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[CBQ] Montgomery Stock yard operations

To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CBQ] Montgomery Stock yard operations
From: qutlx1@aol.com
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2007 15:45:00 EST
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Rory,
 
What follows applies to most of the yards history,not just the fifties  based 
on what I saw and was told by those who were there over the years. I'm  sure 
Steve can fill in any blanks from his days at the tower and at  Montgomery.
 
Both mainline and C&I through frts set out cars of stock on the "sheep  yard 
lead" which was exactly at the apex of the 'V' where the two lines met.  This 
required a long back up move from the Aurora Depot to the lead. I believe  
this track was the "old North main" from pre-elevation days and let me tell you 
 
it was in the same condition. I wouldn't want to take a road unit one inch  
farther than necessary on it. Light rail and cinder ballast. This could be one  
interesting move if the occupants of the cars were called by nature to do  
certain things. It was also often cold,rainy,snowing or just hot and smelly. At 
 
least one of my "brothers" tells the story of hanging on the side of an 
ancient  stock car while some cow let go and he climbed back up into the engine 
cab  
soaked. The C&I crews had the longer move as they sometimes had to go out  
over Main St before getting a reverse signal. The mainline crews could cut off  
at the "stove works board" to make their move. The cars were set just in far  
enough that the engines cleared the board(signal) to get an indication to come 
 back out. If there were cars already on the track you just tacked yours on. 
By  the time I was around we were setting out only feeder cattle and sheep. 
Nothing  was being fed and reloaded for the Chicago Stock Yards. 
But the old timers and my grandfather often talked about being ordered as a  
yard crew from Eola to go to Montgomery and unload 30 and 40 cars of stock.  
Typically if there just a few cars set out the Lyon Job,Aurora job or one of 
the  set Eola jobs would be told to go down and spot them. But if business was 
heavy;  my Eola roundhouse engine assignment sheet shows extras being ordered 
from Eola  to Montgomery for the express purpose of unloading stock. Bones 
Mathers told of  more than one occasion of going down to spot 30 or 40 cars.He 
even told a story  of getting "buried" because while down at the chutes a 
mainliner s/o another  block of cars on top of him and they had to go out via 
Montgomery to  get around the cars. I worked the Sat. and Sun. Aurora job in 
the 
early  70's one summer and we always had to check with both the Mainline and 
C&I  
dispatchers before taking our early quit to ensure no stock was enroute. 
Imagine  switching passenger cars one move and the next your shoving around 
stock 
cars  !
I don't recall anyone talking about going down to reload stock for Chicago  
but for decades this would have been a normal operation.
The mtys would go to Eola and be picked up from there. Whenever I spotted  
stock on a yard job the stock folks from Montgomery and the Consignee were 
there 
 waiting and they did the actual unloading. See Steve's dissertation about  
crawling into a car and unloading sheep in an early BB.
 
Leo Phillipp
 



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