Well,its sure been awhile but finally somebody twicked the old memory.
My Uncle Bill(Wohl) hired out in 1943 at Aurora during the war. Now his real
name was Wohlschenslagle(or soemthing like that) and during WWII it wasn't a
good idea to be real proud of being of German ancestory so he shortened it to
Wohl(but thats another story). While working on the extra list he worked to
Streator one night and was riding the tender of the engine as they wyed the
loco for the trip back east. As they made the move he say the NYC sitting
there and flagged the hoghead down.Now this particular hoghead ignored the
absolutely most important practice on the railroad(always do what the
educated hand tells you to do) so he just kept backing up until he backed
right into the NYC engine.
At the ensuing investigation Uncle Bill thought he would shortly be a former
employee
as all the engineer had to say was "the kid didn't flag me down and I can't
see beyond him on that wye curve". Well the engineer was a man and told the
truth,he got the unpaid vacation and Bill went back to work!
Leo
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