One of my few regrets is that I never got to work with a steam engine. IIRC the last steam on the Lincoln-Hastings line was 1955 which was a year before I hired out...Summer 56, my first summer they kept a steam engine at Ravenna for protection..IIRC it was the 5080. At that time waycars were still changed at Ravenna. The switch engine worked nights 1:00am-9:00am. The rule was that if a road train was "called in" for within a half hour of the switch engine going off duty it had to be held over to make the change..Otherwise the crews make their own waycar change.
On several of my mainline trips Lincoln-Ravenna at Ravenna the switch crew would be working with the steam engine to make a waycar change.
There was were two locals which tied up at Ravenna 6 nights a week. The Burwell Local and the Lincoln-Ravenna local. These locals used a Geep for power, hence there was always a diesel for the switch engine to use, but if those locals got out in the morning and the switch crew was held over they would use the steam engne.
I got forced to the Ravenna switcher late summer of 56...It was an awful job..Not much work but all nights and me staying in an old non ac hotel getting no sleep and the job paid little or no OT...
I thought surely one night of the three weeks I was there I'd get a chance with the Black Beauty as one of the switchmen called it...Well, it never happened. So as far as the CB*Q is concerned I'm steamless...However in my early life on theRock Port Langdon and Northern I spent lots of time on the 440 and 2 Spot. I wasn't big enoough to lift the shovel, so I picked up the coal and threw it in the firebox by hand..And then of course I had to wipe my hands on my face...My dad was the engineer the last 3 years of operation and he could work around coal and dirt all day and never get any on himself...Such was not the case for me.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: Noel Crawford
<georgecrawfordsr@comcast.net>
To: CBQ
<CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Jan 28, 2013 8:28 pm
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Story POsts
Pete:
Non of my people worked for the Q or any other RR. However, I have kid memories of the folks who did. My brother in law's stepfather, Rick Walthers worked as an engineer starting as a fireman on steam engines. I remember the day we were painting the interior of the Brown McDonald store in York. Rick was working with us when he got called for the extra board. He took of for Lincoln like a dog with a tin can on it's tail. It is a wonder he made it in time for his call driving 50 miles down old highway 34 years before the interstate. When his train came through York, my dad and I were out on the embankment overlooking the line. Rick was firing a Mike 04a. He was in the gangway grinning like a kid. The engineer gave us a long tug on the whistle cord which put a bigger grin on my face. Rick loved steam but hated diesels. Towards the end he really disliked his job. He died in the 80's of lung cancer. One of the best stories I have of him is when in the 70's he put an extra empty box car in his train which was the local. He knew they were going up to Benedict on the old KC&O. He then got the crew to help him take the big heavy roll top desk out of the Benedict Depot and haul it back to Lincoln. It was the original desk from the KC&O. He restored it to pristine condition.He had gotten permission from someone to do this. Anyhow I would have killed for that desk, but his widow gave it to Rick's daughter for her husband who worked for the UP. They still have it. By the way I am 3 score and 12. LOL
Noel
On 1/28/2013 8:40 PM, HOL WAGNER wrote:
Pete:
I'm a year older than Louis, so you've got a decade on me, too. And what a decade: The differences between the 1950s and the 1960s were monumental in railroading, with the change from steam to diesel and the decline of passenger service. I'm lucky to have ridden a number of Q passenger trains in the late '50s and early '60s, while service standards were still quite high, and my all-tme favorite dining car experience was eating dinner in the old heavyweight diner-lounge car (car 325 for those who care) on No. 26 out of Kansas City for Omaha. While I don't recall what I had (except that there were peas, and the Q always served the best peas I've ever eaten), it was just the ambience of the whole setting, with superb service by the dining car crew and the fabulous ride of the old heavyweight car which had the rear half of the original dining room converted into a lounge, complete with rear end windows, creating something of a solarium. Never left that car all the way to Omaha!
Hol
To:
cbq@yahoogroups.com
From:
Jpslhedgpeth@aol.com
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2013 20:12:40 -0500
Subject: [CBQ] Story POsts
Charlie...I hope you really mean it when you say that this "good stuff" ie stories is going to get preserved...I've often wondered over the years if someone was actually doing it.
I've done some writing on my own regarding my "Adventures" as a Terminal Trainmaster on the RI, and am gathering material...actually I've already gathered it..just a matter of getting it on here and other places...for a Burlington Story...I've got the title, which I'll not reveal here, but this recent stuff started by Louis Z. has "tripped my trigger" and now approaching the Biblical "three score and 10 plus 10 if your strong"...I'm closer to the "home terminal" than most of you so the time of procrastination is almost past... Time to do it is now.
I've appreciated so much John and now Louis emphsizing the important of the Stories....I've always thought that the people side of the railroads was "where it was" for me...
Louis your "word picture" of the TCZ arriving at LaCross was great....My granddaughter is a golfer and she played that course last summer..She came home and said.."Grampa...that golf course was right by a railroad track...the whole picture came immediately into focus.
The smell of the diner is someting one never forgets...When my dad and I would be waiting at Langdon for 21 and 26 back in the 50's...they usually met somplace around Langdon so we would catch them both...26 carried a diner-parlor car on the rear end...As the train would leave and the diner would go by the platform the aroma of dinner preparations would waft from the open kitchen door and the grinning black chef would toss out a bone to the "depot dog"...Actually he was the Langdon postmaster's dog and his name was Spot. We would usually make the Langdon trip before having supper at home and those diner smells created a "lustful desire" for a "dinner in the diner"...well my mother always had a good one for us when we got home.
Pete