Charlie,
You raise a question near and dear to my heart. THE IRISH MAIL was the job
from Eola to W Batavia/Geneva on the west side of the river.It also did the
local work on the east side up to North Aurora before turning to return to
Eola.
I asked many times but none of the old heads in the 70's knew why it was
called the Irish Mail. I have checked with a friend of mine who is a
professional
historian at the Geneva ,IL history center and he did some checking and came
back empty handed. Geneva was founded by Swedes. My theory(and that is all it
is)follows: on the near west side of Aurora was an Irish neighborhood,in fact
the Irish Social Club, still exists on North Highland Ave. with it's back door
opening onto the West Batavia/Geneva main. My guess is the job that once
operated on this line as a passenger or mixed carried the U.S. mail and the
name
stuck with the job going through the neighborhood. But let's be clear there was
only one IRISH MAIL according to old heads like Ben Darling and Hughie Talbot.
Hughie was the engineer on the IRISH MAIL for many years and retired at age
70. He was very clear. "There's only one Irish Mail. The other jobs are mails."
He was also the BLE greiver for many years.Ben Darling was the engineer on the
1:00PM mail for many years. You know for an old guy my memory is still pretty
good if I say so myself !
If my memory of job assignment history is correct, and I believe it is,up
until General Mills opened THE IRISH MAIL went up both sides of the river to
the
end of each line. When Gen. Mills business grew to where the Irish Mail
simply couldn't get everything switched in it's 16 hours the job was cut back
to
North Aurora on the east side and gradually the new MAILS were added to keep
Gen. Mills happy. Just remembered; the engine assignment log book at Eola Rdhse
and the crew callers "board" at Aurora depot both showed the three jobs going
to West Chicago as "mails" ie 500 AM Mail,100PM mail,1100PM mail.
The 8:00AM job to West Batavia/Eola/North Aurora and back to Eola was shown
as Irish Mail.
Oh,here's further circumstantial evidence to support my theory. The east side
of Aurora above the West Chicago branch was know as Pigeon Hill. This area
was settled by Eastern Europeans with Slavic surnames. Many of them are still
there. It's like walking into one of the ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago.
The younger guys would often refer to the West Chicago jobs as the 5:00AM etc
Irish Mail only to be corrected by the old timers.
I vote we try and keep history correct. There was only one IRISH MAIl !
Leo
Weren't the trains going up to West Chicago called the "Irish Mail"? Seems
to me I've heard that term used in reference to locals working out of
Aurora/Eola
or am I missremembering something? And just why would they have been called
that? The only "Irish Mail" that I've heard about (other than on foreign
railways)
would be the children's pump vehicle from the first part of the last century.
And if those locals were the "Mail" was that a rememberence of a mixed or
passenger train
that did carry the mail between Aurora and West Chicago?
Charlie Vlk
----- Original Message -----
From: mailto:qutlx1%40aol.com
To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 10:27 AM
Subject: [CBQ] West Chicago Lesson
Early one morning I take the call to work the 5:00AM Mail. This was one of
three jobs running between Eola and West Chicago each day to keep the General
Mills plant switched continuously. I had caught the afternoon and night jobs
before so I thought I was familiar with the workings. This was in the early
70's
when General Mills was shipping from four trks at least three times a day
with
extras running to the plant on Sundays. Up until this day we typically went
to West Chicago with a train that would fit on one of the 4 yard trks when we
arrived at the yard adjacent to the plant. Typically there would be two open
trks,one to yard your train and one to come back thru to get on the west end
and
start making up the strings of cars for the plant,etc. So this day we pull
into West Chicago and when we reach the east end we have to pull out to foul
the
main (which is our way back to the west end) in order to get the w/c clear of
the main on the west end. So I've got to hang onto a couple cars. When the
crew met in the geeps' cab back at Eola noone mentioned this possibility and
not
having run into it before I asked the hogger what the normal plan in this
situation was. He replied just hang onto a couple and set them over on one of
tracks on the east end.
He and I proceeded with this plan but of course there wasn't enough room on
either of the trks for two cars so...... we coupled up began to make room by
starting to shove west. During the process I received a violent washout from
the
west end coming from the waycar steps with a newspaper. Cutting off and still
hanging onto one car we pulled up and backed down the main to the w/c where I
was met by Rip who proceeded to rip me from top to bottom. Luckily we didn't
corner anything and ended up making a drop on the car into a trk on the west
end. We then went about the long overtime day of switching the production
plant
and the other customers around town. After that day I knew what to do with
the excess cars when we got to G.M.!
It wasn't long after that day that I started catching the afternoon mail on a
semi regular basis and we we're going to West Chicago with 40 and yes at
least twice with a 60 car train ! Talk about a switching nightmare.
Today when you cross the West Chicago branch on RTE 38 in West Chicago you
may find 3 or 4 cars in the entire yard. It all goes by truck and the rail
loading docks have been converted to truck.
Leo
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