The Slice: On the Lookout for trains

I don’t want to call it a day on the subject of hearing trains before sharing a North Idaho reader’s recollection.

It just might transport you back in time.

“I haven’t heard a train from my house for many years,” wrote Art Anderson, who is old enough to remember a bygone era. “I live in Mullan. The trains stopped years ago and the tracks were pulled up. The roadbed west of Mullan is now the east end of the Centennial Trail.

“When I was a child though, I did hear the train. The track east from Mullan ran up the mountains alongside the Silver Valley, over Lookout Pass into Montana and on to points east.

“The roadbed snaked up the mountain chain; around the outside of the hills, then back into the draws and then back again, over and over.

“The trains back then were pulled by steam locomotives. I would lie in my bed at night and listen to the chug-chug of the steam locomotives working their way up to Lookout.

“I would listen as the chugging got louder and louder as the train rounded the mountain. Then it would get progressively softer and softer as it went into the draw until it wasn’t there at all.

“Then it would softly re-emerge, get louder and louder and then softer and softer, then silent again. It did this all the way up to Lookout.”

And even though those steam engines are gone, Art can still hear them climbing into the night.

Today’s Slice quiz: I’ll send a coveted reporter’s notebook to at least one reader who can correctly name the world’s fair that opened on this date (and, for the public, on April 28).

No, it’s not Expo ’74. Though there was a big march in the other Washington on this day in 1974, with protesters calling for Richard Nixon’s impeachment. That was just a week before he came to Spokane to open our fair.

Today’s Slice question: What local dog has logged the most hours on boats?