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After Leo's 2 journal oil stories I can't hold off any longer telling this one which I've never put in print before
After the Rock Port Langdon and Northern quit operating November 11, 1945 the ex CB&Q nee H&St.J 40 ft.baggage car which my grandfather puchased fromthe Q in 1943 to leave spotted at the "high platform" at Langdon for the Q local to transfer the LCL into rather than setting the car out for the RPL&N to bring to Rock Port and hence aquiring demurrage charges...I think it was something like $l.00 per day was left at said "high platform" on the track at Langdon which was owned by the RPL&"N....That tells you how dire were the straits the RPL&N found itself in in those last coouple of years..My GF paid $300 for the car so it no doubt "paid for itself" in saved demurrage charges.
After some period of time when it became apparent that the RPL&N was not going to be handling any LCL or anything else for that matter and the Q wanted that car out of the way they shoved it out onto the RPL&N main leading south around a curve out of the Langdon yard. This was just barely beyond the clearance point of the Q elevator track and just 50 or so feet from the Q main line.
ABout 1951 when I was 15 a couple of buddies and I thought it would be fun to enjoy an overnight stay in said baggage car on a Saturday night.. This we did on more than one occasion..All of these excursions were in winter necessitating the use of the stove in the baggage car..This was the typical upright round stove made of cast iron and with a small firebox designed to burn coal..A supply of coal had been left in the car and after we had used that up we would scavenge coal from the tender of the 440 which had not yet been scrapped. This was good hot burning steam coal.
For fire starting purposes we always took along a gallon or so of kerosene...which could be be purchased at any gas station for 15 cents per gallon..We also took along a gallon or so of used motor oil which was also available at gas stations for the asking.
One Sunday morning we were fiddling around with the stove and its attendant fire and decided to try a little "experiment"...Said experment consisted of mixing up a 50-50 mixture of the used motor oil and kerosene in a glass jar.
With a nice bed of hot coals in the stove we would open the stove door and toss the jar containing the "compound" into the stove...slam the door shut and "affix" the keeper so that it wouldn't come open if thing should get as bad as they could have.
We would then race to the slilding doors.....look out and wait for "developments" at the top of the stack...It didn't take long for "developments" to occur...With a massive roar flames would shoot out the stop of the stack 2-3 feet and the pipe inside the car would get a nice "toatsty" red....It worked so nicely we tried it several times and did it again on succeeding "overnight" excursions...
I don't believer that I ever told my dad about these little "experiments" which could have been fatal....This is the first time that this particular childhood caper has seen the light of day.
The stove suffered no ill effects and is now safely ensconsed in my daughter's family room and proudly disiplayed as a "relic" as opposed to a "dangerous toy"...Archie Hayden viewed this stove a couple years ago when he met the Boys from Colorado who were restoring the C&S coach and were the recipients of Archie's generous donation of a similar stove from Q coach 3537...long time traveler on the Corning-Villisca branch transporting Jim Christen and me on our summer branch line excursions in the early 1950's.
Pete
-----Original Message----- From: Qutlx1 <qutlx1@aol.com> To: cbq <cbq@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thu, Apr 25, 2013 5:56 pm Subject: [CBQ] Anatomy of a hot box To add to Karls story of "borrowing" a pad to start a fire. I spent a good portion of yesterday and last night with an old friend and customer,Danny Gabriel of Trinity Industries in Dallas. Bear with me as there's an interesting tie in here to Karls story about taking a journal pad to start a fire in the Congos w/c stove.
Danny and I were at dinner last night telling one old BN story after another as he and I hired out about the same time. He in Galesburg and me at Aurora. As many others,he wanted to go into train service but when he took the medical exam he learned he was color blind. The company Dr. told him the mechanical dept was hiring . Long story, short he not only got hired but rose thru the ranks of carman,foreman,general foreman,wrecker foreman,mechanical supt and ended his career in Ft Worth arguing FRA fines. (That must have been a really fun position). He then moved onto Trinity where I met him 7 years ago. He will retire shortly and move back to the Galesburg area, I have a semi promise from him to attend the fall meet at Mendota.
I related Karl's story about the brakeman on the Congo stealing the journal pad and he immediately went into the following story. The car inspectors in Galesburg would work an inbound train and then seek shelter in one of the wood shantys scattered around the yard until the next inbound train arrived. One car inspector upon finding no material available to start a fire in the shantys' stove would take his packing hook and go to a string of cars and remove a journal pad and toss it into the stove for fuel to get some heat going. He would accurately fill out a bad report for the car with the missing pad so it went to the rip for repair. Meantime he was toasty warm as the oil in pad would get a nice hot fire going to the extent that the stove pipe would get red hot up through the roof of the shanty. His downfall was that he did this on a regular basis and was soon an ex employee.
Leo Phillipp
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