Talking about Uncle Bill brought another story to mind. Bill once told me
this story and it stayed with me all these years.
He hired out in 1943 (during the height of WWII). At the time his last name
was Wholschanschagle(not sure if I have the spelling right) a good German name
for a 1931 immigrant. So you can imagine how popular he must have been in some
circles(He later shortened it to Wohl for that reason).
One day he's the rookie working #85/86 or the ILL Valley w/f and they are
backing around the wye at Streator with the engine. It's just Bill hanging on
the
grab irons on the tender and the engineer who can see what's going on. The
NYC is setting on the wye waiting for clearance . Bill flags the move down but
the Q engine he's riding doesn't stop. They back into the NYC engine and do
enough damage to warrant an investigation(offiicial hearing). At this point
Bill
figures his short RR career is over as the engineer simply has to say the
German kid never gave a sign and he's off the hook and Bill is gone. But the
old
head engineer testifies at the investigation that indeed the rookie had flagged
him down but he thought the kid didn't know what he was doing and since he
had made this move many times before knew it wasn't time to stop yet.
He couldn't see the NYC engine due to the curve but did admit he could see
Bills signs just fine.
The engineer got disciplined and Bill went on for 31 more years w/o a mark.
Leo
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