The Southern Arizona Transportation Museum's annual Silver Spike Festival, celebrating the arrival of the modern railway in Tucson, is set to take place this Saturday.
Among the festivities planned: A mayoral proclamation, display of the original silver spike, the Fourth UA Calvary Regiment Band and reenactments.
Editor Inger Sandal talked about this year's fest in this week's Caliente:
Julie “J.M.” Peters still dreams about trains.
“We were the first. We didn’t know what to expect,” said Peters, one of the first three women to be hired by Southern Pacific Railroad as locomotive engineers in 1977. “It was a learning curve for all of us.”
She, along with Linda Gasser and Jeanne Rader will be honored at the Silver Spike Festival on Saturday.
The family-friendly event is a celebration of the 137th anniversary of the Southern Pacific Railroad’s arrival in Tucson and the 12th anniversary of the Southern Arizona History Museum. The Silver Spike is an award named after the 6-inch pure silver spike mined as part of the crowning event in 1880.
Activities include a re-enactment by descendants of the people who had a role when Southern Pacific Railroad first came to Tucson in 1880. New to the cast this year will be the great-great- grandson of Albert Seinfeld. In addition, there are also new artifacts to view in the museum.
Peters, who now lives in Colorado, had been a teacher before and after her tenure with the railroad. Her mother, Julia Newman, started with the railroad in Tucson in 1944 as a secretary and crew dispatcher. Nearly 100, Newman continues to volunteer at the museum and has already received the Silver Spike award.
By the mid to late 1970s, many of the engineers were preparing to retire, and word spread that women would be considered as engineers.
“It was something brand new for women to be out there,” Peters said, and they strived to set the bar high. The retiring engineers passed along what they knew. “They were just a wealth of knowledge.”
Museum board chairman Ken Karrels calls it breaking the iron ceiling. Peters said the engineers who trained them 40 years ago were welcoming.
“Many women followed in our footsteps, by the way,” she said, noting positions such as switchmen and yard masters. “It was just a fantastic opportunity.”
While it’s hard to believe that was already 40 years ago, she does remember challenges. “It’s a tough job — it’s a great job, but it’s a tough job.”
Engineers get paid by the mile so the longer routes were sought out. She worked on everything from 13,000-ton coal trains to Amtrak passenger trains. Destinations included Yuma and Phoenix and eventually expanded to El Paso. Other routes carried locals to the mines. Engineers were always on call.
She loved the expressions on people’s faces when they realized she was the engineer.
Peters also took part in Operation Lifesaver, an education campaign that took her and conductor Bob Reid into local classrooms. The teachers were always happy to see them, she said, because they showed the students that if a woman could be the engineer, anything was possible.
The retiring engineers told her that long after she left the job, she would dream of trains. And they were right.
The scenery between Tucson and Lordsburg, New Mexico, was amazing. “You would see the best lightning storms. Wildlife. Meteor showers. It was just unbelievable what you’d be able to see.”
