Up to now my stories tell of the foibles of others. Just to maintain my
humility I'll tell one where I wasn't perfect. We were on #364 headed into
Chana after cleaning all the sand out of Oregon,IL. We had work at the
elevator and since we had the Flags and Rochelle's on the head end with the
the Chana mty's for the elevator first out. Not wanting to hang onto all that
weight while trying to pull the loads and spot mtys and having remembered
how on the local made a move that avoided the long moves hanging onto all
these cars I decide it would work on this job too. Now just picture a siding
on a hill w/the elevator and a road xing right on the crest. The elevator or
back track is double ended off the siding and the mtys are held west of the
elevator and then rolled east over the road xing when loaded. So I decide to
cut the train off west of the west switch for the elevator and then cut the
Flags and Rochelle's off on the siding between the switches for the
elevator. Then reach in on the loads on the siding from the East end w/the
mty for Chana and simply shove the loads thru to our train (we left room for
the number of loads coming out and there were no stockpiled mtys). All went
well, we shoved the loads onto the train, pulled the mtys to the elevator.
Came out the East end of the back track and shoved the Flags and Rochelle's
onto the train again and were ready to go east w/o having to ask for the
"pot" off the East end of the siding onto the main. The DS was a little
suprised when we called for the signal to go to Flagg and I was feeling quite
impressed w/myself as I caught the w/c at the xing as we left town. I plunked
into the left hand cupola seat and said well that worked pretty good. Lew
looked over and said ,"yes you saved some long moves and time and everyone is
happy except the kids on the school bus stuck on the west end grade xing for
almost a half hour while you made the moves." OOPS. It turns out the rear 1/2
of the w/c was just inside the west end "pot" but still on the road xing?!?!
Leo
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