peppermint park

Lucky us...it is a beautiful late summer day and we have an exclusive invitation as guest engineers at the Chance family's private estate where live steam locomotives and vintage motorcycles take center stage in a day long celebration of all things mechanical. We are at the home of the Ottaway locomotives with camera in hand...we are at Peppermint Park.

First we take in the historical motorcycle collection spanning some of the earliest vintage bikes to what could arguably be considered the "last Indian made".

In one corner of the garage is the meticulously restored 1909 Curtiss motorcycle that Gerald Chance rode alongside Herb Ottaway on a 1913 Harley-Davidson in years long past.

We have read about it in Mary Chance VanScyoc's (Harold's sister) book A Lifetime of Chances but here it stands before us in the flesh. An Indian motorcycle that confounds even the most ardent Indian buffs. They won't find it in their history books because it is a one-of-a-kind miniature Indian made by Gerald Chance as a Christmas present for his young son Harold. Indian later made a production bike of the same name, but this one-off machine predates the factory model by years.

Cowards that we are, we declined a test ride, but never the less marvel at a genuine "hop-rod" internal combustion pogo-stick shown off by Gary Fusenegger.

On an inner loop of track we see the pump-it hand cars in an assortment of brightly painted colors. These are ten inch gauge and cannot run on the twelve inch Ottaway steamer tracks. Chance started making these in 1956 when steam train sales dropped off and the sale of these little non powered sets saved the company.

Mary Chance VanScyoc buzzes by us in the papoose on a gravel road with a lucky young rider in the sidecar. But not to worry, we trust her at the controls. She is checked out in everything from fixed wing B-17's to Bell helicopters and was personally introduced to flying by none other than Clyde Cessna.

But enough of esoteric motorcycle lore and such...we are here to make steam!

Gary Fusenegger polishes up the chrome as Steve Cregut fires up the boiler on Harold Chance's personal Ottaway serial number 1089. This was the last production Ottaway steamer made and one of only two Ottaways with a 4-6-0 wheel configuration and extended boiler.

Guest engineer and Ottaway owner Carey Williams came down from Chicago with historic Ottaway locomotive photographs to ponder while waiting for steam pressure to come up.

Mike Hawkins pulls it out of the steaming bay and onto the main line.

Jim Emerson opens it up on the back straightaway (the course is laid out on a former horseraceing track by the way)

Much fun and merryment is had by all and at the end of the day Steve Cregut ceremoniously blows the steam out of the boiler after the last run of the summer.

As the sun sets slowly in the West, all of the marvelous machinery is ferried back to the barn...see ya next year!

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