October 6, 2015
Rob - And I guess the flip side is the really bad executives are sizzling
on the grates of a hard working O-5-A perpetually climbing West Burlington
Hill..... Best Regards - Louis
In a message dated 10/6/2015 12:08:36 P.M. Central Daylight Time,
CBQ@yahoogroups.com writes:
The really good executives went to "The Burlington" building.
Sent
from Rob's ancient iPhone 3 but then again who am I to complain.....
October 5, 2015
Archie - Thanks for trying. I guess it's safe to assume that those Q
purchasing/mechanical executives who would have the answers to our questions
have all by now passed over to God's great general office building in the
sky.... Best Regards - Louis
Louis Zadnichek II
Fairhope, AL
Group, Spoke with
Bob Richards about the scrapping of steam and he said they were all gone
by the time he got into the high position. As a side note, one of
the official's car that he sold was purchased by Sterling Hayden an actor
on the silver screen, no relation as far as I know. Archie
Hayden
Louis, I will be glad to ask Bob if he has any info on the
scrapping of locomotives. I do know he was in charge of disposing
of several of the Q heavyweights used as official's cars as he let me
copy the bill of sale etc. Archie
On Oct 4, 2015, at 3:05 PM, LZadnichek@aol.com [CBQ] wrote:
October 4,
2015
Hol, Ken, Bill and Group - Thanks to Ken for sharing with us
how the GN handed their internal accounting of retired/scrapped
equipment through the use of Valuation Engineering Department records.
Very interesting. Thankfully, the BN archived the data. Some time ago,
Archie in Hannibal told me that he knew a retired Q purchasing
department employee who, although frail with age, still had a sharp
mind. Perhaps, this person who Archie knows might still be able
to give us some further insights on just how the Q went about
documenting the retirement and sale for scrap of obsolete
locomotives and rolling stock. Archie, could you help us if possible?
Does anyone else in this Group know of any still living Q purchasing
or mechanical department employees who might shed some additional
light on this subject? And, does anyone in BRHS leadership who is on
this List know if the BN shared/donated Q equipment
disposition records and if so are they a part of today's BRHS
Archives?
Hol, I agree with you that, as on the GN, during
dieselization the Q issued "blanket" AFEs for sales of multiple
steam locomotives and other obsolete rolling stock to
Northwestern Steel & Wire and competing scrap companies. That
would help to explain the discrepancy in dates regarding
1842. Makes sense to me as a former scrap yard buyer since I
received sales documents listing multiple railroad freight, passenger
and mow cars for demolition from the Frisco, L&N,
GM&O, TRRA and private tank car owners under
one accounting number tied to an earlier bid. We'd buy one or several
cars at a time on a fixed 30 day quote, or quote a fluctuating scrap
price based upon a deductible tied to a monthly Iron Age average price
that would be good for six months or even a year. Then, the railroad
would just send us their cripples and the paperwork would show-up
later. Cars (occasionally including some real "dogs" such as
asphalt/oil contaminated tank cars and heavy weight coaches that
had cement poured floors or even cement ballast in the
frames) would then just show-up at our front gate. Asbestos was
not a problem in the early 1970s as there were virtually no
environmental laws or regulations as there are today. Also, as I now
recall, almost never did all of the condemned cars show-up at our
interchange at the same time, they usually dribbled-in over a
30 day or so time per iod from the actual date of sale. As
the Frisco was the delivering carrier, there were always some delays
with off-line equipment that was in really bad mechanical shape or had
been wrecked and had to be patched-up to make their last couple
of miles into the scrap yard. It certainly had to be a similar
situation with the Q at NWS&W. As for nailing down the actual
location of where 1842 was photographed, let me suggest this. There
is an active FaceBook Page for NWS&W < https://www.facebook.com/nwsw.info >.
Post the image to that page and ask if anyone recognizes the
house shown behind the locomotives or can provide any other
information on the image. There's no telling what you may find out to
share with us all. And, if you scroll to the near bottom of the page,
there's an image of a "box car city" erected for employees during WW
Two. May be some of our freight car expects c an tell us if any of the
cars are Q in origin.
