Some old head said of another..."that old SOB thinks everybody was "born with a lantern in his hand.""
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jul 4, 2017 5:28 pm
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Double Drop [1 Attachment] and hanging markers
Pete,
You exemplified most newbies. Just glad to do what the old heads instructed. My biggest problem was a lot of old heads just assumed that when the RR hired you that your knowledge was sufficient to perform the work w/o them saying a word.
Somehow they figured you knew what the "pocket" was in Rochelle or where all the various industries were located, what CN meant on the switch list at Rochelle(and it wasn't Canadian National) or what 199,115,new city,etc. meant.
Or working in outlying yards an instruction might be "go take the engine through the bad order track and come back in on the other end of the train and wait for a sign.?!
Some guys were very understanding and explained things and then there were some who you could work with for hours and they didn't say a word unless you messed up and then you got an earful.
I could g
o on for many paragraphs but think the above gives enough highlights.
Leo
Leo..I'm aware that turning is not requred in CTC territory, but I just neglected to put that disclaimer in..HOWEVER...once in my first summer as a brakeman working the Huntley local on the Lincoln Division..On two days of our assigment we ran over the mainline to work a couple of branches.
One evening we came off one of the branches and pulled down the siding and prepared to "go up town" to eat. Just before we went out the rear door of the waycar the old head conductor said.."Be sure and turn your markers Jim"....I knew it was not required, but do you think that I a brand new brakeman was going to argue with a Conductor who probably had 30 plus years of seniority...I knew which side my "bread was buttered on" and would not act in a "smart aleky" manner..No indeed I would not..not then and not now...
Also one night we came back into Hastings off the Huntley branch about 2:00am. The track we came in on was next to the main track..It was CTC territory..Same instruction Jim turn that one marker to show green. Just like it was dark territory. Again I instantly complied. Whether he was trying me out or for some other reason, I was not, in any way going to argue with a man of his status..
I always tried to do my best in what ever I was asked to do...never argued and did some things like "going high" which terrified me to the Nth degree without any argument
.
They hired me back on for three different summers and I got a few compliments from some old heads. "one engineer said "For a young man you sure know a lot about the rules.
Also on my last summer I worked the last six weeks on a branch line local which on our outbound trip we were "in the dark" for most of the trip.Sometimes we didn't get tied up until 5:00am or so..Our markers were always hung and burning after sunset and were rehung on the rear of the w/c on our going home trip.
Well, no matter what..Those markers seemed quite heavy when I on just a few occasions was required to hang them on the rear of a conventional heavyweight Pullman on Train 43.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ] < CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
To: CBQ < CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jul 4, 2017 12:47 pm
Subject: Re: [CBQ] Double Drop [1 Attachment] and hanging markers
Pete,
My markers are complete with rings,pots,mantle,wicks,etc. everything except Kerosene in the pots. Also fortunate to have a couple sets of brackets to hang them from. However the train mistress at this location refuses to allow markers being mounted on shed or steam loco. Bell to be displayed on pole near patio.
The turning of markers when clear of Main was for non CTC territory. While all the Aurora Div. branches were "dark" no body ever turned markers to my knowledge because you were generally the only train on the line.
Leo
Leo,,,I think I followed the moves after reading a couple of times..maybe more...Based on what i hear about how things are today that more than one "officer" wold have multiple heart attacks while pulling the entire crew out of service and lining them up for the required P test before hauling them off to the County Jail for endangering everyone within 1 mile of the operation and preparing multiple lists of each individual rule violation.
Now back to the matter of "Hanging Markers"..I, for some reason, began to think....sometimes, but rarely, I do that..I remembered that the actual marker sat in a kind of ring and said ring had a bracket sticking out and said bracket fit into a vertical slot affair on the corner of the car end..The bracket which stuck out fit into the slot which secured it firmly in place..What I wondered is whether the marker you weighed had the ring and bracket. If not when you came up with the 14 lb marker, the bracket ring would bring the weight up closer to my 20-25 lb guess..
