#railriders

Running on the tracks of the Joseph Branch of the Wallowa Union Railroad, Railrider Cycling: Joseph Branch has offered railbike excursions in and around Joseph, Oregon since 2015. The three routes currently on offer collectively form one of three operations in the Northwest established by Kim and Anita Metlen, the pioneers of organized railbiking in Oregon and Washington. I rode the two routes described below on the weekend of June 16th and 17th, 2019, they have already added another.

Vitals

Phone: (541) 786-6149 or (541) 605-8295

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://jbrailriders.com/

Check-in Locations

Jospeh to Enterprise: 501 W Alder Street, Joseph, OR

Minam to Wallawa and Minam to Rondowa: 72601 Highway 82, Minam, OR

The Site

Railrider Cycling: Joseph Branch offers three separate and distinct rides, each on a regular schedule.

Check-in for the Joseph to Enterprise ride is at a baby-barn office on the edge of Joseph (see Travel Notes below for more details), where I was greeted by the Site Manager Robert Nichols and a Guide named Marshall, a true local whose family also offers horseback excursions in the surrounding mountains.

The Minam to Wallowa ride starts from a turnoff along Oregon Route 82, beside the Minam Store outfitter. I was the only rider on the day I pedalled this route, and my guide Zane was a young, fit football player just out of high school. We surely broke the course record that day.

Since my time there, they’ve added a third route from Minam to Rondowa, running in the opposite direction as the Minam to Wallowa ride.

As noted above, the three routes described here are part of a larger family of railbike tours founded by Kim and Anita Metlen, who deserve great admiration for the work they’ve done to promote cycling and recreation in the Northwest.

The Site Manager Robert Nichols notes that, “our branch options are so much fun because they are such a simple and enjoyable way to get away from it all. A few minutes of pedaling and you can escape the day to day craziness and enter into peaceful wilderness.”

The Routes

The Joseph to Enterprise 12-mile (19.3 km) round-trip runs through open farmland surrounded by the snow-capped Wallowa Mountians. The Minam to Wallowa 26-mile (42 km) round-trip runs through the Wallowa River canyon and includes a lunch break in Wallowa. On each route, riders can expect to see local fauna; I saw osprey, killdeer, deer, and snakes.

(Joseph to Enterprise)

(Minam to Wallawa)

The line was initiated in 1890 by the Oregon Railway Extensions Company as a branch from the Union Pacific mainline from La Grande to Elgin, then extended to Joseph in 1905-1908 by the Oregon Railway & Navigation Company, totaling 63 miles (101 km). The line was intended to move timber from the dense forests of the region, but passenger service was offered as well. Ownership of the line was eventually transferred by consolidation to the Union Pacific Railroad in steps in 1910 and 1936, which operated mixed freight and passenger service until the 1960s (see the image just below) and freight from local timber operations until it was sold as a shortline to Rio Grande Pacific in 1993. In 2003, Elgin to Joseph tracks came under the ownership of the newly formed Wallowa Union Railroad Authority, which currently oversees freight and Eagle Cap excursion trains and, of course, railbikes.

(1960 Timetable, found at trainweb.org)

The Vehicles

While all of the Railriders Cycling sites use a variant of the Railriders aluminum-framed and polyurethane-wheeled concept, Joseph Branch stands out in that they only run two-seater tandem vehicles. Site Manager Robert Nichols described some of the modifications they made to the original design, which are generally found in the nuts-and-bolts details providing increased reliability with decreased maintenance. Robert also notes that, “our retractable seatbelts are really handy, and...our brakes and the placement of where we have the handle works well and is convenient for our guests.”

See the image below of the Joseph to Enterprise guide vehicle, which has been outfitted with electric assist (compare to the vehicles at the Skunk Train). Also of interest is that Railriders Cycling sourced their own wheels. When writing about railbiking in Buffalo Creek, West Virginia, I noted that they had replaced the front wheels with cast-iron Speeder wheels to prevent them from climbing up the tracks and derailing in tight curves. This was accomplished on the Minam to Wallowa route by molding a harder compound of polyurethane (below in orange).

