Re: [CBQ] Train order delivery

[Jpslhedgpeth@aol.com]

John...that term..."Managerial Leniency" is one I've never heard before...Fortunately I've never received any correspondence that would have used that term...It did seem like...back in the 50's that everybody got put back eventually...I think, however, that stealing from the company was one sin that produced permanent absence.   This was more or less a transgression that, as far as cash was concerned, that presented itself  only to passenger conductors...although it could have applied to agents and freight house cashiers.

 

Seems like what I remember about rule G violation was a certain 1 year vacation...getting by a positive stop signal was the same penalty. 

 

I only missed picking up train orders one time in my relatively brief career.   I was head brakeman on Train No. 80...Lincoln-St. Joe MO hotshot..Summer evening...Engineer noted for fast running and disagreeable temperment..no patience with new trainmen.

 

At Tecumseh, NE the depot is on the east  side of the main running south to north...This makes it the fireman's side...The depot is located on a very short tangent coming out of a left hand curve...We had had one of the old F units and expected to pick up an order at Tecumseh.

 

I opened the door and got down in my usual catching  train orders positon..ie  left leg outside with foot on the step...Right knee on the floor..Right hand gripping the overhead handhold.  Speed..close to 60 mph...Around the curve we came...horn blasting for the road crossing just north of the depot...Throttle in run 8...Train order signal at stop...No one on the platform with a hoop...

 

No reduction in speed..no shutting down throttle...no setting of air....We hit the end of the platform...operator raced out the door...across the platform and stuck the hoop up just as we went by...I missed....

 

Engineer spoke unkindly of incompent brakeman...set air and and prepared to stop....I got down on the bottom step and swung off as soon as it was reasonably safe and starting running back toward the depot...

 

We were around a curve and there were a couple of tracks full of cars...Before I got even halfway back the engineer whistled off and started to pull...I couldn't see the head end or rear end or the depot...Speed picked up as George (engineer) left town...I finally decided the best thing to do was get on and go over the top which I did.

 

Found out the operator jumped in his car and ran the orders to the head end....It was not a pleasant experience and led to a less pleasant experience with the same engineer on the return trip the next day..That's a another story for another day.

 

Pete

-----Original Message-----
From: John D. Mitchell, Jr. <cbqrr47@yahoo.com>
To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sat, Apr 20, 2013 11:49 am
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Train order delivery

 

My best missed train order story concerns one of my favorite and most colorful engineers, Joel "Poopsey" Guthrie. One afternoon in early '58, he was running number 14, the "hotshot" when he blew the train order board at Christopher and missed the orders. He didn't stop. In fact, he didn't even slow up. The hind end caught their orders. Among them were a run two hours late order and a meet order for the Metropolis local at Herrin Junction.  Both orders restricted 14's authority to occupy the main track south of Herrin Junction. When the train got to Herrin Junction, the conductor noticed they were not slowing for the meet and pulled the air. Both the conductor and the Christopher operator (a really no non-sense guy named Carl Perry) wrote up the incident as required by the rules and Ass't Superintendent Joe Turner restricted Poopsey to yard service. After about six months, Poopsey convinced Turner to restore him to road service (as a matter of "managerial leniency"). The very next night, Poopsey was running extra 238 south, when it collided with a cut of empty coal hoppers in the South Yard at Christopher, resulting in "The Million Dollar Wreck". This time, Poopsey got set out. He worked in a Centralia hardware store and lived off of his "fire insurance" for two years until he was restored, again as a matter of "managerial leniency".

 

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