I've been asked to expand on a comment that I made during the hand sign
clinic at the spring meet about chalk marks. At one time they were almost
universal in switching both on yard and wayfreight type jobs. By the time I
started carrying a lantern Rochelle was one of the few places left where you
still marked the cars. Typically the youngest man was given the lists and
dropped off at one end of a long track of cars; it was his job to "bleed them
off" and "mark em." At Rochelle this meant chalking 30+ plus cars off the
storage and pass each shift. We would chalk the West end of the car near the
rptg mark w/the destination of the car (as far as we were concerned).We
marked the cars destined as follows: Rochelle Utilities (New City),Delmonte
plant 199(199),Standard oil(std Oil),Swift(Swift),Carnation(Carny),Milw(Milw
or Cmstp),Nothwestern(CNW),Delmonte 115(115),Delmonte110(110),
Stockley(same),Rochelle Asparagus(same),Rochelle
Rose(same),Rockford(rckfrd),West(same),Chicago(chgo or an arrow pointed
eastward),Eola(same),etc. We did indeed use the chalk marks constantly to
switch w/or double check. Once we got into the real details of spotting
plants the chalk marks got more detailed. Cars marked Carny and setting on
the Carny yard trks were subsequently chalked for trks and spots w/in the
warehouse,for example A/4 which means the car goes on warehouse trk A ,spot
4.Same at 110/115/199 and Swift. You simply put an x through the prior mark
and scribbled the next one, next to it or below. Leo
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