Bill, thanks for sharing the image of NWS&W 4, ex Q 504,
switching the mill. Also in the NWS&W FaceBook Page is a poor
quality snapshot showing either the same or a
sister Q 0-6-0 at a downtown grade crossing. I looked
through some boxes today and did find a couple of prints I took
of Q steam being scrapped at NWS&W. I'll scan and post a couple of
the better images in the coming week. This has been a very interesting
thread to me and I look forward to other's comments as we go
along. Best Regards - Louis
Louis Zadnichek II
Fairhope, AL
Hi Hol and Louis,
I've tried to stay out of the discussions on
"when was a locomotive actually retired," as I'm not that familiar
with CB&Q procedures. However, I am somewhat experienced with
Great Northern procedures, and of course the two roads were closely
related. Most of my experience comes from tracking GN steam
locomotive retirement dates through Burlington Northern's Valuation
Engineering department. Tangentially, I eventually got into other
types of equipment, primarily just to preserve the records. It is my
understanding that the Valuation Engineering department of GN was
set up primarily to comply with ICC regula tions after ICC completed
their valuation of the railroad. While GN's valuation was not
actually published until 1927, all of the records indicate that it
was actually done in 1915. It is interesting to me that many of the
valuation records date to that time (1915), including what are
called the "Change Number Record Accounts," (CNRA) which document
equipment renumberings and retirements. Thus far I've found several
Change Number Record Accounts, which are as follows:
Account 51 -- Steam Locomotives
Account 53 -- Freight Equipment
Account 54 -- Passenger
Equipment
Account 57 -- Maintenance
Equipment
The hard copy records for these accounts
were kept in the Valuation Engine ering offices and were in large
loose-leaf books with 11" x 17" pages. Each page contained 50
numbers, e.g. 100-149, 150-199, 200-249. 250-299, etc. Each
page had a series of columns on it. These were grouped into four (as
I remember it) groups of six columns. Each group of four had a
heading of "CHANGED", under which were six columns headed as "From,"
"Date," "Auth.," "To," "Date," and "Auth." As originally set up the
first column contained a star (which looks like it was from a hand
stamp) if the piece of equipment was on the roster at the time of
the valuation in the first "From" column, the actual date received
in the "Date" column, and nothing in the "Auth." column. However,
when the piece of equipment was disposed of or renumbered, the new
number or "Retired" was added under the "To" column, a date was put
in the next appropriate column, and the Authorization for
Expenditure (AFE) number was put into the "Auth." column. If the
number were reused, the next "From" column would contain the
previous number of the piece of equipment, the "Date" column would
contain the date renumbered, and the "Auth." column would contain an
AFE number authorizing the change. The next three columns would be
filled in as described above for the original numbers on each page.
In addition to the change number record
acconts, the Valuation Engineering office also had copies of all of
the AFEs. As you know, an AFE was issued for each locomotive
retirement, though it wasn't uncommon, especially in the last days
of steam, to have a large number of engines and tenders on the same
AFE. This may have been different on the GN than on the CB&Q,
because the GN kept separate track of tender numbers, no doubt due
to its habit of swapping tenders. Once the AFE had been
approved to sell equipment, someone determined to whom it would be
sold. In the case of GN it was commonly Duluth Iron & Metal,
Paper Calmensen or West End Iron & Metal, though I know the
Burlington commonly used Northwest Steel & Wire. Then when the
specific pieces of equipment to go to each company were known, a
"Sale Order" was issued with all of the equipment to go to each
company on the Sale Order. In the AFE records, there would commonly
be copies of the Sale Orders, but then the specific days of delivery
to each company were also included within each AFE folder. In
discussions I had with Burllington Northern personnel during my
vists to BN headquarters to review the various documents I was told
on several occasions that the date of delivery was considered to be
the actual date of sale. Thus there are several dates that could be
retirement dates in various records. One would be the date of
issuance of the AFE, one would be the date of the Sale Order (which
is what is documented in som e records), and the last would be the
date of delivery to the scrapper or other purchaser.
My last visit to BN headquarters was after
the BNSF merger had been announced. I was told at that time that all
of the hard-copy records (e.g. the change number record account
books) were to be sent to the property accounting office in
Topeka, KS. BN had started keeping all of their disposition
information on a computer system in about the mid-1980s, so the CNRA
books' last entries were about that time. I did at least
see the CB&Q Freight Car books (though I never had time to
really look at them), so presume they were sent to Topeka as well.
Since the ICC has since been discontinued, I don't know if
the property accounting department would still have the
records or not. I believe that all of the Great Northern AFE
files in the Valuation Engineering office were donated to the Great
Northern Railway Historical Society, and are now located in the
GNRHS Archives in the Jackson Street Roundhouse in St.
Paul, MN. I don't know if BRHS may have received the Burlington
AFEs or if they may have been preserved elsewhere. Should anyone
want to try to determine what CB&Q records went to Topeka, I can
provide the contact information I was given at the
time.
I apologize for this long-winded post, but
hope it may shed some additonal light (or perhaps confusion) on when
the railroad considered a piece of equipment to be
"retired."
Best regards,
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, October 03,
2015 5:36
PM
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Posted by: LZadnichek@aol.com
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