More Clarifications
Give a Yank....Jerk the train after it's stopped.
Drawhead...synonym for drawbar..or coupler....Indicates the whole mechanism
in contrast to just the knuckle (The part of the coupler that swings open to
allow the cars to "uncouple"...
Drawbars down...when a drawbar was broken as in "got a drawbar"..the whole
mechanism would come out of the car and fall to the ground...normally between
the rails...This apparatus is extremely heavy and would normally require two
men to drag it out from under the car and from between the rails.
Break the chain...When a drawbar would be pulled out or broken from the
"wrong end"..front end of a car...The normal procedure was to get the "bull
CHAIN" from the caboose, drag it up to the car with the broken or pulled out
drawbar, and "chain up" the bad order car to the car ahead and pull it to the
nearest siding where it could be set out...This of course was a very "labor
intensive" procedure...resulting in the conductor..."cutting loose" with a
few pet names for the engineer.
This HOGHEAD'S LAST REQUEST...was that after the trainmen got the broken
drawbar chained up he would be able to "yank" the chain so hard that it would
break....That's the point of the whole poem.
It's only us old guys who remember the ongoing tussle between the engineman
and the trainmen...One seeing what he could do to torment the
other...BREAKING THE CHAIN would be the ultimate "torment"...thus his last
request.
Pete
AFTERTHOUGHT:...It was considered by management, to be poor train handling on
the part of an engineer to "get a drawbar"...Thus when it happened, the
normal procedure was to lay the problem onto a certain percentage "old
break"...ie the drawbar had been partially broken prior to the incident that
resulted in the final breakage...Thus the engineer could be partially or
perhaps entirely absolved when there was a high percentage "old break" in the
fractured member.
The percentage of old break could be estimated by the amount of rust on the
facing ends of the broken drawbar....Thus the more rust on the broken faces
the more "old break" and consequently less blame (and punishment) for the
engineer.
There was a commonly used method for creating "old break" when such was
needed after experiencing a broken drawbar...
What was the method??????? Leo, John, Karl, Bob....wait a little bit before
you blurt out the answer...let some of the other non rails try to guess it.
Pete
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