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Leo...I'm glad (again) that you mentioned that there were no "instruction books" or "lists"...back in the day...When I first hired out summer 56 the crews were made up primarily of really old heads.....with a significant gap in hiring between about 1929 and 1937 when things started to pick up for the runnup to WWII. Then there were quite a few younger guys who hired out when they returned from THE war..1946 seniority or thereabouts.
Some of the old guys were reasonably helpful as were most of the newer guys in explaining track names numbers etc...Then there were some old guys...who someone once told me...That old ...... thinks everybody was born with a lantern in his hand. Some of the engine crews were helpful to the new man..who, in my case, always found himself on the head end. Most of the firemen...who basically had nothing else to do would give some good advice when asked.
What I did find was that if as a new man you convinced the old heads that you were interested in the job and were trying to catch on and not too much of a screw up that they were pretty decent. Then once they found out that you knew something about the railroad and knew something of how things used to be they would tell you stories....some of which, on occasion, might have been true.
One night, summer of 1958, I was the head brakeman on the Fairmont (NE) Hildreth local with a side trip from Edgar down to Nelson...a stub left from the 1940's abandoment ;of the line from Edgar to Superior...There was a station shown in the ETT as Angus which I had alway wondered about. We made the side trip on the westbound trip. It was my first day on the job. We never took the waycar down to Nelson, since all there ever was was one elevator where we would spot an mty or two and bring a load or two back.
Since it was my first trip the old (he was 48...with 30 years seniority) conductor went along. Since there were only 3 seats in the cab of the SD 7's someone always got to stand up or sit on the floor. Guess who that was...seniority always ruled and I knew that so I always "took the floor" without being told.
It was a 20mph railroad with 56 lb rail and cab high weeds outside the ties. It was dark as we clumped along through the weeds. Total distance was 14 miles. After we had been traveling along for some time I asked...to no one in particular... I asked When do we get to Angus? The old engineer looked at me with a startled look on his face..."HOW WOULD YOU KNOW ABOUT ANGUS? was his question. I said..I've been looking at old timetables since I was able to read and remember wondring about Angus...
He said..well, we're almost there and I'll show you..He then went on to say..."You know there was an automobile manufctured at Angus at one time...I said well I didn't know that...He went on to tell me about it...and showed me ANgus.
Just a few years ago after we moved to Lincoln...more than 30 years after my CB&Q work there was an article in the Omaha World Herald newspaper telling about the guy who manufactured an automobile at ANGUS.
Just a little example of how things were..."back in the day"
Pete
-----Original Message----- From: qutlx1 <qutlx1@aol.com> To: cbq <cbq@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Fri, Aug 3, 2012 9:09 pm Subject: Fwd: [CBQ] Fwd: [BRHSlist] Yard Track Numbering System Question Pete,
You are absolutely correct(as usual). At Eola there's a track that is in essence a extension of yard 1 and or 2 in the west yard. It's still referred to as the "new track". It's been there for over 40 years that I know of and when I asked,many times, in the 70s when it was put in,no one could recall ! Then there was the old east rip,the old west rip and to keep things simple the new west rip.
But it wasn't just yard and side tracks.... I often wondered how many guys understood the history behind saying "we're on the C&I", or "set them out on the CB&N" or "use the IV&N" main.
Industry tracks were even more notorius for never changing. I've written a full length article on the "Irish Mail" job for future BRHS useage. No one could tell you how or why the job had that name any longer. One track was called the "cooperage" for a barrel mfg. company that had gone out of business about 80 or 90s years earlier. And then there was the "Aurora Greenhouse track" that went to an mty lot.
To really top it off in a more distant article on the "Alley Job" there's the "gas company" track that went to an electric generating plant coal unloading tipple. Or the "Fox River track" that was about a city block from the river with a major street in between. Or the CA&E interchange trk that dead ended in a lumber yard.
The new man was somehow expected to know where to put the cars when somebody used one of these names!
Leo Phillipp
Ps-Unlike some model layouts there were no name tags between the rails and the Q didnt put out a "SPINS" book.
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Leo...I'm glad you made mention of the fact that the original track name never changed, no matter how long the original purpose for the track had been gone....and probably forgotten by all but the oldest head...
For example at Muscatine IA there was a track, I think it was right next to the main track which was called the MB&S..this track was the original main track for the Muscatine, Burlington and Southern a railroad which actually existed at one time..probably at least 100 years ago. The track was used daily for making up pickups and assembling cars to go out on The Island..another puzzleing name..The Island was a "peninsula" of land which stuck out into the Mississippi 'River and where most of the large industries at Muscatine were located.
I thinking of names such as The OLD east...and the NEW east. The NEW east was probably 50 years old....There were also tracks...although I can't think of any specifics right now whose names we would be "censored" if we were to use them on this "family friendly" list.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: qutlx1 <qutlx1@aol.com> To: cbq <cbq@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Fri, Aug 3, 2012 6:56 pm Subject: [CBQ] Fwd: [BRHSlist] Yard Track Numbering System Question And one last thing to really muddy the waters. If you were called to an investigation"to determine your responsibility,etc........" or to testify at a civil lawsuit in court;tracks were referenced by their engineering/property/acctg dept #s. So a question might be, were you proceeding on track 51237896-347 ?
And the appropriate answer would be............ we were on main one.
Leo Phillipp
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Nelson,
I will let the guys who know far more about Burlington,IA than me answer that part in particular.
The Qs general pattern was to list yard classification tracks starting from the main in numerical order. Yard one was closest to the main and increasing therefrom as you move farther out. Now keep in mind many places; Mendota,IL south yard in particluar comes to mind,had few # tracks but everything had a name. Some examples at Mendota were the coach,the diner,the mill #1,2,3,etc. and many others. The North yard was very straight forward 1,2,3,etc. I actually kept marked up trk diagrams in my bright red Q ETT cover for Mendota and other points that were unique.
The above applies to classification tracks. If were talking about a repair,storage,frt house or other type of non classification yard tracks the system was just the reverse. The track closest to the building,outside,etc was one and then numbered upward from there and these were often increasing as they became closer to the main line ?!
Confused yet ? No,good because here comes the third case.
In a BIG yard like Cicero/Clyde for example, there were multiple yards,each with its own unique numbering system. In Cicero and other major yards you really needed to know which yard you were in because for example, receiving XYZ could be right next to 'D' yard ABC. 14th st had an A,B and C yard.
I understand the C&NW Proviso yard was even more confusing in it's numbering and naming system.
Finally smaller locations often didnt have any #s for side tracks,just lots of names. Rochelle would be a prime example. And the names never changed long after the orginal purpose was forgotten. For example we were still referring to the coal chutes x/o at Rochelle in 1979 !
Leo Phillipp
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I've learned that railroads had conventions as to how they numbered tracks,
spurs, and yards. How did the Burlington Route number yard tracks? I will have a stub yard on either side of a double track main (actually is a staging yard, but I can use either side as a classification yard as well). I'd also like to know how the arrival, departure, and yard tracks in Burlington, IA were named or numbered. Nelson Moyer [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] __._,_.___
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