Rupert,
That's one loaded question ! I kind of anticipated it
and therefore have been thinking about it off and on all day.
I believe the Aurora Div,Savanna pool was unique to the entire
Q system in that the "home" terminal was not home. The C&I pool ran between
Cicero and Savanna,IL. The supply point for the pool was Aurora,IL which was
also the physical home for most of the lodge members.
This meant that when someone bid in a C&I pool turn you
commuted to and from Cicero, roughly 40 miles from home. Members lived in and
around Aurora,farther west in the country and a few in the "burbs" between
Aurora and Chicago. In essence what happened was the C&I pool crews
rode the dinkies(for the most part) or drove their cars to/from the
terminal.
Why because almost all the other jobs on the
division,wayfreights,dinkies,etc were based out of Eola/Aurora.
Based on my reading of the lodge files in my posession a major
stumbling block to joining the pooled waycar movement was the fact that once an
eastbound crew arrived at Cicero and there wasn't a westbound dinky for many
hours where would the crew stay until the westbound dinky could take them to
Aurora ? With the assigned waycars they could stay in the waycar until the first
westbound dinky in the AM(they even had local agreements with Cicero about when
waycars could be switched in this situation). So I believe this was the main
hang up in getting the Aurora crews on board for pooled waycars.
I don't know when it was agreed to but at some point the
Aurora crews were allowed rights to use the "new" bunkhouse at Clyde when they
needed to lay over. The bunkhouse was indeed new and modern at Austin Ave and
the the engine house lead for the Aurora Div men from Galesburg working the
mainline pool.
Hope this answers your questions,if not come on back
again.
Leo Phillipp