BTW that "ring" that the marker sat in allowed the marker to be "turned" without having to take the whole thing down..You and, perhaps others, will recall that the rules required that markers be turned to show green to the rear when train was in the clear of the main track...Also other configurations were required when train was moving on a long lead along side a main track and other more esoteric configurations when running against current of traffic in double track territory.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: qutlx1@aol.com [CBQ] < CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
To: CBQ < CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jul 4, 2017 11:00 am
Subject: [CBQ] Double Drop [1 Attachment]
[Attachment(s) from qutlx1@aol.com included below]
First a couple disclaimers,I observed the maneuver I'm about describe in 1973-75. But I assure you the same maneuver was done when the equipment was Chinese red. Familiarize yourself with the sketch below so you can follow the story. I drew this from memory so it's not an exact 100% track layout but very close.
The double drop took place several times a week on the Earlville turn wayfreight. The job was kind of two different jobs in one. After leaving Eola around noon the job performed the heavy industrial switching at CAT of spotting inbound material, pulling scrap,etc. then in mid to late afternoon the job became a classic agrarian wayfreight deliverying Lumber, fertz., feed and spotting mtys. For grain loading between Bristol and Earlville on the mainline. Even occasionally delivered a new tractor or combine to a freight dock. Dinner was had at a restaraunt along the way. One of the favorites was what today is the Bull Moose at Sandwich, a preserved CBQ passenger car that we've discussed at some length on this list previously.
Upon returning to CAT the job backed onto one of the tracks that paralleled the mains outside the fence.The mainlines were higher than what we called the "main"and "fence"', which were in turn higher than the plant tracks. In other words the perfect place to make a drop. After shoving west of the gate, the loco. angle cock was closed, all the air bled from the two-four frt cars and waycar.
The head man was stationed at the fence trk. Switch, the Condr walked down to 9 trk. Switch.
The train was run a comfortable distance westward on the long lead. Tom positioned himself on the footboard of the loco. next to the lead car. All is set. Tom gives the engr. A sign to head east, then when he's comfortable with speed and distance he asks for slack, pulls the pin, unloads from the loco.,runs in the opposite direction of movement of the rolling cars and boards the lead end of the waycar. The engine is lined along the fence trk. the head man then lines the fence switch toward the plant while Tommy back on the waycar pulls the pin and cranks just a touch of handbrake to slow it while the frt. cars roll eastward around the curve toward the plant. When they go over nine switch the Condr. Lines that switch for nine and the waycar rolls to stop in the clear on nine and is tied down. The frt. cars stop rolling as there's a bit of a bowl on that track. The engine comes off the fence trk. and is coupled to the frt. cars which are then placed on either the "
Main" or "fence" as the first cars in tonight's train back to Eola.
The waycar resides on nine until the last move of the night it is tacked onto the rear of a 24-28 car train for Eola. The rest of the night is spent pulling loads and spotting empty flats on trks. 12 and 13. The outbound loads are coupled to the wayfreight cars. Which is then runaround and job heads back to Eola.
This is how the crew of Condr. Shields, brkmn. Neitzel and Neary (hopefully I spelled their names correctly too lazy to go dig up a seniority list) made the maneuver.
On the other hand the crew of Condr. Besco,brkmn. Trumper and Phillipp just dropped the entire wayfreight train and waycar from the west upon return onto either the "Main" or "fence" and then as the last move of the night doubled that onto all the loads coming out of Cat and then ran around the train and went to Eola. Just demonstrates there's different ways to reach the same result.
Things got much more complicated when the outbound train exceeded 28 or 29 cars as we couldn't run around the train to leave. That's when all kind of variations came into play like shoving the wayfreight cars to the far west end of the spur so as to clear 12-15 car strings coming out of the plant and then going out to get them as the last move, bringing them up to the
"Main" switch,cutting them off just west of it, then running around the train, coupling the engine on the east end and shoving back to make the joint hanging onto 28-29 cars. We had no radios.
Another maneuver was to "borrow" mainline 1 for a couple hours and leave a string of CAT loads on the mainline. Then at the end of the night runaround the 28 or 29 cars along the fence line and double the cars on the mainline onto those and then head east. This left the dispatcher with a single track railroad from Montgomery to Bristol. It also created quite a scare one night for a west bound Galesburg hot shot which happened to have a high wide load in his train. But that's another story.
We did leave CAT one night with a 60 car train of which all but a few were loads of machinery pulled by a single GP7.
Leo
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Posted by: jpslhedgpeth@aol.com
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