Travel Notes

I visited Joseph as part of a trip through the Northwest, from the Amtrak stop in Pasco, Washington and the neighboring Tri-Cities and inland port on the Columbia River. While Greyhound offers service to Joseph, neither transit nor cycling fit into my tight weekend schedule, so I opted to travel the 292-mile (470 km) round trip by rental car. The scenery along the ride was impressive, through farmlands, forest, high-desert scrub, around the the majestic Nine Canyon Wind Farm, and ultimately along the tracks of the Joseph Branch.

Joseph, formally a city of population 1,081 (what we’d call a hamlet in NY), is at the core of a region rich in outdoor activity, including hiking and horseback riding in the Wallowa Mountains, boating in Wallowa Lake, and fishing and kayaking on local rivers. I also saw rodeo grounds by the start of the railbike tour. The city caters well to visitors and includes art galleries, cafes and beerhalls and was recognized by the New York Times as the Oregon town to “try next.” From experience, I can recommend the Stein Distillery and the Jennings Hotel, which I booked on AirBnB.

6 miles (10 km)  south of Joseph is is the must-see, must-do, must-ride Walowa Lake Tramway aerial cable car 3700 ft (1128 meter) ascent to the top of Mount Howard. Beyond the outdoor restaurant atop one can find paths leading to views of the lake and surrounding mountains, plus joyful creatures looking for treats.

Tyler Wade

Moosic, PA (April 2017) - Tyler Wade hits a single.

The North Pend Oreille (”pon-der-ay”) Valley (NPOV) Lion’s Club Rail Riders commenced their second season of railbiking on the tracks of the Pend Oreille Valley Railroad on the weekend of June 15th and 16th, 2019. Running six full weekends through the season, this all-volunteer run service organization dedicates itself to betterment of the community of Ione and the “Forgotten Corner” of northeast Washington.. I pedalled the route though the valley from Ione on June 15th, 2019.

Vitals

Phone: 844 RAIL RIDE (844-724-5743)

Email: [email protected]

Website: https://lionsrailriders.com/

Check-in Address: 101 Railroad Ave, Ione, WA 99139

The Site

Check-in is at the station in the small village Ione, which formerly served the NPOV Lion’s Club excursion train (and across a parking lot from a bar and grille).

While the history of the line is summarized below, I’ll also share this direct quote from the NPOV Lions Club, describing the contributions they’ve made to the region over the years.

In 1981, NPOV Lions Club started a train ride...with a single flat car, wooden benches with chicken wire fencing...that carried 60 passengers along the scenic Pend Oreille River from Ione to Metaline Falls. The success of the ride over the years had increased to 7 train cars (including a caboose!) and ridership to over 10,000 guests each season. From humble beginnings, North Pend Oreille Valley Lions Excursion Train Ride rolled to a stop after 35 years of providing family fun on October 23, 2016.

This created a new challenge for NPOV Lions Club.  Funds raised from the train ride supported local, regional, and international projects. Nothing could replace the train but NPOV Lions now have a new, exciting, family fun event…RAIL RIDERS!

The Route

The initial route is a 6-mile (9.7 km) round trip from the Ione station along the river to the turnaround at the trestle overlooking the magnificent Box Canyon Hydroelectric Dam. Upon return to the station, riders are offered an additional 3-mile (4.8 km) round trip through farmlands and forest south of Ione.

The line was originally constructed from 1909 to 1911 as the Idaho and Washington Northern (I&WN) to carry lumber and cement from the valley to larger, mainline markets. I cannot readily find evidence of passenger service, although it is easy to imagine that locals used the freight services as connections to mainline passenger services. Through various financial transactions, operation of the line was taken over by the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad before being sold to the Milwaukee Road, who ran the line from 1916 until bankruptcy in 1979. This was followed by the public creation of the Port of Pend Oreille, which took over maintenance and operation of the newly named Pend Oreille Valley Railroad (POVA).

