Pete
I too,remember when this was the badge of a good
trainman. That was REAL railroading. Even with the
curved grabirons, some engineers, tryed to see if they
could pulled your arms out of socket! That was just
another one of those points of ill feelings between
engineers and trainman. And if you were a head
brakman, you had better drop off and RUN for that
switch, when "heading in". On most roads, today, it is
a "fireable" offense to get caught getting on or off
moving equipment. Along the same lines, does anyone
remember those silly "bad footing" bulletins, that you
couldn't remember where all the "bad footing"
locations were. Oh what fun to drop off, at night on
top of ties scattered on the ROW! Some of you working
guys, do they still do that?
And just for the record, the GP-7s came with drop
steps and chains, but had them removed in about '57 or
'58. Likewise the SD-7's had chains, but no drop steps
when they were delivered and had them replace with
solid bars about the same time. The policy at the time
was that operating personnel did not "need" to go
between hood units, in motion and that mechanical
forces should dismount and climb back on, to get from
unit to unit. Of course, they just ducked under the
bar and stepped across.
John
--- PSHedgpeth@aol.com wrote:
> How long has it been since one of the marks of a
> good brakeman was how fast
> he could get on and off???? Also in that era many
> engineers made it a habit
> to see how fast they could leave town and try leave
> the rear end crew on the
> platform.
>
> I think I've put it on here before, but I came
> across an old Railroad
> Magazine, which I'll find again that as part of an
> old timer's reminiscences was an
> account of a young conductor who boarded his caboose
> while carrying an umbrella
> in one hand and balancing a piece of pie in the
> other as his train was
> leaving town at a rapid pace.
>
> The cover photo of a 1938 issue of RAILROAD is a
> painting titled "emergency
> stop" and depicts the flagman on the bottom step of
> the rear coach, or sleeper,
> of his train with flagging equipment in hand
> preparing to get off as his
> train makes the "emergency stop"...it was to the
> flagman's advantange to drop off
> as fast as he dared, since he wouldn't have as far
> to walk back to provide the
> necessary flag protection....it's one of my favorite
> railroad pictures and I
> have it framed an on my desk.
>
> AHHHHH for the "good old days"
>
> Pete
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
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