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Then there were the car record operations..I think every railroad had some version of what we called on the RI "the wheel"...I have "declamed" on this mattere before, but here's how it worked.
Every conductor completed a "Wheel Report"...This was a manifold, foldable form preset with carbon paper for making several compies. It was lined and set up to be folded into a leather folder which the conductor always carried in the hip pocket of his overalls. Every car handled was written on the lines of this form..Car initial, number contents, station from and destination.
This report was turned in at the end of each trip with the various copies distributed to "all concerned"...In the supt of transportation office on the rock island was a large "wheel"..This could be described as a series of rings with hooks with said rings fastend to a a center pole..KInd of a "merry go round idea with each ring comprising what would be a platform on said MGR.
A copy of every wheel report of every train was sent to the supt trans office where a clerk tore the copy into strips with each strip being the record of a particular car on the wheel report.
These strips were then taken by a series of clerks and hung on the hooks attached to the rings on the wheel...Imagine your Christmas tree made of metal rings with the tinsel strips (we called them Icicles at my house) hanging offf the rings. They were placed by car number..I think each strip representing the last two or three digits of the car number.
These clerks stood by that wheel all day long hanging those strips and other clerks...were kept busy searching out car movement records from customer and agent inquiries. They would go to the proper strip hanging from the particular ring and find....if it was there...the last movement of the car...
When I started wi;th the RI in December of 1959 in the management training program I spent a day or two in that office watching that operation. When my time was done there we were required to go into the Supt hisself's office for a "debriefing" kind of thing...At that time computers were being somewhat introduced into railroad accounting procedures and I suggest to the ST that maybe the computer could replace the wheel...He said he didn't think so because the wheel had always been used and didn't think it could be improved upon.
I don't know when the wheel ceased to be used...must have been sometime in the 1960's...I recall seeing, not long ago in some of the archival Q photographs from the Newberry library something similar to the RI wheel, although it seemed to work on the same principle, but of a somewhat different design...
Talk about a "tedious" job..How could a clerk not go stark raving mad standing there doing that kind of stuff for 30-40-50 years..But they were "legion" and spent their entire RR careers doing this kind of stuff...Ride the train in in the AM...do that stuff all day long...ride the train back home that evening...5 days a week. Go visit grampa and gramma on Saturday or Sunday and start over again on Monday.
When i was in charge of the RI Freight Claims Dept..which was the "stogiest of the stogiest" departments...until I livened it up a bit and stirred things up many of the clerks did not have an automobile and many didn't have bank accoounts. They cashed their paychecks at the Currency Exchange..Paid their gas, electirc, phone and other bills there..paid their rent or house payment in cash along with groceries etc.
I had one old guy who was 84 years old, chewed tobacco and spit in a 1/2 pint milk carton on his desk. He was a bachelor. He did have a savings account at some credit union and would come into my office periodically and show me his bank book and brag about how much money he had..It was significant.
Such was the life in railroad general offices up until...proabably about mid 60's when things began to change...As Louis Menk was quoted as saying in the Chicago Tribune.."We're getting rid of that creaky old railroad look"...When i heard that I always thought of going with my GF into the
Q general offices and seeing the "Picket Fence" around all the desks with the chief clerk guarding the gate.
MY GF hated Chief Clerks and would have nothing to do with them..He would walk in with me "in tow"..open the gate and just barge in and head for the office of F.E. Sperry, R.B. Battey, JJ Alms or whoever he wanted to see with the Chief Clerk following him yelling "You can't go in there"....My GF would walk right into the office of whatever executive he was after to be greeted by..."PETE YOU OLD.....SOB...not bothering to use the initials....The chief clerk would meekly return to his post and my GF would carry out his mission and get what he came for...sometimes we would go to lunch with one of the executives.
Again...good memories from days gone by
Pete
-----Original Message----- From: qutlx1 <qutlx1@aol.com> To: cbq <cbq@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thu, Jan 17, 2013 7:36 pm Subject: [CBQ] Reports ? What reports ? To add again to Pete's comment about the army that watched over operations and recorded the data.
Both frt and passenger train Condrs were required to turn in a delay report at the end of a trip.There were designated locations in the terminals for the deposit of said reports.
On the dinkies the location was a box in the Condrs register room at the Aurora Depot.
Not long after winning a spot on the Condrs extra list at Aurora,actually a preferred job, as one was pretty much assured of working at least once a day and sometimes twice, I caught a night dinky. It was a two round tripper and the last 4 trains of the night. I dutifully left the reports for the first round trip from Aurora-Chicago and return in the box when I registered arrival for the middle trip,dept for the inbound trip and arrival for the last outbound leg(note that last piece). This was a common practice to "pre register".
So when we arrived back at Aurora at 2:15AM on the last leg I had the inbound and outbound delay report along with passenger counts and empy seat reports in the inside pocket of my uniform jacket. I just was plain tired and didnt feel like going into the depot. I was registered for the last arrival. Thinking I would just drop the reports into the box the next day when I was called to work for whatever....... I went home with the reports in my jacket pocket.
Next morning at 8AM my phone was ringing....where were the delay reports and passenger counts for the last round trip dinky? I explained they were in my uniform pocket and would be droped into the box later in the day,that was not acceptable and the counts were needed NOW. So I got up and provided the info.
And no Pete, I did not turn in a timeslip for disturbing my rest in less than 8 hours,but I sure thought about it !
Needless to say on any later late night dinkies I made the trek to depot and turned in the %&^$#@ reports.
Leo
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