Re: [CBQ] Re: CAT @ Montgomery Closing

["STEVEN HOLDING sholding@sbcglobal.net [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>]

The car type used was the chain-flats and from my time at Aurora Tower you could tell when other then

the normal crew was on the Earlville Turn that switched the plant as they would come thru with chains dragging SO I would stop them as a dragging chain into a switch could pull up the track.

The Earlville Turn was the usual switch move at the plant This wayfreight worked Eola to Earlville and return.  Some times an extra switch engine would have to go out to Cat.  In later years (after BNSF) only a switch engine would go out.

Gons of steel shapes and plate.  Flats of plate.  Empty flats in with gons of scrap and loaded flats out.

In HO I collected Varney Box and reefers (the lino-printed steel sided cars((course years ago))) and wound up with a string of the steel flats.  In the late '70s Steve Lorenz and I made a bulk order to get

cats, and dozer and loaded the flats so the load was loaded per AAR loading guides with the blocking.  Left the machinery loose so you could run empties in (often the blocking was left on the cars) Loads out.  Now have the same loading in O Scale

Steve in SC

On Monday, April 3, 2017 8:42 AM, "qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ]" <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Tom,

I should have been clearer. The plant was shipping 24-30 loads of equipment each and every day by the late 60s. Plant started out building crawlers(D-4s,etc), then as wheel loaders were developed, it also built those. The volume of crawlers slowly shrank while the volume of wheel loaders literally sky rocketed. There were large, medium and small

Wheel loaders. The largest required three HTTX flats to carry the machine,tires,cab,bucket etc. Always struck me that the plant would build these monstrous machines and then spend huge amounts of effort breaking them apart.

Whether early on and served by switch crews or after 1964 by a road  wayfreight, the jobs and cars were Eola based. It was routine to pull into Eola at the end of a long day switching at CAT to find the east yard 4PM job switching the train from the night before.

And in the west yard would be cars of CATs lined up for west and north movement.

I could go into great detail but have already done so in article for the BRHS for future

Publication.

Leo

On Apr 3, 2017, at 7:11 AM, thommack@yahoo.com [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

Leo,

I take it that was 24-30 car loads a week? Or was it a day?

Was the plant switched from by a local from Aurora? If so, then was Aurora the point where the shipments went either east to Chicago or west to Galesburg or Savanna?

A Bing maps look at the plant shows wheeled loaders and backhoes. Do you recall what was being built there in the 1960's. I would imagine it was still wheeled loaders but what else came from that plant?

Tom Mack

Cincinnati, OH

---In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, <qutlx1@...> wrote :

It was announced on Friday that the Caterpillar prod uction plant at Montgomery is closing. This plant was once the largest under roof facility on the Q in the mid 1960s, even before the massive additions in the late 60s.
800 production workers will be furloughed. 1,200 positions in the office and support building will remain.

This plant was shipping a 24-30 flat car loads in the late 60s and well into the 70s.

Leo Phillipp

__._,_.___

---

Posted by: STEVEN HOLDING <sholding@sbcglobal.net>

---

Visit Your Group

• New Members 1

• Privacy • Unsubscribe • Terms of Use

__,_._,___