Leo,
I'd like to take credit for enhancing your paycheck but it wasn't me
at Rochelle that night. I'm trying to recall just who the Engineer
was but, for the moment, his name escapes me.
The only mainline drawbar I ever got (this does not include Wedron,
So. Ottawa or taconite trains) was at Nabisco. We had to set out
there and the head two cars were a load of very long poles and its
idler, an NYC flat that dated back to the Civil War. Just before
coming to a stop we went in emergency. Talk about a "wrong-ender".
The drawbar fell out of the end of the idler coupled to the poles.
This made re-coupling to the poles somewhat difficult. Eola had to
send an engine out to grab the rear of the train and set the poles in
the west end of the Nabisco track.
A plate was supposed to be attached to the center sill of the flat to
hold the vertical pin in the drawbar. 5 out of 6 bolts were rusty
(old break?)and one showed a very recent failure. The only broken
part, aside from the bolt, was the pin lifter bracket.
Karl
|