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Yes, old enginemen in New Jersey, when that coastal fog blanketed everything like pea soup, knew where they were nonetheless. I've been in the cab when they made station stops flawlessly. They did have the advantage of cab signals in every locomotive (though no speedometers) and the feel and sounds that accompanied different parts of the railroad.
Art From: "Jpslhedgpeth@aol.com" <Jpslhedgpeth@aol.com> To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com Sent: Saturday, January 5, 2013 6:58 PM Subject: Re: [CBQ] Re: Abbreviation quiz Think about many many years ago when there were no speed recorders or speedmeters...Those old engineers always knew just how fast they were going. The timetables all carried a section indicating the speed at so many seconds per mile. But most of them probably didn't need that "help"...they ran by "feel"
Pete
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From: mdeckergwtcnet <mdecker@gwtc.net> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Sat, Jan 5, 2013 4:28 pm Subject: [CBQ] Re: Abbreviation quiz --- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, Jpslhedgpeth@... wrote: > > > Just as I thought Mike. RE: carlengths...Used to be you figured about a "rail length" plus a lttle for a C/L...in days of mostly 40 ft cars. Now I guess everything almost is well above that number. > > > > Pete > Ya, Pete. When I hired out we had a pole line. There were 40 poles to the mile, and I figured 2-1/2 cars to the pole. Everybody else was taught that when they hired out, so even with new guys, the car counts were pretty close. Of course, if the Conductor or Brakeman didn't like the Engineer, those last five or ten cars could go by pretty fast :>) Now, you've got nothin'. The guys on the ground have to guess, and the seats on the new motors are lots farther off the ground, and you can't see the track right in front of the motors, so you don't have the same reference point as on the SD's and Geeps. I used to be pretty good at judging my speed by the poles. One time, Trainmaster Turner was riding home with me, after the Company had run them all through a modified Engineer school so they could run if we were on strike. I had a bad order speed recorder on the lead motor and I'd had plenty of practice "counting seconds" on the poles. Bruce was riding the second motor, and when he came up at Edgemont he told me that I ran closer to speed without a speed recoreder than he could with one :>) Mike __._,_.___
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