Leo and others,
If I missed this somewhere early in the "chalk marks" thread forgive me.
What took the place of chalking cars or led to its demise in switching
operations?
My other question is about the old XM-32 boxcars that the Q painted in
company service orange in the late sixties to be used in locomotive sand
service. I'm interested because it would seem that a small engine terminal
like the one at Peoria or even Mendota would have used a boxcar to bring in
sand since these places would have used a small volume of sand just to
service switchers and local engines.
My question is, was the sand in bulk form or in paper sacks? I saw the small
sand house at Peoria before it was torn down and it only had a small door in
its side several ft. off the ground, maybe the right height for someone to
shovel it in from a boxcar. There weren't any pipe fittings to be seen
except for the pipe going directly to the sand tower, like you'd see if the
sand were to be unloaded from a sand service hopper car.
Ken Thompson
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