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Speaking of "station order" and related matters here's a little situation we had on the Rock Island. I'll state the problem and then ask you switchmen and "timeslip artists" to come up wi;th the solution. This problem had arisen and been "fixed" before I came on the job of Asst. TM at Joliet, but it did impress me as a "creative solution" and we used it every night.
Each night after the hotshots got out of Blue Island for Silvis there would be a job called which resembeled what was called on another railroad as"The P....Cutter". This job was known as the Red Ball Pickup. For those of you young guys who are not famiiar with the term "Redball". Back in the day "hot loads" were known as "Red Ball"..and were designated as such by a.....are you ready for it....red ball sticker on the waybill. This practice had gone out long before I came on the scene, but, as all things railroad seem to do, the name carried on.
The stated purpose of this train was to peddle the "Illinois Shorts"..Towns Joliet and west...ei Minooka, Morris, Seneca, Ottawa, LaSalle Spring Valley Bureau etc. and pick up the loads at these points and take them to Silvis to be humped in time to be put on the next day's "hotshots" for the west and north.
This train came out of Blue Island with his consist in station order with through cars on the rear end. These through cars were known as "westbounds". At Joliet the RBPU would set out his Joliet cars and pick up the Illinois Shorts coming out of Joliet. Well you can see that a straight pickup setout would put the Illinois shorts in two different locations in the train...ie those shorts out of Joliet would end up in a different place in the train than those Illiinois shorts out of Blue Island....thus the RBPU would have to make two separate setouts at some stations...Well the "fly in the ointment" regarding this matter was that those towns west of Joliet through Bureau were served by road switchers headquartered at MOrris, Joliet, LaSalle and DePue. These were individual switching districts and a train making more than one pickup or setout at any of these towns would create a "blizzard" of timeslips for road crews doing switchman's work.
Those involved sometime before I arrived had worked out an ingenious scheme for alleviating the problem and it worked out very well and eliminated the double setout-pickups at the Illinois towns.
I don't have "five silver dollars" (remember Doctor IQ John), for a prize but I'd be interested in seeing who can come up with the maneuver that solved the problem.
Pete
-----Original Message----- From: John D. Mitchell, Jr. <cbqrr47@yahoo.com> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thu, Oct 18, 2012 8:50 pm Subject: Re: Fwd: [CBQ] Roustabout Leo
The conductor was right about way freight rate and later agreements made that clear. Besides all of the lapbacks and side trips made mileage a nightmare. There was a local agreement for the Metropolis Local that the engine crew would be paid YARD rate and the trainman and conductor rates would be made HOURLY way freight rate i.e. daily rate divided by 8 and time and a half after 8 hours. This was after the Metropolis switching limits and yard engines were abolished. I don't believe this was done anywhere else on the Q. This ,of course, did not observe the "Unit Rule". In your case, I don't know how the Super got around all the p/u's and s/o's plus all the in-route switching. The local's train was certainly not in "station order". (For those who are not familar with the unit rule, it is that if one part of a crew receives a higher rate then the entire crew i.e. the unit, gets the higher rate.)
John
From: "qutlx1@aol.com" <qutlx1@aol.com>
To: cbq@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thursday, October 18, 2012 8:13 PM Subject: Fwd: [CBQ] Roustabout John,
Thanks for the response confirming my understanding of Roustabout service. Now here's the specific example I have stumbled upon dated 1896. I ask you and others to pull out your Q maps of the Aurora Div dated prior to 1932 (thats key) and follow along on an interesting true to life labor /mgt dispute. What rate of pay would you expect a Roustabout doing all this switching, as you describe, to earn: thru frt,or way frt (as road switcher didn't exist until the mid 1960s) ?
Here we go:
The Condr. on the "Roustabout" based at Mendota,IL writes a letter to the Aurora Lodge of the BRT asking for the local chairman to pursue a change in rate of pay for his job as he does not believe thru frt rate is correct. He goes on to explain in detail that after leaving their orginating terminal of Mendota,IL eastbound they proceed to Earlville where the switch out the eastward & westward sidings for cars going into Earlville proper, and onto Ottawa on the Fox River Branch. They spot the local Earlville business and take the Ottawa and Baker cars with them. They spot and pull the grain and coal at Baker and then go on to Ottawa(via Burgess Jct) and return to Earlville. They then gather up cars for Radley,Paw Paw and Shabbona along with all North (St Paul,LaCrosse,etc) and Rockford,IL cars.
Upon reaching Shabbona(via Paw Paw) they switch out the sidings there and put the Rockford and North cars into blocks for the trains going that way. They take the Shabbona propers to downtown Shabbona for the way frt to spot and take back with them any cars for the "mainline stations and points west"in route back to Mendota. They typically can spend 3-4 hours switiching at Shabbona.Once back at Earlville they put west cars on the westward siding and east cars on the eastward siding and then finally proceed back to Mendota and tie up.
The local chairman writes the Supt who responds that the thru frt rate is correct for the job. Later in the file the same Supt writes to agents at Mendota and Shabbona asking them to ensure that the Roustabout has instructions and does indeed switch out the North and Rockford cars from the other cars on the sidings at Shabbona so the North bound wayfreights are not delayed switching out this traffic at Shabbona.
Besdies the shear volume of switching I was stopped short by the routing of cars vs what I saw in the early days of BN(which I am assuming was left over from the Q) in that Eola and Cicero were used to block all this business.
Bottom line, back in the day a road job didn't mean just putting up your feet under the cupola window.!
Leo Phillipp
A "roustabout" was an old term for what we would call a "road switcher" job. They typically ran for shorter runs and did more switching that most local or way freights. Some operated in switching limits while others did not. Of course, the ones in switching limits were manned by yard crews.
From: "qutlx1@aol.com" <qutlx1@aol.com>
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, October 15, 2012 7:28 PM Subject: [CBQ] Roustabout Any body familiar w/the term Roustabout as used by the Q ?
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