On the Lincoln Division in the? 50's during county fair time "westward trains
via Crete" would get an order reading something like this.
Run carefully and use whistle freely while passing through Crete account County
Fair....."Account" was a favorite word in all railroad communications in the
"old days"..
When the "new group" came to the Rock Island in the 70's they attempted to
"clean up our communications" by getting rid of some of the old outmoded
railroad terms...Account being one cited...We were also admonished to stop the
practice....as old as railroading...of signing our correspondence with our
initial and last name...The point being that no one would know our first name
if we just signed by initials...The campaign was not too successful...One of
the proud old traditions of the railroad game was being known by your
initials....
The late L.W. Andreason and I were going "someday" to work up a treatise on old
style railroad correspondence, but never got it done...I would welcome Steve,
Archie or any 'old heads" to work with me on putting together a "composite" of
old time railroad verbage.
JPH
-----Original Message-----
From: STEVEN HOLDING <sholding@sbcglobal.net>
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, 1 May 2009 11:15 pm
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Re: TRAIN ORDERS
One time we had a family of beavers move in along the ROW near Halpin on the
Ottumwa Div.
Not the best at logging along the tracks they would drop trees on the tracks
So an order was put out to look out for beavers along the tracks.
You can image the remarks from that one
Or after the Cuban Boat brought many people to this country they were put up in
a state park on the La Crosse Div. Look out for juvenile Cubans along tracks.
In the winter the orders would read to look out for ice and snow packed in the
switch points and to make sure they were lined right and fitting tight. Right
on a Zephyr streaking along at 90 MPH!!
Yes retirement orders were standard for Conductors and Engineers for their last
trip.
Wonder if I could get one around the end of July
SJH
________________________________
From: "wohrnell@sbcglobal.net" <wohrnell@sbcglobal.net>
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, May 1, 2009 1:25:41 PM
Subject: [CBQ] Re: TRAIN ORDERS
I relieved R.C. Brown when he was Agent at Pleasantville, IA. I had never seen
a collection of TO's he had in the depot office/museum. He had books of TO's, I
recall seeing an order issued on the last trip an engineer was making before he
retired. It seemed in the earlier days the DS could issue an order for about
anything.
Lenny
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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