List- I believe that the answer regarding the "gas company track" that went to an electric generating plant is that the plant first made gas. Coal was heated to create gas for many years and the spent coal product was coke that was sold. Homes contained gas pipes and gas lights before electricity.
Bob Sorensen
----- Original Message -----
From: qutlx1@aol.com
To: cbq@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, 03 Aug 2012 22:09:22 -0400 (EDT)
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.