We used to have some "Berry Trains" on the Rock Island when I was
"trainmastering" at Blue Island in the early 1960's. Seems like they would
run in the
late spring-early summer. Probably came to us at Omaha.
I think that the cargo was primarily cherries and/or strawberries.
Trains were made up of REX Express Reefers, which were theoretically able to
run at passenger train speeds.
At Blue Island we would have them "take a dive" ie head right down the
interchange track at 139th St.to the IHB rather than come into the yard.
Just as a "maybe" humorous aside. One day the day trainmaster was off on
his days off and Frank Garner, Assistant Superintendent was supposed to fill
in
for him. It was the practice that a "turnover book" was maintained on the
trainmaster's desk. Said book was to keep a semi accurate log of daily (and
nightly) events ie..what trains were run, delays, engine failures, derailments
etc. You could, theoretically, look at that book and see what kind of
exciting or mundane events had occurred.
The day trainmasters and us night guys would more or less keep the book up
to date as the events occurred if we had time between these events to jot them
down..If not we would get together at "shift change time" and record (or make
up) what had happened.
On the day in question there was a Berry Train scheduled to arrive some time
during the day which upcoming event was duly recorded in the turnover book
by the night trainmasters based on information obtained from the night chief
dispatcher at Rock Island.
When Cliff Brogdon and I :(night TM's) came to work that night the pages of
the turnover book which should have been maintained by the Asst. Supt as
acting TM that day were completely blank except for this notation scrawled
across
the top..."BERRY TRAIN"...that's all there was.
Hereinafter any incomplete or deficienct "turnover" was deemed...."A BERRY
TRAIN TURNOVER"
Pete
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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