Leo et al
Since you, Leo were so kind as to credit me with "help" I'll give a little more
in the way of LCL tales...I've got a couple of my own, but here's a little
exerpt from a self published book titled CLINKERS, PACKING HOOKS AND RAILROAD
MEMORIES authored by the late Ed O'neill, long time Lincoln Division and
Conductor...The book is? a great...rambling of various experiences Ed had of
his 40 plus years on the Q...I never worked with him, but knew of him...I'd
like to get the book republished and I'm told that Ed's daughter would like
that also so maybe my "round tuit" will come in before too long..Here's the
story as it relates to LCL
Branch line trains usually handled only about 5 to 20 cars, often only about 10
cars.? The merchandise cars were on the rear end just ahead of the waycar.?
When you arrived in town, the head man went ahead and did any switching, while
teh rear man got up in the merchandise car which had been spotted at the
depot.? The rear man dug out the freight and brought it to the door while the
conductor and agent decided who was going to get theri gloves on last and so,
get to check the frieght against the waybill while the other piled it on the
baggage or hand truck.? Sometimes, if both were old and the b rakeman was
young, they succeeded in fumbling with their gloves until the brakeman put the
frieght on the truck and they both checked it.
Over at Juniata (station between Hastings and Kenesaw, NE) there was a dealer
handling, I think, Watkins products.? He often got over 100 pieceds in a
shipment but most of them weighed only a couple of pounds but you had to look
all over the car for them.? Sometimes we would have a stove or furnace to
unload, those big, round stock tanks were ajoyh in a strong wind.? Section
foreman wold get barrels of gasoline and they were fun to wrestle.? Large
crated sofas were askward to handle as you had to lift and turn them to get
them to and out the door.? Rolls of barbed wire naturally brought smiles to our
faces.
It wasn't bad a stations where they still had baggage trucks so you could work
at floor leel but most smaller stations had gotten rid of them and you had to
load or unload from ground level to the car level...I remmeber yet a 800 pound
barrel of sheep casing for the old Wilber Wiener Works.? We had to unload it
onto the ground since the agent didn't want his only baggage truck tied up with
a barrel that half filled it.? The wiener company refused the casings for some
reason adn we had to load it back up and send it back to Lincoln.? Somewhere
enrooute the return tag came off and here came the barrel back to Wilber.? so
we unloaded it again, andnaturally it was refused again.? So we had to roll it
up the planks iknto the car again and send it back.? I sure got tired of that
barrel of wiener casings. Another night at Dewitt I and John Becker loaded 7
tons of Vise Grip wrenches in 96 pound cartons, into the merchandise car.? That
was early in the war and, I understood, the Air Force was equipping each plane
with a wrench.? That was the largest shipment I ran into.? I suspect I got off
that assign;ment nd went on some other job."
I'm very familiar with the Vise Grip shipments at Dewitt.? The plant was
Peterson Manufacturing and was in business making the nationally know Vise Grip
Pliers until recently when the plant closed throwing several hundred people out
of work.
Ed is not exaggerating about the heavy cartons although the ones we loaded in
the 1950's I don't think weighed 96 pounds...probably closer to 50-60.? They
were small compact cartons, but very heavy.? It wasn't unusual to have two
baggage truck loads of these things each night when we came north on No. 94,
the Lincoln-Wymore Local.? Fortunately the Dewitt depot had a brick platform so
you didn't have to pull the truck through a typical branch line cinder
platform.?
One night...we were usually there about 9:00pm hence no agent on duty...we
pulled up and spotted the merchadise car, unlocked the freight house and saw
the usual two truckloads of Vise Grips...The old conductor said..."hell we
don't want to load these tonight...I'll just tell em "we didn't have no
merchandise car...HIGHBALL"...and we did...So much for customer service.
Leo you mentioned the end of LCL service...On the RI it was 1965...and the end
was not a sad thing for me as Freight Claim agent...You wouldn't believe the
hassle and paperwork involved in processing a loss or damage claim for LCL
merchadise.
