I cant vouch for how close the westbound signal on the Q was to C&NW xing at
Rochelle. But one thing I do remember was it was way to damn close.
I spent far too much time working the various road switchers at Rochelle(why
is a separate story in and of itself) but one of the scariest moves I ever
encountered was the nightly move shoving from the east end of town to deliver
to DelMonte plant 199. We typically had 20 -25 cars that we would shove from
Carnation or the Ice track all the way downtown,thru downtown and up to the
xing ,the board and the switch down to 199.
Of course it was dark,cold,raining,snowing or foggy. You had to shove right
up to the points of the switch to 199 so the unlock would release. This meant
you had to have the board for the Norwegian as the switch was inside the
limits. But sometime the operator couldn't clear the xing so you'd be shoving
against this red board. Go too far and you were looking at 3 to 6 months off
w/o
pay. You controlled the move from the stirrup or x/over board on the lead
car. No tail hose,just the handy dandy radio.
I can't remember another move that brought more fear and trepidation.
Dropping cars into an open ended stub track seemed easy compared to this
nightly
ritual.
And sometimes we did it twice a night !
Leo
Ps-Old "whoppit" would really clear the cob webs out of the geep on the way
back to Carnation running lite !
************************************** Get a sneak peek of the all-new AOL at
http://discover.aol.com/memed/aolcom30tour
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/
<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional
<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CBQ/join
(Yahoo! ID required)
<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:CBQ-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:CBQ-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
CBQ-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
|