I found a couple of the articles in the Sept Issue of Trains pretty interesting:
1) I'll call this, a Utility man long before his time ! I'm still chuckling about the story on ppgs 58-61. I can think of 3 or 4 spots along the C&I where keeping a stash of knuckles would have been
A great aide.
2) the photo of the painted post in the basement tunnels of CUS,with the departure times for mail handling trains,got me to do some digging in my collection. I answered all my questions except about what is shown as Q #1,the Denver Zephyr. I was not aware that it carried mail. And secondly I can't find in any ETT where it departed CUS @ 5:35.
As an aside,one Saturday morning after arriving at CUS,John Slover and I were looking for something to do for a couple hours until we departed westbound. We decided to go exploring in the CUS tunnels. We were familiar with the tunnel shortcut from the trk 2/4 platform to the trainman's locker room. It alone was pretty interesting with all the 90 degree turns and varnished wood doors decalled for Western Weighing and Inspection Bureau,etc., we had heard there were far more tunnels and decided to go exploring.
Sure enough we found tunnels going everywhere, there were repairs shops,offices,etc in these subterranean depths we had no idea existed. We just kept going along figuring we would eventually find our way out. Well much to our surprise we came around a corner and found ourselves in the basement of the Chicago post office where mail clerks were sorting mail ! They looked at us like we were ghosts or something.
Yes we found our way out and were at our posts 15 minutes prior to departure,as required.
Leo Phillipp