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Union Pacific Yellow, Nebraska Central Red a study in black and white by Michael
Union Pacific Yellow, Nebraska Central Red a study in black and white by Michael M. Bartels and James J. Reisdorff Photography by Forrest H. Bahm
SOFTBOUND 80 PAGES
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
UNION PACIFIC AND THE STROMSBURG BRANCH
THE NEBRASKA CENTRAL
INTRODUCTION
Any photograph depends upon time, place and initiative. It requires the photographer being in a specific place at a specific time, plus having the interest to take the image. Such has certainly applied to branch line railroad photography. Some secondary rail lines in America have gone virtually from construction to abandonment with little or no photographic coverage having been made of them. Others did come under the scrutiny of both early professional and amateur photographers who used the camera technology of their era to document a time when people still largely "interfaced" with trains by traveling or shipping via rail. However, the subsequent rise of the automobile age in the early 1900s and successive decline of rail passenger service on branch lines across the U.S. largely dissipated any remaining interest that local photographers had in capturing trains on film. As a consequence, the only way in which many branch lines in the post-passenger train era have been documented was by the presence in the area of a railroad enthusiast with a camera. Forrest Bahm from Shelby, Nebraska, is one such instance.
Forrest was the youngest of three children of Herman and Camille (Trice) Bahm. His interest in trains can be traced to his mother's side of the family. Forrest's maternal great-grandfather had been an engineer for the Missouri Pacific Railroad at Falls City, Neb., before the family eventually moved to Horton, Kans. His grandfather was a coach painter in the large Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway locomotive and car repair shops at Horton. His great-uncle became a locomotive engineer for the Rock Island out of El Reno, Okla. His mother worked as a stenographer in the Rock Island store department at Horton until she married Herman Bahm in 1921 and the couple moved to Herman's home state of Nebraska. The family's ties to Horton ended when For-rest's maternal grandparents left there on account of the acrimonious railroad labor strike of 1922. They moved to California, never to return to Horton.
Forrest's parents settled in the Polk County town of Shelby in 1922. Here Forrest was born on the traditional Columbus Day of Oct. 12, 1929. He graduated from Shelby High School in 1947. From the fall of 1947 to August 1948, Forrest worked as a laborer at the Union Pacific Railroad shops in Omaha. Here, as a sweeper in the locomotive shop, Forrest saw repairs being done on large steam locomotives like the 800-series 4-8-4s, 5000-series 2-10-2s and the
9000-series 4-12-2s. He also witnessed diesel repair work being done in what was then known as the motor car shop. His work otherwise included being one of those assigned to clean out the pattern shop of what would now be considered historically significant items related to early UP steam. Receiving his draft notice during the Korean War, Forrest served in the Army from September 1951 to August 1953. Originally trained as a signal wireman, he mainly served as a supply truck driver in Korea. Returning home, Forrest briefly worked on a UP bridge gang until being laid off in January 1954. He then worked for a local well repair and plumbing contractor from spring 1954 to June 1958. At that time he began employment at the Shelby post office. He served as clerk and later postmaster here for more than 28 years, retiring in August 1986.
Shelby, population approximately 700, was located on the Union Pacific's lone east-west branch line south of the Platte River on what was once its Nebraska Division. The line extended westward from Valparaiso, on the Beatrice Branch, for 75 miles to Central City on the UP main line west from Omaha. It was known as the Stromsburg Branch on account that the town by that name originally served as terminus between 1879 and 1906, before an extension was laid to Central City. UP employees otherwise referred to it as "the High Line."
In an introduction to Union Pacific's Stromsburg Branch, a 1987 book that he co-authored on the history of the line, Forrest explained that his interest in observing and recording his hometown railroad had been almost lifelong. Living near the tracks until age 14 afforded him opportunity to see or hear the passing of the trains almost daily. His family then moved a few blocks away, where from a distance he could still see the tracks. At about the same time Forrest started delivering both the morning and evening editions of the Omaha World-Herald newspaper. This required him to be at the depot to pick up the papers from the motor train that delivered them. Ofttimes the steam-powered freight would be there as well, waiting for a meet with the motor.
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