You also mentioned the Freight Houses...The Rock Island had, at Blue Island a
large freight house with probably 6-8 tracks...There were round the clock
"house engines"..The afternoon job would pull all the tracks, shove the
"setbacks" back in the track, but not spotted and switch out the outbounds for
the evening trains...There was a night "house job" who was suposed to put the
emties and setbacks back in, but he never got it done since he always got used
to make deliveries in the early am.
The agent, an excitable Italian? named Mike Dell, would come to work at 7;00am
and find the house not spotted.? He would first call me and
yell..."Hedgpath..do you know the house is not spotted and I've got 70 men with
nothing to do...I could only offer sympathy and hope that I could get out of
there before the Superintendent would call me..Mike having immediately called
him after calling me and the Supt would yell the same thing at me.? It was an
every day occurrence.
The LCLbusiness was still much alive and well in 64 when I escaped from the
Operating Dept., but ended, I'm reasonably sure in 65
A minor correction, Leo..You referred to the non use of foreign cars because of
the "demurrage charge"...I'm sure you meant per diem..I can't think of any time
that demurrage would apply to an LCL shipment since the cars were always
spotted on a railroad facility.
I may have a bit more LCL stuff and I'll put it on when it pops into my already
"overloaded with useless trivia brain.
Pete.
-----Original Message-----
From: qutlx1@aol.com
To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Mon, 8 Jun 2009 9:48 pm
Subject: [CBQ] LCL Traffic
Dustin,
I can only pass on what my research and interviews with the old heads has
revealed. (Pete has been a great help in my research.) What I have learned
is that each w/f had an LCL car for the smaller stations on its route,the
bigger stations might have one or more of their own spotted at the depot or
frt house. For example the Rockfalls w/f had an lcl car and then one or
more for Plano,Sandwich,etc. As I understand it cars weren't "ordered" by the
shipper but rather it took its' LCL to the depot/frt house and the agent
and helper loaded it into the LCL car. Generally LCL was the rear brkmns
responsibility while the head man handled the "station" work. The "peddler" car
was generally next to the w/c.
Wade Gorman used to talk about starting his Q career as a station agents
helper during the Depression and lamented how a good box car would be tied up
for days bringing a part or 2 of farm equipment to Plano in its assigned
LCL car. One comment I recall him making was opening the door on a car to
find one sprocket laying in the car,sum total of its load. The Aurora frt
house was the transload point for all the wayfreights based out of Eola. My
notes show that at one time there was a "Frt House" job at Aurora that worked
up to 16 hours a night spotting and pulling the frt house. Then the
"peddler" cars were dragged up to Eola in the wee morning hours to be added to
that days w/fs. No doubt this same pattern existed at all major points.
I have been unable to find the exact end to LCL as Annual Reports as late
as 1959 still show a dwindling amount of earnings from this service. My Eola
Rdhse. assingment book for '53-'55 doesn't list an Aurora frt hosue job.
As a child in the late 50/early 60s I remember there were no cars at the
Aurora frt house but a Burlington truck lines rig sat in the parking lot each
day for some time.
George Krekan would tell his story of unloading desks at Startford if one
would stand still to listen. I recall his seniority date as 194(?). I
believe this was on the "pickup" eastbound from Savanna.
I would venture that the Q would probably NOT put a foreign car into LCL
due to the demurrage charges. These cars could end up in "tramp" service for
a long time or be pulled and used for c/l at any time. I do have some
original docs for foreign LCL cars going to House 5 for re-securing of loads
before moving onto final destinations after being received in interchange at
Chicago.
Also dont forget the "route cars" of company material moving over assigned
routes,on assigned days in wayfreights from the stores dept at Aurora and
Havelock. These were much like LCL but only company material.
I would really enjoy learning more details of LCL and "route cars"
service.
Leo
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