Pete
This tread reminded me of an old coal fields story.
For a long time, the "sun chaser" turn crew, into West
Frankfort Yard, would call for a cab, just as soon as
they set out the MT's. Into town, they would head, to
"eat". After goofing off for an hour or so (more if
they thought they could get by with it), they would
grab the loads and head back to Centralia. Everything
would have worked fine, except no, they got greedy.
Some enterprising conductor (think was Bud Brasdel),
decided to turn in "intermedate terminal delay" time.
Trainmaster G.K. Boyd was NOT amused. There was a
directive that all time slips, for the West Frankfort
turns include a note as to arrival time, departure
time AND time out for eating. The fun came to a stop!
Ever the diplomat, he said, "There seems to be some
misunderstanding".
John
--- PSHedgpeth@aol.com wrote:
> It was summer 1958....I was working the
> Fairmont-Hildreth local...It was the
> wheat harvest season and the crop was a bit late
> coming in, but it was a good
> one and the elevators were
> loading heavy....
>
> The normal operation was that we would be called at
> Fairmont for about 5:00pm
> or so, depending on the arrival of No. 71 the
> Lincoln-Hastings local with
> whom we traded engines every trip..We had one of the
> lightweight 400 series SD7's
> with small fuel tanks which could only make one
> Fairmont-Hildreth turn on a
> tank of fuel...
>
> The operation was Fairmont-Hildreth Mon, Wed
> Fri...Hildreth-Fairmont Tue,
> Thur Sat...Going out we would peddle empties (all 40
> ft boxcars then) and coming
> back we would pick up the loads.
>
> At Fairmont we would make up our train of empties
> from grain boxes set out
> by a westbound grain box drag who peddled the GB's
> west for the branch
> lines....We would do whatever station switching we
> had to do and then wait for 71 to
> arrive...
>
> Get out your old Q map if you want the route....It
> was Fairmont-Geneva, West
> Strang Jct, Shickley, Ong, Edgar, Deweese, Lawence,
> Rosemont, Blue Hill,
> Bladen, Campbell, Upland , Hildreth....Obviously the
> eating facilities in these
> small Central Nebraska towns after dark were
> extremely limited...ie non existent.
> Sometimes we would have been on duty 3-4 hours
> before we left Fairmont.
>
> The primary goal for eating was to get to Shickley
> where the Owl Cafe awaited
> us with its culinary delights...ie Hamburger
> Steak...that's what I always
> had....Pork Chops, Fried Chicken, Roast beef
> etc..typical small town
> fare....Price about 85 cents per... Said Owl Cafe
> closed at 8:00pm....
>
> There wasn't much work between Fairmont and
> Shickley, maybe a setout once in
> awhile at Geneva, and a meet with the
> Wymore-DeWitt-Strang-Fairmont local at
> either West Strang Jct. or Geneva...
>
> Our conductor Merle Caldwell, an old head..seniority
> 1928....He was only 48
> years old then, having gone braking at age 18 right
> out of high school....could
> figure our running time pretty closely...If it
> looked like we would get out
> of Fairmont in time to make Shickley by 8:00pm so be
> it...If it looked like we
> wouldn't get there by eight, but maybe by 8:30,
> Merle would get on the "city
> phone" at the depot at Fairmont and call the Owl and
> tell them we would be
> there a llittle after 8:00pm...They would then stay
> open for us....We had an "in"
> with the ladies who ran the place, since one of them
> was the wife of the agent
> at Ong.
>
> Anyhow it would be approaching dusk as we hauled
> into Shickley with as many
> as 80 empties...We left Fairmont with 90 empties one
> night...that's the most I
> can remember...The Owl was right across Main St.
> from the depot....There was a
> stop just east of Shickley for the CNW
> Crossing....Fremont-Superior
> branch....we often saw their train at Geneva where
> the two lines paralleled with two FM
> switchers with waycar immediately behind for engine
> crew bunk car service.
>
> After crossing CNW Ernie Mack, our engineer, would
> drive us down to the
> depot....I would drop off as we thundered across
> main st....We would pull the
> entire train by the crossing to let the conductor
> and rear brakeman off at the
> restaurant...The track was straight there so a
> signal could be seen a long
> ways...When the conductor and rear man had dropped
> off, we would give a big backup
> sign and Ernie would "back em up"...until the engine
> was just east of the
> crossing...It was a "blind" move, but there were no
> street crossings, and we never
> had a problem.
>
> We would then all repair to the Owl for our evening
> vituals....As mentioned
> in No. 1 the contract specificd that train crews
> were allowed "a reasonable
> time" for a meal period after being on duty 6.5
> hours...sometimes it hadn't been
> quite that long, but there were no more places to
> eat at that hour...
>
> We would then partake of a leisurely meal complete
> with Swisher Sweet Cigar
> to top it off..Probably sit around the Owl for close
> to an hour....
>
> After this repast, we would switch the two elevators
> and then head west with
> switching at every station....As I have chronicled
> before west of Blue Hill
> the track was fast and we could make 65-70 mph down
> some of the hills....which
> was a bit above the 35 maximum speed allowed.
>
> The combination of an excessive "bean hour" at
> Schickley coupled with a fast
> ride after supper and Merle's creative manipulation
> of the delay report, (he
> once told me..."I usually carry about 45 minutes")
> put us into Hildreth at the
> exact moment as shown on the delay report...however
> any resemblance between
> the time shown on the DR and the actual time at any
> intermediate station was
> non existent......
>
> There were no OPs on duty at any of the stations,
> and the DS had no idea
> where we were at any given time until the Hildreth
> Operator OS'd us and sent the
> delay report when he went on duty the next morning
> at 7:30am.
>
> Those days, guys, are gone forever...I'm glad I was
> around to get in on some
> of the good stuff...
>
> Don't you wish you'd a been there.
>
> Pete
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been
> removed]
>
>
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