Another job that regularly received a bonus was the Aurora switch engine.
This job was also one of the earliest 2 man train crews on record. This job
had at one time been primarily the shop switch crew but as the shops faded
there was less and less to do and the "quit" moved up earlier and earlier.
One area that didn't fade until well into the BN era was the scrap yard
switching off the old West Chicago main (Fox Valley Iron and off the old 3rd
rail (Aurora Iron and Metal).These were 2 very active scrap dealers who were
switched pretty much daily by the Aurora Job. The Aurora crew made a trip up
to Eola near the start of their tour each morning dragging along the outbound
stuff from overnight and bringing back the mtys for the scrap yards, the
loads for Faskure,the storehouse ,etc. Now just like the previously mentioned
location this crew sure didn't want to deliver what was reported to be an mty
to a scrap dealer w/good valuable scrap in it. But they went one step further
than old C.L. In the name of efficiency and convenience they simply shoved
the not quite totally mty gon onto the scale at a certain scrap dealer, had
it weighed, tossed out the remaining contents, reweighed the car and
collected for the variance!
Now this went on for a long time and everything was fine until one day they
noticed that one of the gons had a considerable remaining part load in it.
They confirmed the car as reported mty. Rushed it over to their preferred
dealer, went thru the weighing, unloading procedure and were back enroute to
the hill or hole tracks with the now completely mty car when the Eola ydmstr
inquired as to the location of this particular car? Why? Well, it seems the
car was pulled out of another location in error and was not totally mty! The
last consignee wanted the car back so he could complete the unloading!
Leo
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