"Conductors and engineers conferred briefly while Number 2 waited, the dead
crews delivering their orders and waybills to the rested men. The patch crew
dispersed along the endless drag. Number 2 slid away into the blank world
beyond. Presently the drag hauled slowly out behind her".
And a bit further along in DESERT JOB RAILROAD JUNE 1945 regarding handing
up train orders...This is one of my all time favorite "pictures" or
descriptions.
"Then the DS cleared the fruit block to him as her headlight flared beyond
the west switch to the pass. Eddie hung up the hoops, went back to his
office and winked the board twice as she swung within range of the signal.
The hogger was wheeling them, and answered the blinking light with a couple
of joyous toots. He was moving the merchandise from point to point. The
boomer climbed the order rack to steady those hoops".
"Freight trains blasting across the long flats reminded you of prairie
tornadoes: they were about the same size and equally sudden and violent. It
put a strain on you, handing up here on the rack in close proximity to the
main iron, crowding the path of those hundreds of tons of dead weight
hurtling at you behind a white glare. The rack began to shudder, and then
the headlight washed out of Eddie's eye in the hot tumult of the passing
locomotive. He glimpsed the fireman leaning out of the gangway, outlined
dimly against the cab light, an arm extended and hooked.
The ashcat swung out and down from the cab, holding to his rocking world with
one hand. He was intent upon the only thing in the racing tumult that
mattered for that one atom of time--to slip his arm through the hoop and
carry it along with him. It was a game of high daring and fine skill to
snare the thin oval from the side of his reeling locomotive, under the faint
glow of a battery lamp, murky with blown steam and boiling dust. He could
have only a fleeting glimpse of its exact location, and a speck of time to
make the try as he flashed by.
His performance was light and graceful. The hoop vanished from under Eddie's
squinted gaze. It was gone so quickly he didn't feel it leave the light grip
of his fingers"
Do you think maybe Harry had had this experience a time or two???He was one
of the very few railroaders who had "done it"....and could "write about it".
Pete
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