While the new venture initially served cement, newsprint and lumber operations, the NPOV Lions Club began running excursion trains in 1981. These trains ran a slowly expanding fleet until the cost of regular line inspections led to the 2016 discontinuance of rail service in the northern part of the line, opening the opportunity for railbiking, which commenced in 2018. Freight operations and the Newport Priest River Rotary Club SPORT (Scenic Pend Oreille River Train) continue further south on the line.

The Vehicles

As seen in many railbiking operations around the country, the NPOV Lions built their own bike based on the Railriders aluminum-framed and polyurethane-wheeled design. Lion Larry Pollack showed me the design and construction modifications he and the rest of the Lions made, including converting bolted connections to welds and moving the front wheels and axles to to the extreme front of the vehicles.

Moving the wheels to the front logically offers increased vehicle stability, but also created the challenge of decreasing seat adjustment range, potentially affecting taller riders. Larry explained that he has plans to deal with this and I look forward to seeing his next design update.

Travel Notes

I travelled to Ione as part of a trip through the Pacific Northwest while staying in Spokane, Washington. I didn’t see any good options for using public transit to reach Ione from Spokane for a day trip. Also, given that Ione is 85 miles (137 kms) north of Spokane, it would have been impractical to cycle there and back in the time I had, so I opted for a rental car. The drive was impressively scenic, running through hills and farmlands and ultimately paralleling the Pend Oreile River and Railroad. Nearby attractions include the Seattle City Light Boundary Dam and the Tiger Historical Museum.

The cultural and entertainment offering in Spokane (note to fellow North-Easterners: it’s apparently pronounced Spo-can) far exceed expectation with classic spots such as the Davenport Hotel and contemporary offerings such as the Volstead Act. The Spokane River waterfront is a charming park comprised of bicycle and pedestrian trails and bridges, featuring the Numerica SkyRide aerial tramway over the Spokane Falls hydro-electric generator.

Railfans, and fans of Americana in general, will appreciate Frank’s Diner, housed in a former Barney Smith railcar that once served as the presidential car for the Northern Pacific Railroad.

Amtrak’s once-per-day westward Empire Builder is scheduled to leave Spokane at 02:45. The train was delayed just enough for me to enjoy the sunrise as I boarded.

Running on the tracks of the former Buffalo Creek and Gauley Railroad, the Buffalo Creek Recreational Trail (BCRT) offers railbike and open-air railcar tours in a relaxed, interactive and highly hospitable environment. Under the umbrella of the Clay County Business Development Authority, the burgeoning trail is the grassroots beginning of an 18-mile (29-km) eco-tourism corridor for railbiking, cycling, horseback riding, kayaking, fishing, camping and Speeder-powered rail excursions. I pedalled the route on April 13th, 2019, the opening day of their second season of railbike tours. 

The Site

Check-in is at 867 Buffalo Creek Road, just outside of the town of Clay and near the confluence of the Buffalo Creek and Elk River. BCRT has a gift shop at the check-in office, which, as the staff explained to me with great pride, was stocked only with locally made product, contributing thousands of dollars into the local economy to support crafts and handiwork. The start of the ride is collocated with an active little league baseball field and a campground and lodge, all coming together as an exhibit of the strong sense of local community.

While this is one of only a few routes to be reviewed in this blog that is in no way connected to a heritage rail operation, BCRT does offer powered options to enjoy the scenery of the Buffalo Creek. In addition to railbikes, they run a Speeder pulling bespoke open-air trailers, and optionally will tow the railbikes as well.

The Route

We rode 12 miles (19.3 kms) round trip on a section of the 18-mile (29-km) former  Buffalo Creek and Gauley Railroad. The railroad was opened in 1904 and ran coal transport continuously until 1965, notably being the last US line to run steam engines in commercial operation. The route was reopened twice in the early 1970s and mid-1990s by other coal-related commercial interests, but saw its final revenue service in 1999. 

