Remembering 'Nubes'

Jim Neubauer (1933-2013) inside the cab of Dardanelle & Russellville 2-6-0 No. 9 at North Freedom, Wis. Photo by Mike Schafer

Nobody loved riding a steam locomotive and writing about it like Jim Neubauer. A lifelong steam devotee, he made a point of climbing aboard and sometimes even firing just about any engine he could get his hands on, and he had an amazing streak of luck chasing down cab rides in the 1960s and early ’70s. Some of them — Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 4-8-4 No. 5632 and Grand Trunk Western 4-8-4 No. 6323 — were relatively famous. Others were obscure (an East Jordan & Southern Mogul, for instance). Always, he climbed up the ladder to the cab with an expression of pure joy.

And Jim could put it into words. Encouraged by Trains Editor Dave Morgan, Jim finagled his way onto a genuine superstar of steam, High Iron Co.’s Nickel Plate 2-8-4 No. 759, for a memorable story in the May 1971 issue. Riding the 759 on the Western Maryland, Jim came up with gems like this: “The speedometer inched up to 50, 55, 60, and held steady. The precise, stentorian call — that identifying four-square, eight-to-the-bar beat of the Berks — bounced off the sides of the cuts, rasped back from a steel-sided building alongside the track, matched the movement of smoke hoisting from the stack, and soon had children watching lineside holding their ears. They squealed with pain, fear, and delight.”

Jim wasn’t just a mere witness to what went on in the cab, either. He had credentials. For years he helped run steam on his beloved Mid-Continent Railway Museum in North Freedom, Wis., qualifying as a fireman on all the museum’s small but demanding engines, including his beloved Dardanelle & Russellville 2-6-0 No. 9, fighting “her foaming boiler and the season’s-end coal that clinkered.” Jim loved the place enough to set up a second home in a private car he kept parked behind the enginehouse.

If that wasn’t enough, “Nubes” (as all of us called him) piled on a number of other credits. For one, the Chicago native was a professional railroader, first on the Rock Island, and later for many years on the Chicago & North Western as a yard clerk and biller. He was the president, editor, and trip director for the Railroad Club of Chicago, during the heyday of that organization in the 1960s. He wrote scripts for railroad documentaries and penned numerous features for Trains and Classic Trains. He edited the Remember the Rock magazine. And he was an excellent photographer.

It was Jim Neubauer the writer who made the strongest impression on me, and for reasons that are a bit complicated. In the early ’70s, Jim worked in the Kalmbach Sales Department with the title of sales promotion manager, which meant he mostly wrote ad copy for Trains and Model Railroader. I read those ads as a college student, and trust me, they were very, very good. But for whatever reason, Jim was obligated to leave Kalmbach in 1973, involuntarily. About a year later, circumstances led me to Kalmbach and I took over the same job. I was only 23 and very intimated by the place. Even though I’d had a year under my belt as a newspaper reporter, I didn’t know much about copy writing. I’ll say for the record that I learned a lot by just soaking up and, frankly, aping what Jim had been doing. 

Over the years, Jim and I got to be good friends, and if there was any resentment of the young punk who inherited his job, he never showed it. In fact, Jim maintained very close ties to Kalmbach, partly through his writing for the magazines and partly as a stockholder. Every year until last year, Jim made the trek up to Waukesha from Chicago to attend the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting in November, and I always made sure our delightful lunches were on my social calendar (a lunch that always included our friend Harold Edmonson and the late Arthur D. Dubin). Even in the face of a decade of debilitating illness, Nubes always showed up in a chipper, upbeat mood. I thought his spirit was amazing.

Jim’s death last Saturday, Sept. 28, at age 80 was a sad moment for all of us with close ties to the Chicago railfan scene or to the old days at 1027 N. Seventh Street in Milwaukee. Thank goodness he amassed so many bylines in so many publications. We’ll always be able to enjoy the verve and spirit he brought to all his narratives of the high iron. — Kevin P. Keefe