Bet you "nipped" a lot of ties to fix the "low joints
and high centers". There was an art to track lining,
too and it all was HARD work. Hats off to the section
hands, the backbone of the railroad.
John D. Mitchell, Jr.
--- drale99@a... wrote:
> I've missed some of the messages on this subject, so
> I may be out of line;
> however I will chump off and raise some questions.
> It sounds like you may be
> talking about the latter days of branch line
> railroading. If so the
> conditions weren't typical of branch line operations
> as I remember them. I
> was on the branches in the '30s and 40's. (These
> were little branches in the
> boondocks, originally 4 trains a day, later 2.)
> Things were kept fairly
> ship-shape, both on the structures and the track. I
> worked on a section
> gang in the mid 40's. We busted our fannies keeping
> the track straight and
> level. Weeds were kept back by keeping track well
> ballasted, and by
> occasional runs by weed-burners. The branches I
> remember could be modeled
> without making weed-beds or building wiggly track.
> DRale
>
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