RUSS
Thanks for your commentary on the Buda depot and related signaling apparatus.
I love this stuff. I'm glad there are still a few of us around who remember
things like you do. I'm going to have to get my #41 out and check out the
pictures with your notes in hand.
You, no doubt, get TRAINS. In the September Issue, I believe, was a picture
of Newell Derryberry at age 22 at the dispatcher's table on the TP, It was
interesting to me to note the "tools of his trade" around him. I wrote a
piece on it for our Lincoln Railfans Club. You could see the ringer selector
box, telegraph key and sounder as well as the DS phone's amplifier, two train
order books, his watch hanging in front of him and a few other items. I
don't have my magazine here, but it was fascinating to remember what I used
to see the Dispatcher's office in St. Joe in the 1940's when I would go there
with my Grandfather.
Napier MO had a similar arrangement in some respects as Buda. It was
referred to as a "Manual Interlocking". All of the switches were handled by
the operator, who got paid an "arbitrary" for handling them. There too it
involved a lot of walking to make a "lineup". A brakeman's handling a switch
he should have left along resulted in the Pioneer Zephyr (No.21) colliding
with No.92 local freight engine on Track 4 at Napier in October 1939.
Trains off the Wymore Division could not proceed through the "interlocking"
under any conditions until they had received a signal via yellow flag in
daytime and yellow light at night.
Pete Hedgpeth
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