Lou:
I've been aware of you "out there" for a number of years through various friends who have been in contact with you. And quite coincidentally, I just saw your letter to the editor with similar description of your family's long service to the Q, in an advance copy I received of the new Spring 2013 issue of Classic Trains. Even more coincidentally, across the page from your letter is one from another active member of this list, John Mitchell. I received an advance copy of the issue -- of which Dave Ingles, BRHS member and featured photographer on the society's 2013 calendar, is senior editor -- because Dave had asked me to provide the story behind this issue's featured aerial photo. The photo chosen is a well-known one to Q fans, depicting the Exposition Flyer detouring through Quincy, Ill., due to flooding on the Des Moines River at Ottumwa. Dave is a fan of many railroads, the Burlington among them, and I am pleased to have been able to call him a friend since the early 1960s.
As for my posting this old correspondence, I am absolutely fascinated by what I encounter as I sort through the huge volume of old CB&Q and C&S records, previously untouched, at the Colorado Railroad Museum, and some of the subjects just jump out at me. I generally figure that if they interest me, they will interest other Burlington fans, so I copy them and bring them home to transcribe and post, my feeling being that even though the material is not sorted and filed at the museum, the likelihood of anyone on the list (with the possible exception of Ken Martin, who is an annual visiting researcher at the museum) ever seeing any of it is virtually nil. So I'm only to happy o make a tiny bit of it available to others with an interest in the Q.
I'm sure there are many members of this forum who would love to hear some of your old Burlington stories.
Great to hear from you!
Hol
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com From: LZadnichek@aol.com Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 12:58:01 -0500 Subject: [CBQ] Official Correspondence
Hol - I'm a "silent" member of this List and want to step forward and say how much I enjoy reading the transcribed official correspondence. My late father M.L. Zadnichek was a Lines East and West train master, division superintendent and director of TOFC during the 1950s and 60s. Dad may've been train master at St. Joseph, MO, at the time E.R. Schrader was division superintendent as we lived there in the mid-1950s. Dad was a baggage man and brake man on the C&I during World War Two. All his family were C&NW people going back to my g-g-grandfather who established his seniority on the section at Quarry, IA, in 1870 having immigrated earlier from Bohemia. I was born in 1946 at Mendota, IL, where my mom said the vibration from passing trains would shake the pictures loose on the walls, as well as make her rewash the clothes from the cinders that fell in the yard where the clothes line was located. The name E.L. Potarf particularly rang a bell as he mentored my father as a young trainmaster at Casper, WY, in the early 1950s. Mr. Potarf became a close family friend and I have snapshots taken by my dad of Mr. and Mrs. Potarf and daughter with myself, brother and mother at Sunday afternoon family get-togethers. Both my dad and mom thought the world of Mr. Potarf and stayed in touch with him through their lifetimes. I also see other names of Q officials who my dad was well acquainted with and some of whom I met as a child. It really was one big Burlington Family in that era, something that today has been lost. Dad was a collector, too, and I have his personal papers, official documents pertaining to his career, lanterns, bells, headlights, whistles, builders plates, photographs and other Q memorabilia. Today, my son Miles continues the Zadnichek Family railroad heritage as a revenue accountant with NS in Atlanta, GA. I encourage you to continue researching and transcribing the official correspondence. I very much appreciate your efforts. Best Regards - Louis Zadnichek II, Fairhope, AL
In a message dated 1/24/2013 10:59:53 A.M. Central Standard Time, holpennywagner@msn.com writes:
Pete: Yup, I checked an Alliance Division ETT and he was indeed division superintendent. Thanks! Hol
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com From: Jpslhedgpeth@aol.com Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2013 11:46:03 -0500 Subject: Re: [CBQ] Boxcars in Passenger Service
E.R. Shrader was a Superintendent...He was at St. Joe in the 1950's...I have a personal letter from him turning down my request for Jim Christen and I to ride the "head end" of No.93 from Corning to Villisca.
Shrader's nephew lives here in Lincoln and we have had several conversations recently about "uncle Ed". He is buried near York, NE...His nephew is going to take me out to his burial site sometime next spring.
Pete
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