts stick to the much cheaper model trains that can be stored in the attic?

Trains, they say, are a part of history, a reminder of a slower, more gracious era when people traveled to see the country--not blast over it in a jetliner.

“I don’t like flying very much,” Carpi said. “It may take a little longer, but on the trains you see so much more.”

As if to emphasize his point, Carpi paid no attention to a jetliner from Burbank Airport that roared deafeningly overhead.

But a few minutes later, when the ground started rumbling faintly and a distant clanging sound was heard, Carpi stopped in mid-sentence and rushed to a nearby fence.

“Train!” he shouted and joined a line of fellow devotees, eyes riveted on the freight train that chugged slowly by.