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Hol
This "observation" would come under the heading of an "efficiency test" of which operating officers were required to perform a certain number each month. On the Rock Island we were required to turn in at least 20. There was no specific form for whistle tests but those were reported on your monthly test report along with the other tests made.
One of the "easiest" test to make was to observe as the special agent did in this case the"performance" of the whistle procedure at a crossing while "laying out in the weeds"..
When it got close to the end of the month and you didn't have your tests in these 14L observations were easy to get...but you got in trouble if you had too many of just "observation tests"...ie just watching a crew perform as opposed to actual testing where you would set up a set of specific conditions ie putting down torpedoes and then "cracking" a red fussee to check that the crew performed properly as required by the rules under those conditions.
The performance would be reported as 14L at crossing MP xxx OK. For you non rails Rule 14L was the rule specifying the correct number of "longs and shorts" to be blown under specific conditions... ie threee shorts back up
2 longs go ahead 2 shorts answer to any signal given other than a fixed signal.
I think the whistle rules are labeled differently now but back when it was a "real railroad" things were as I have described here.
Pete
-----Original Message----- From: HOL WAGNER <holpennywagner@msn.com> To: CB&Q Group <cbq@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Mon, Feb 11, 2013 5:13 pm Subject: [CBQ] Unusual Company Form As I go through old Q and C&S records at the Colorado Railroad Museum each week, I try to copy and scan examples of the wide variety of company forms I run across, then forward them to Rupert for his growing compendium of these forms. Attached is one I came across today that is without doubt the most unusual I've yet encountered. It has no form number, which in itself is odd, and it's titled "Report of Observation of Engineers' Whistling Performance." Inspectors apparently were sent out -- in this case a C&S assistant special agent -- to sit at crossings and monitor the whistle signals for the crossing. This particular inspector sat at a remote crossing south of Walsenburg, Colo., for eight hours on a June afternoon and evening in 1942 and monitored the performance of six passing trains, five of them powered by steam. The sixth, the Texas Zephyr, was powered on this day by Q E5 9912, meaning that either C&S 9950 or FW&am p;D 9980 was back at West Burlington for repairs or shopping. Anyone out there ever heard of this practice of checking up on engineers' whistle work?
Hol __._,_.___
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