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To: BRHSlist@yahoogroups.com
From: "qrailroadman" <karl5631@a...>
Date: Fri, 21 Mar 2003 01:41:59 -0000
User-agent: eGroups-EW/0.82
Russ made the following statement and it brought back a flood of fond 
memories.

<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>

One memory in particular relates to two Trainmen, neither of whom 
were among the brightest lights on the Christmas tree.

It seems that their train suffered a drawbar failure while gion' up a 
long, steep hill. Lucky them, it was a "right ender" which means it 
was out of the trailing end of the car, no "bullchain" required. 

Why the Conductor found it necessary to walk all the way up from the 
waycar to the separation was never determined. (this was during the 
period when only one Brakeman was used on a train but the waycars 
hadn't been pulled off yet)

Well, while he "guarded" the rear part of the train the head man rode 
the bad order up to the next siding to set it out. After gettin' rid 
of the one-lunger the Brakeman started back down the hill to look for 
his train. (it was after dark) With luck he found the train and made 
the joint. The Con. was still at his "post" and began to walk back 
to the rear end after the train was coupled and the air pumped up. ???

Now re-read the statement that Russ made at the begining of this 
message, especially that part referencing this heavy apparatus and 
what must be done with it.

After the head man had made it back up the engine the Engineer 
started to pull. Well, he got 'er goin' and went about 10 or 12 car 
lengths before the train went into emergency again.

This time our two heros soon found that which they had forgot about 
earlier, the busted drawbar. It was just about where they had left 
it too, right between the rails. This time, however, the problem was 
not as easily solved as the first one was. Seems that they had run 
over their own drawbar and put three coal loads in the dirt.

Four eyes are better'n two????

Karl






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