SJSU sophomore publishes book

Train enthusiast explores history

By: Mark Powell

Posted: 1/30/07

When Los Gatos Public Library director Peggy Conaway was asked to help San Jose State University student Edward Kelley compile a book on the history of the Los Gatos rail system, she had her doubts at first.

Conaway wondered how someone only 18-years-old could have so much interest in a subject that seemed so distant to most people from Kelley's generation.

However, it did not take long for Kelley to prove to Conaway, along with more than 200 supporters that showed up to the eventual book signing, that he was the right man for the task.

"I didn't realize that anybody this young could have the knowledge about railroads, but he did," Conaway said.

With Conaway playing the part of historical tour guide, Kelley spent all of last summer researching and writing "Railroads of Los Gatos," a book that chronicles the once bustling steam-powered rail system that made the city Kelley grew up in an important part of the South Bay Area.

"I like to think that I wrote the book from an interesting perspective," Kelley said. "Rail fans are usually the ones to write these types of books, but railroaders, like me, aren't the ones who are working on model trains and things like that. It's not often that someone with actual working experience writes a book on (the steam engine industry)."

For Kelley, however, "Railroads of Los Gatos" was more than just a summer of befriending black and white photos and daughters of steam engine conductors long since gone.

For the SJSU industrial design major, the project was a lifetime of love for steam-driven locomotives.

"He couldn't have been more than four or five when he started talking to engineers and conductors and asking all the questions he could," his mother, Joanne Kelley, said in an email.

Born in a small suburb outside New York City, Kelley's family moved to Los Gatos when he was only two. He quickly developed a love for trains of all kinds, but would cultivate a love for the classic, steam-powered ones.

"The mechanics and rich history behind the old steam engines was just fascinating to him," Joanne Kelley said.

By age 13, her son was already doing track work around Los Gatos, learning from others who helped him along in learning even more about steam. Kelley was on his way to figuring out not only how to maintain these running pieces of history, but to one day operate them on his own.

However, there was no place for Kelley to satisfy his interest in everything steam engine when the family moved back to New York during high school.

"I did some track work there, but there was no real involvement," Kelley said.

Without any tangible participation in the steam engine industry Kelley began researching the world he loved, writing articles for the Grand Scales Quarterly, a steam engine magazine.

He even started his own online publication dedicated to the railway system.

After high school, Kelley made the decision to leave New York a second time to travel back to the West Coast in hopes of immersing himself in the steam locomotive realm once more.

"California was all he really knew," Kelley's parents wrote via email. "And when we moved to New York he missed a lot of his friends, the nice weather, the landscape, and there weren't any nearby places where he could learn to work on steam."

"Like any parents, it was sad that he chose to go to school so far away from us, but we respect his decision and he seems to be having a great time."

And for the last two years Edward Kelley has had nothing but a great time, learning to run and operate the trains he watched and read about all his life.

Kelley works and volunteers on rail lines at Niles Canyon in Sunol, as well as the Pacific Coast Railroad in Santa Margarita.

Kelley works as a fireman, whose job in the steam world includes making sure the engine keeps running properly and safely. The duties of a fireman involve more than just shoveling coal, Kelley said.

"If you screw up, it will kill you," he said. "You have to have a very wide attention span. You can't doze off. There are many ways of doing it, but only one that's right."

It became obvious that Kelley not only had obtained a large amount of knowledge about the steam engine, but also even knew how to operate one, becoming a certified fireman on his 19th birthday.

Perhaps this is why hundreds of fellow train enthusiasts from as far away as San Luis Obispo showed up to the Dec. 7, 2006 book signing at the Los Gatos Town Council Chambers. Between 200 and 250 was the approximate number of people in attendance, according to Kelley, over-filling the event by about 100 guests.

To Kelley, those kinds of people have made, and will continue to make, all the difference.

"Railroads don't run on tracks they run on people," Kelley said. "The goal of this book was to pay tribute to the people behind the steam lines."