November 4, 2015
Pete et al - A very small world, indeed. I'm almost certain that Mr.
Able was a dinner guest in our Downers Grove home. His name is on a list
of family friends and railroad colleagues that my Dad had
wanted contacted when he passed away. Appreciate your recollections of Mr.
Able. Although you could not categorize my Dad as a rail fan in the sense
of what we consider rail fans today, he certainly had a larger "appreciation" of
the culture, history and romance of railroading than other many other
fellow officials and operating department employees of his era. I
certainly inherited this same "appreciation" from Dad. Back in the day, being a
Q official was a lot more than just a job to Dad and, I'm sure, Mr. Able.
Thanks for sharing the memories of your good friend. Best Regards -
Louis
In a message dated 11/4/2015 3:19:28 P.M. Central Standard Time,
CBQ@yahoogroups.com writes:
Louis et al
Louis: I was pleased to see you mention Charlie Able. I knew
Charlie from Sept 1954 when I was a freshman at the University of Nebraska and
Charlie was a member of our Lincoln Railfans Club. Charlie and I made
an all night trip across Iowa in early August 1955 to ride the fantrip from
Ft. Madison-Broomfield, IA. We got back to Ft. M that evening and
on the Sunday after we went up to Boone Ia and rode the Ft. DDM&S
down to Des Moines and back.
Charlie had a 1952 4 door Ford sedan which he kept in immaculate
condition. He was at that time a Master Sargent in the US Air Force and
was kind of a what we would call an office manager or Chief Clerk. I
think Charlie left Lincoln sometime in 1956 and returned to Illinois to finish
his college education at Milliken University at Decatur, IL. After
finishing there, probably in the early 60's. He became Chief Clerk in
J.J. Alms, Passenger Traffic Manager. I'm not sure exactly when he got
into the Operating Department, but it would have been sometime subsequent to
1958.
Charlie and Jim Christen, my longtime railfan friend from "way back" rode
No. 3 to Villisca, IA and rode branch train No. 94 to Corning, MO summer 1958.
My girlfriend, later wife, and i met Charlie and Jim downtown one Sunday
morning at the old Lincoln Hotel and I've got a photo of all of us together
standing in front of the hotel. To the best of my memory that was the
last time that I ever saw Charlie, but did follow his career and his final
battle with cancer. I don't recall exactly when he died..I think it was
mid 80's. I have a letter from his wife, Linda sent out after Charlie's
death explaining his situation and thanking his friends for prayers and
support during his last days. I thought that I could find the letter and
other correspondence with Charlie over the years, but, along with some other
things they seem to be "misfiled".
Charlie was the most organized and meticulous individual that I have ever
known. I'm sure that he turned into a fine trainmaster and was a man
M.L. Zadnicheck would have been very proud of.
Charlie smoked a pipe and, as I recall, possessed a "quick wit"...I am
glad to have known him and am happy that you and others had the privilege of
knowing him.
Pete
-----Original
Message----- From: LZadnichek@aol.com [CBQ]
<CBQ@yahoogroups.com> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent:
Tue, Nov 3, 2015 3:49 pm Subject: Re: [CBQ] CB&Q Wheel Reports
November 3, 2015
All - Charlie Able was a friend and colleague of my Dad who was
Chicago Div. Supt. in the early 1960s. Dad thought highly of Mr. Able as I
recall. Dad saved a lot of Q paper memorabilia, but not wheel reports. Best
Regards - Louis
Louis Zadnichek II
Fairhope, AL
Blocking to and from the Chicago and the
Twin Cities was not very sophisticated until the BN merger. I don't
know if there even was a CBQ block on GN82. If not, it was GN Union
Yard's job to make up a delivery to the Q at Dayton's Bluff and the Bluff
would sort out the Chicago's from the Eolas, IHB's (usually Perishables for
NYC/PC), Galesburg, La Crosse, Savanna and local cars. Empty CBQ
ownership cars not assigned to a shipper (common cars like plain box, gons,
hoppers, etc.) were handled by a local car distributor. Empty assigned
cars were returned to their location by, hopefully, using a non-revenue
waybill. A Q97 from Cicero in this time frame was blocked: 1. GN,
2. NP, 3. All others, with loads having preference. Dayton's
Bluff ran a transfer off of 97 to the GN, another to the NP, and the
rest were further sorted the other deliveries such as the
Minnesota Transfer. Q97's hot move was to GN97 followed by the NP's to
Northtown for NP 601 or 603 GN82's hot move was to Q82. I do not
think Q and GN/NP road power ran through although I think I heard that Q97s
road power was used on the 97 GN transfer. There were other
trains to/from Dayton's Bluff including 80, 81, 83 88. If I remember
correctly there were additional interchange transfers to both the GN and
NP. Cicero would switch inbound 82 to make the proper interchange
or local switch. Charlie Able told me one time when he was a
trainmaster at Cicero they ran an extra train to the Bluff with
over 100 mty 40ft box cars in two blocks (GN and NP sorted by ownership,
that's almost like switching by car color :>)) via Mendota and
Denrock with one SD24. I know that this is pretty general and might be
a little off but this almost 50 years ago. The thing that amazes me
now that all of this was done with paper and pencil and it worked.
That's because of a bunch of good people working together.
I was looking at the wheel report from GN train 82, April 19, 1968, and
wondered, why weren’t the cars bound for the same destination all grouped
together? For example, there were a dozen cars bound for Chicago, but
only a few pairs can be found, and never more than pair together. Was
it the receiving yard’s problem to sort the cars, and the sending yard
didn’t bother to do that all? So, I guess my question is, how were
outbound train composed? Randomly, or was there a method to their apparent
randomness?
Bill Scott
Does anyone
have any late 60's CB&Q wheel reports for trains between Chicago and
Savanna / Mpls / St. Paul? and vice versa? I have a few from Galesburg
to Savanna but not across the C&I.
Tom Mack
Cincinnati,
OH
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Posted by: LZadnichek@aol.com
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