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1965

To: "BRHS" <BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: 1965
From: "Walter Ohrnell" <wohrnell@s...>
Date: Sat, 27 Jan 2001 20:42:06 -0600

I worked as the first trick operator at Connett after the washout. There was a 
switch shanty that had a porch which hung over the water because the water was 
lapping at the end of the ties. This shanty was used by the operator and 
flagman. Dave Tingley was of them. I forget who else was there from Galesburg. 
I never copied so many train orders both 19 and 31 during the three or four 
weeks I worked there. They drove piles from both end towards the center. The 
Eastbound CZ was the first train across the trestle. They never braced it from 
bent to bent so when #18 went across it swayed back and forth (East to West). A 
loading dock was set up in Gladstone (Happy Rock) and rip rap was dumped into 
air dumps and then taken down to the washout and dumped. I believe around 800 
loads were taken before the rock started showing through the water. I would 
usually ride the work train down to the wash out and catch the headend of 
something back to Gladstone. I missed the work train one morning and borrowed 
the track riders motor car (Jim McDowell) he got worried when his car wasn't 
where it should have been. I pushed that d--n thing almost a quarter of a mile 
before I realized I hadn't turned the gas shutoff on. On another occassion I 
rode a bicycle down the middle of the tracks, I made it about half way and then 
laid it along the ROW and the work train picked it up and took it back to 
Gladstone.

Who remembers the truck mounted crane (USAF) that bounced off a flatcar just 
East of Illinois Jct. and tumbled down the enbankment on the Southside? After 
having retrived said truck mounted crane the 250 Ton wrecker 204376 from 
Galesburg tumbled down the enbankment on the Northside after the operator 
pulled in the out riggers and was turning the machine to put the boom in the 
boom car.? I wonder if Mike Spoor has any pictures of either event in his new 
book?


Lenny


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