While the section of track we rode is in relatively good shape, much of the line was destroyed by a flood in 2016. FEMA funds are in the works for restoration of the entire line, which would create opportunities to expand the railbike excursions well beyond the current route. BCRT staff shared ideas they had for the future of the line, such as setting up cabins along the way and renting railbikes to campers and fishermen for longer stays. 

We were on the first run of the opening day of the season, so as it turned out, I was the only railbiker riding behind the speeder and trailers. We stopped several times to enjoy sights along the way, where BCRT staff shared history and local lore. While the entire route is through scenic forest canopy right along the Buffalo Creek, some of the noteworthy sites include former rail infrastructure, the remains of a derailed coal hopper, water-honed rock formations and a waterfall. The route passes through a clearing that was once a railroad company town called Adair, the only evidence left being a well-maintained cemetery. As described on a plaque in the clearing, the local school only gave instruction up to the eighth grade, so children rode the scheduled coal trains to get to Clay High School and back.

The Vehicles

In the DIY spirit of the the old coal rail line, BCRT keeps things simple. The railbikes are no-frills models from Railriders in Colorado. There are no seat belts and seat adjustments are held in place with eye bolts. This stripped down approach makes for a fast, fun ride, especially on the gradual slope of the return ride (where I had the fortune of riding 6 miles (9.7 kms) completely alone).

The only significant modification is the replacement of the stock urethane front wheels with cast iron wheels similar to those used on the Speeder and trailers. BCRT staff explained that the line has especially tight curves in which the urethane wheels would climb up the rails and derail, but the cast iron wheels slide through the curves. They also told me about some ideas they had for future modifications, such as adding motors and experimenting with driving the two front wheels independently (each wheel driven separately by each pedaller).

At the turnaround, BCRT staff had installed a jack-fitted lift for rotating the vehicles for the return trip. But it wasn’t necessary, the vehicles are light enough to pick up and turn.

Travel Notes

Clay is 47 miles (75.6 kms) from the West Virginia capital Charleston. A sane person would arrive there by car. At the risk of simultaneously bragging and revealing my lack of sanity, I arrived by bicycle. I loaded my road bike onto the Amtrak in NY and rode to Charleston the day before, then rode my bike to Clay and back to Charleston. I’m not sure if the mixed modes count as a century ride, but I did pedal over 100 miles, adding the distances of the bicycle and railbike.

Welcome and thank you for visiting the Railbike Blog, a place that I intend to develop as the premier resource for railbiking in North America. Over the coming months, not only will I write reviews of each of the excursions currently on offer, I’ll also explore the people, politics and technology that have shaped modern railbiking. 

What is railbiking? While I offer a more specific definition below, it is exactly as it sounds: pedal-powered vehicles used on railroad tracks.

In the past two years, I’ve pedalled 8 routes and count another 8 across the continent to pedal this year. Please let me know if there are any excursions I’ve missed and should add. Also, if anyone knows of a legal opportunity to ride a bicycle fit with an outrigger for rail travel (photo above right), please let me know. Here is the list of North American routes to the best of my knowledge.

Previously Pedalled:

Rail Explorers Rhode Island Division: The Northern Ramble and the Southern Circuit

Rail Explorers Las Vegas Division: The Southwest Ramble

Rail Explorers Catskills Division (NY): The River Run

Rail Explorers Adirondack Division (NY): Saranac Lake to Lake Clear and “Into the Wild” from Tupper Lake to Lake Clear (neither currently on offer)

Rail Explorers Delaware Division: Brandywine Valley (not currently on offer)

Revolution Rail Co: North Creek, NY

Planned to Pedal:

Railriders (WA): North Pend Oreille Valley Lions Club 

Railriders Joseph Branch (OR): Joseph to Enterprise and Minam to Wallowa

Oregon Coast Railriders (OR): Bay City to Tillamook and Wheeler

Vance Creek Railriders (WA): Camp 1 to Shelton

Adirondack Scenic Railbike Adventures (NY): Round trip Thendara to Carter Station

Belfast and Moosehead Lake RailCyclers (ME)

Please read below for my working definition of modern railbikes, along with a brief history of the concept. In coming posts, I’ll offer more detail on how the current vehicles and routes came to be. I look forward to sharing this with you.

