A loooong time ago in a place far,far ,far away my grandfather(Smitty) told
his young grandson lots of railroad stories. One of those was about how one
time the winter was so bad on the Alley Job (neat industrial spur and
connection to the cheap and nothing wasted in Aurora, IL) that the crew spent
a large part of one day routing steam from the engine to the flange way
between the rails and the street paving material(bricks,cement or asphalt
{depending on which part of Middle Ave you were on}) in order to melt the
buildup of ice so as not to derail the cars being shoved down the alley (see
prior posts on Alley Job operating scheme).Can anyone explain how this would
have been done? Leo
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
|