I was doing some rote work(shucking sweet corn) today and my mind got to
wondering.
This is a BN story but provides real insight into what was happening to lose
carload railroading in the 70s. F I told this before please excuse my
repeatition.
I was working as a Condr on the extra list at Aurora and got cut off for lack
of vacancies so I had to go somewhere with my bump. Low and behold one of my
favorite jobs had a vacant Condrs. Spot open and up for bid. I placed on it and
held the job until the bids
Filled. The Earlville Turn worked from Eola to Earlville and return. It was
"advertised" to go to Mendota but I never saw it go that far.
As Condr. You got to meet the customers on the front line of shipping on the
RR. This was both good and bad. This short spell on the Earlville Turn really
enlightened me as to where the industry was headed.
CAT at Montgomery- was probably the second largest shipper on the
division,behind General Mills. You took care of whatever they wanted done.
CATs' plant at Montgomery shipped new shiny earth moving equipment worth
$100,000s each. Up to 28-30 cars a day with waybills in the thousands of $s
each. It also shipped out scrap. Usually 3-6 gons a day. This was high grade
scrap but short haul moves within the Chicago switching district and therefore
minimal revenue. But this is CAT and you try to keep them happy.
I may have the exact days a bit off but you'll get the gest of what's going on.
Monday we leave Eola with 20-25 flats and some loads of tread plate for the
plant. No mty. scrap gons. After switching out the train and spotting the tread
plate cars we went to the scrap dock. The foreman met me and asked where were
the mty. gons. I advised we had none and there we none down on trk. 9 where the
mtys. were staged. There were only one or two mtys. on the dock so he said"if
you don't bring me mtys. Tomorrow I'm going to be pouring scrap on the ground.
Next day same scenario at the scrap dock and the scrap was piling up. Now he
advised if no gons tomorrow the truckers would get the business. Next day,no
gons,but I told him I saw a large set out of mtys. Made at Eola and I'd have
them in the train on Thurs. Each morning I advised the agent what was going on
at CAT and he said he was trying to get the cars there.
Thursday I come to the yard and looked at the wheel report and there's no gons
in the train. I look across the yard to see the east yard engine switching a
bunch of mty. Gons. I asked the YDM to make a crossover move with them and put
them in the train. I explained exactly what was going on at CAT. The YDM looked
at me like I was from another planet and told me in no uncertain terms to get
my after piece and train out of his yard,now.
I did so and upon arrival at the CAT scrap dock with bad news,the foreman(mgr)
says the trucks will be here tomorrow. On Friday we had a large number of mty.
Gons in the train for CAT. When we shoved 6 of them to the dock and put 3 on
each track we could see the trucks loading up. The boss said get those gons out
of the truckers way,now and take all you brought back to Eola as they're all
rejected. We left the gons at CAT. Next day the plant switch list showed every
mty. Gon as a pull for Eola and to my knowledge CAT hasn't shipped scrap
since,except for the rare load of mixed junk.
Leland Farmers Elevator- a huge elevator complex that had not shipped in
probably eight or more years. One morning the Eola Freight agent met me and
said Farmers at Leland ordered 5 covered hoppers. You have three of them in
your train. I agreed to take a couple boxes containing b/l's and car seals to
the elevator. When we got to Leland I was psyched as we were getting back some
business ! Well the elevator manager took the packages and asked how many cars
I brought. I said three and he exploded. "I told that so & so I needed 5 cars
for the 5 car rate and don't bring me anything less". He also advised that if
he didn't get the other two cars the RR could have their three back. Again I
went to the agent who advised he was working on it. We didn't get the cars that
week.
Next week I was in the freight pool and made a trip around the horn and when
going by Leland noted the three cars were still sitting west of the crossing.
Sure enough a few days later I bumped into the Earlville crew and asked about
Leland. They said they took the 3 mtys. Back to Eola. Farmers never shipped by
rail after that incident.
When I went into mgmt I worked not far from the Chicago region car distributor
and saw what he went through trying to find and fill car orders.
Hope you've enjoyed this long ago look into how things really worked(or didn't)
on the inside of the railroad.
Leo
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Posted by: qutlx1@aol.com
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