Definition

For the purposes of this blog, a Railbike is a non-motorized, pedal-powered rail vehicle used for inspection and maintenance-of-way or for recreation on railroad lines. Railbikes are distinguished from motorized draisines in that they are pedal-powered in the manner of bicycles. For the same reason, they are further distinguished from handcars, velocipede handcars, and hand-powered draisines (NB, European systems tend not to use this distinction and use the generic term draisine universally). While initially used for track inspection and light transport of rail materials, typical modern examples are for recreational tourist excursions. Most modern railbikes run on disused railroads or on shared track with tourist railroads, although this does not preclude railbikes from operating on purpose-built tracks.

(The author on a Rail Explorers tandem railbike during the “Into the Wild” excursion in October of 2016, Tupper Lake - Lake Clear, Adirondacks, NY)

A Brief History

Unsurprisingly, the evolution of the railbike is tied closely to the evolution of both the railroad and the bicycle. Given the need for a lightweight rail inspection vehicle, light enough to be easily removed from tracks to clear the way for oncoming trains or to reverse direction of travel, the inventors Perry and Aspinwall patented the original three-wheeled velocipede hand-car, which was later improved and mass-produced by the George S. Sheffield Company of Three Rivers, Michigan, US in 1883 [1] [2].

(Advert for Geo S. Sheffield's early three-wheeled handcar, 1883 [4])

Following the introduction of the chain-driven bicycle in the late 1860s, which was mass-produced starting in 1885 by British inventor John Kemp Starley as the Rover Safety Bicycle, Charles N. Teetor of Hagerstown, Indiana, US, patented a four-wheeled pedal-powered railbike called the Railway Velocipede, one of the earliest examples of a pedal-powered railway vehicle [3]. A side-by-side tandem version with passenger seating was produced by Orenstein & Koppel of Berlin, Germany six years earlier [4].

(Sketch of Teetor's pedal-powered, chain-driven Railway Velocipede from the original 1895 patent [3])

(Orenstein & Koppel side-by-side tandem with passenger seating, c.1890 [4])

Following Dunlop's 1887 invention of the pneumatic bicycle tyre and subsequent mounting improvements by Michelin in 1891, the Sears and Roebucks Catalog offered the "Harris 20th Century Railroad Attachment" in 1908. The catalog described the attachment as transforming "the ordinary bicycle into the most practical and durable device obtaining high speed on railroad tracks, making a regular railroad velocipede out of an ordinary bicycle...this attachment has become very popular with railroad and telegraph employees, both male and female" [1] [4]

(Harris 20th Century Railroad Attachment as seen in the Sears and Roebuck catalog, 1905 [1])

Abandonment Creates Room for Recreational Railbikes

The 20th-century trend toward the use of private automobiles, buses and airplanes decreased the use of trains in many countries [5]. Large-scale abandonment of railroads followed the Beeching cuts in the UK in 1963 and the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act in the US 1976, the latter leaving almost 35,000 miles (56,000 km) of disused track [1]. By the mid-1970s, the magazine Popular Mechanics advertised conversion kits for using standard bicycles on abandoned railroads available from the American Railbike Association [6]. Thus, the abandoned railroads created a space for a new form of leisure.

(Advert for conversion kit, Popular Mechanics,  February, 1976)

References

Melin, B., Railbike: Cycling on Abandoned Railroads, Balboa Publishing, San Anselmo, CA, 1996

US Patent RE10303 E, Handcar, https://www.google.com/patents/USRE10303

US Patent 569683 A, Railway Velocipede, https://patents.google.com/patent/US569683A/

Thomas, J., Historic Builders of Velocipedes and Other Hand Powered Vehicles, http://velocipedes.blazerweb.co.uk/newsletters/Newsletter19b.pdf

Gallamore, Robert E. and Meyer, John R., American Railroads: Decline and Renaissance in the Twentieth Century, Harvard University Press, 2014