Pete, it's not even an 800 number anymore. It's all done on the Internet and web sites. No need for human contact. Order cars,waybill cars,pay bills,contest bills,trace cars,get rate quotes,etc,etc,etc.
Shoot,even wrecked cars and their settlements and monthly AAR interchange repair bills are all done electronically.
If one of the multitude of line side sensors finds something wrong with a car the owner gets an email
Leo
In keeping with my reputation of "everything reminds you of something"...here's the target of the remembrance.
Company Coal...summer 1958...I was working the Fairmont (NE)-Hildreth local...About mid August the old head conductor commented one day..."Well, we'll have the company coal one of these days"
It wasn't long until his prediction came true..The company coal arrived in a flat bottom gon. We peddled it to one station at a time..Starting with the nearest station west of Fairmont..Shickely...Monday....Ong Wednesday...and on down the line.
We would spot the car near the "coal house" near the depot..The section men would unload whatever was required at each station and then we would move the car along..
Each depot was, at that time heated by a coal burning stove....
As I think back on this operation I wonder how much it actually cost the company to handle this coal..It would tie up a section gang probably half a day to unload coal at each station, plus tieing up the car. I think, in the 60's most of these stations obtained an oil stove..of course that's when furnace oil and/or fuel oil cost less than 10 cents per gallon.
Well, now the problem has gone away..No stove...no agents...no station, Dial the 800 number and that's it.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From:
qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ] <
CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
To: CBQ <
CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Mon, Jan 26, 2015 9:41 pm
Subject: [CBQ] Seasonal use of Gondolas
I think I can shed some,light on the switching of gons from coal to other services. As late as 1980,when I worked in the BN Chicago regional office,one of my duties was to pull certain series of true open hoppers(with gravity gates,not flat bottom,high side gons or tub gons) from unit coal trains to ballast service in the spring and back to coal in the fall.
As to earlier years gons could be used in scrap,aggregate,sand,etc service when not needed for coal in the warmer months.
As to leveling or equalizing the coal loads, a high percentage of coal was the retail trade. Most retail yards were not well capitalized and certainly wouldn't want to sit on inventory all summer.
I know first hand from my childhood, my parents waited as long as they could before ordering that first fall coal delivery.
Leo Phillipp