Bob,
I don't see where anyone else has chimed in so here's what I can tell you
about The Oregon Turn. Karl worked the job so he can share some ofl the tidbits
first hand as he did in the new waycar book. I've got a couple that haven't seen
print or email exposure.
To answer your direct question it is my understanding that the job simply
"turned" at Oregon and after about the eatly 50s brought the Kable print
cars to the Aurora depot. Prior to that the mail cars were p/u by a passenger
job and taken on it directly to CUS. Somehwere I have the research showing which
job but I'm too lazy right now to dig it out. Turning basically means you
leave the cars for the town(if you have(if any),grab whats there for you,run
around them,anything you brought that goes back with you,the w/c and skidaddle.
And that is exactly what the Oregon Turn did after grabbing the mail cars. The
job was structured so that all short work had been done westbound and now it was
a run to Aurora to get the mail cars on the back of one of the two early evening
eastbound dinkies.
It was known to set some pretty impressive running times between Oregon and
Aurora.
Westbound was another matter.Now for awhile there was a certain engineer on
the job(who will remain nameless in this post) who had chickens on his small
farm near Church road in Marywood just north of Aurora. This engineer was known
far and wide as one of the most frugal and hoinest human beings to ever walk the
earth.. He would put two empty five gallon cans in the cab at Eola and
while working the elevators westbound would be on the ground picking up
split grain in the cans. Often times when the trainman gave a sign there was no
one in the cab to move the engine as the chicken feed had taken priority.
Barny Joe went over on the job as fireman and after one or two of these
grain gleaning delays he had reached the breaking point. Next day while
spotting an elevator and before the engineer vould get down for the search he
simply grabbed both buckets,went into the elevator,scooped up enough corn to
fill both and loaded them both back on the engine.
I worked with this engineer a few times on a local in the 70s and he was
still doing the same thing at elevators.
Leo Phillipp
Ps-For a short while there was a daily Chadwick Turn out of Eola. Now there
was a high payer !