Hello,
Thank you for sharing your experiences on the Sterling/Rock Falls branch. I
was wondering how many days a week did the road job work in the 1970s and early
80s? I have seen a few photos of the switcher at Sterling with a note that the
40 foot boxcars coupled to it were for in-plant switching. Can you share your
recollections about the Sterling switch job and the customes it served? Was
there one or two shifts? You mentioned that the job and one or two GPs or
SD7/9s. How long was the road train on a typical day and what did it consist
of? Was it mostly gons or scrap cars to the mill and outbound gons or boxcars
of finished products? I assume the coal you mentioned was bound for the steel
mill, correct? A former ICG man recalled interchanging boxcars of tires at
Amboy to the BN. Do you recall the amouhnt of interchange with the IC/ICG at
Amboy? Who did they go to? I looked at Terraserver USA and saw a spur to a
good sized grain elevator in Rock Falls. Was this a regular customer? The
yard on the east side of town and other cutomer spurs were also shown. How did
the mill play off the C&NW and CB&Q/BN? I would appreciate any information you
would share.
Sincerely,
Andy Roth
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, qutlx1@... wrote:
>
> I worked the Rock Falls branch from the extra list in the early to mid 70s
> as vacation fill in. Also when mgmt decided to turn the C&I pool crews into
> "dog catchers" ended up on the branch several times.
> Have a Sterling/ Rock Falls agents instruction listing to switch crew from
> the 70s that lists industries,etc. I'll try and find it. This was a big OT
> job
> serving the customers,and making up the Denrock and Mendota outbound cars.The
> steel mill had its own famous switch engines.
> Also have a "time study" from the UTU files on motor cars on the branch that
> I hope to turn into a Zephyr or Bulletin article someday. Those motor cars
> were maids of all chores. Ray Prince once told me a story of working the Rock
>
> Falls job and about to go "dead" on the law during a tough winter,a Condr(who
>
> will remain unnamed) called the DS and asked for instructions. It was decided
> to cut the train in half and proceed into Rock Falls. The Condr left the
> merchandise,heating oil,produce,etc and proceed in w/coal and scrap for the
> mill. That was in the 1940s and the story was being told in the mid 70s
> because
> the Condr had just about "left" me on a platform in the burbs because he had
> a
> habit of leaving town when he felt like it. Ray Burnell saved me that day by
> popping the door back open. After that I was back on the step two minutes
> early when working w/this Condr.!
>
> At the time I worked it,the job ran Mendota-Rockfalls and return with side
> trip to Baker as needed.Had a very clean Q painted NE13 for a w/c and an
> SD7/9(or 2 ?) for power. Previously it had been a pr of Geeps. I seem to
> recall 30
> mph track speed. Radley still had 40 ft box cars stored for the next grain
> shipments off the branch.
> West Brooklyn still loaded grain in CHs. Gerry Barlow saved my head from the
> grain spout there one day. Every town had an elevator and track but I only
> remember West Brooklyn as active. Amboy had a FS plant that received a fair
> amount of ferts. business, The Lee County Central would come down and meet
> us
> at the east end of town with their Plymouth or 44 tonner (can't remember for
> sure) for the boxcars for grain loading. The IC interchange was still used.
> I
> believe it was primarily Goodyear tires in box cars. The mobile agent for
> the branch was based in the Amboy depot. The thing most striking about the
> branch was how little grading had been done on the line; it was a like a
> miniature roller coaster except where the big cuts had been made. They
> filled in
> nicely in the winter.(see prior posts about the plowing adventures in the
> late
> 70s).
> At Rock Falls the job pulled into a clear trk in the "new yard" on the east
> edge of town and then back up a clear trk or the main and doubled over to the
>
> w/c.
> When the Sterling-Denrock job was taken off all BN business then went via
> Earlville and the light branch trk really went downhill fast. One of big
> changes
> I remember is sizeable blocks of coal hoppers that previously had gone via
> Denrock.
> As others have stated it was Northwestern Steel and Wire that kept the
> branch alive and Dillions famous moves playing the CNW/Q off each
> other,etc.For
> more details read "12,000 Days" by Gene Lewis from the CNWHS. It was their
> scrap and retired railcars inbound(BRHS member J.F. Schmid was just
> reminiscing
> this week w/me about working the Rockfalls job ,then Eola based,hauling
> retired
> steam engines into town) and the outbound fencing,nails,etc that was the
> mainstay.
>
> By the 80's the branch was down to 10MPH or less and the crew would
> routinely go dead both ways over the road. Zab used to talk about being able
> to walk
> behind the w/c and keep up just nicely.
>
> Leo Phillipp
>
>
>
> **************Worried about job security? Check out the 5 safest jobs in a
> recession.
> (http://jobs.aol.com/gallery/growing-job-industries?ncid=emlcntuscare00000002)
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
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