Pete
One of the perks of being a car cleaner for the
railroad at the coal mines, was that you got to keep
all the "good stuff" you found in the cars. I'm not
sure that it made up for all the really nasty things
you got out of them as well!
John
--- PSHedgpeth@a... wrote:
> Leo et all
>
> They probably did it in every yard on every railroad
> in the US, but I
> specifically remember that when I was Asst. TM at
> Joliet on the RI that most
> of the dunnage was removed from flatcars headed back
> to the Caterpillar plant
> by our yard crews...Most of it was used for building
> fires along the lead in
> the wintertime, but a good portion of it went home
> for various uses as you
> described.
>
> We had one engineer who hated (even more than most)
> every switchman...These
> guys would pry the dunnage off of both boxcars and
> flatcars and pile it on
> the running board of the engine...they would then
> haul it down to the yard
> office and load it in their pickups...Floyd (the
> engineer) would sometimes
> refuse to move the engine until they removed the
> "load"...he worked up such a
> hatred for these guys, and they tormented him so
> much that one night he
> refused to move the engine...said he couldn't see
> the switchmen....just
> "bulling" again.
>
> This crew...which was the worst of the
> lot....brought the engine down to the
> yard office and said they refused to work with this
> guy....I went out, got on
> the engine and told the engineer to take the engine
> back up on the lead and
> we were going to see why he couldn't see the
> switchmen.....
>
> Said engineer said to me...."now I'm gonna tell you
> something BUSTER"....well
> that ended things right there....I sent him home for
> insubordination and
> after a many times postponed investigation he was
> fired....wasn't the first
> time for him.....Well guess what my nickname was for
> the rest of my tenure at
> Joliet?????
>
> I was told that he pulled a like trick a few years
> later working a yard
> engine at the Blue Island Terminal....In this
> instance the Terminal
> Superintendent went to the engine and inquired as to
> the problem...Floyd's
> final words spoken as an employee were..."You go
> run that office and I'll
> run this engine".....His firing that time was
> permanent.
>
> Didn't have much to do with wood or coal...but the
> memory surfaced and, of
> course, it had to be recorded for posterity.
>
> Pete
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
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