|
Don...My comparison with your experience gets closer and closer. Especially regarding the "call me" situation..I'll say this before we both get in trouble...One night when I was ATM at Joliet my compatriate at Blue Island and I conspired to move car of fresh meat from Blue Island to Joliet behind the caboose of No. 59 the PBX..piggyback train Chicago-Denver and the hottest thing on the railroad. It worked successfully and my BI guy and I debated as to whether we should tell GHV what we did. We decided that it would be better to "confess" than to be caught and punished. Earl the Blue Island TM told George of our move...which saved running a train...what we did..GHV reply...."Well, don't think you can do that every night"....Not a word of commendation or praise..In fact I don't ever remember ANYBODY telling me ..or anyone else.while I was in the Trainmaster Bidness that "You did a good job"..
Such was life on the railroad in the 60's.
Back to CB&Q items from now on.
Pete
-----Original Message-----
From: Don Brown dbrown02@rochester.rr.com [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Sat, Jan 13, 2018 2:06 pm Subject: Re: [CBQ] Re: Elephant Style Es
Oh yes, I would sometimes get a morning call from "Mr. Dithers" if
he was so inclined. Most days he arrived at the yard just before I
was to leave. I recall watching tensely from the tower, hoping my
relief would get in and transferred before my morning roasting, but
it seldom happened. I believe he was in over his head at his
position, and since excrement flows down hill, he would get reamed
from above at various times and would just pass it along. More
than once I'd pull off some nice move or moves which kept cars
moving and saved room in the yard. Like a local was doubled
together, and a road train had 40 cars for that destination - I had
the mainline guy set them right on the guy's rear and then have the
yard job put the caboose on. To make that happen, I had the yard
crew ditch a couple empty boxcars on the wrong track temporarily.
When the boss came in, he cared nothing about 40 cars NOT plugging
the yard, and being dispatched 20 minutes after they arrived. All
he cared about was those 2 "for now" cars where they did not belong.
Off the job he was a fun guy - joked, good stories, friendly man. But on the job..... One more - one night some minor glitch happened, I dealt with it, everything worked out fine. Mr Dithers went bonkers in the AM - "Why didn't you call me? I'm in charge of this yard! I want to know everything that goes on! If a bird s**ts on the rail, I want to know about it! Do you understand?" It was all I could do to NOT call him at 3AM the next day and say "Frank, Frank, a bird just s**t on the rail!" And although that was in the 1970's, he's long dead and I am long retired, I can't see bird droppings on a rail without thinking of him! I suppose I will soon get my knuckles slapped for straying from CBQ-only topics, but thought some of the members would get a smile out of stuff like that. Besides, I think the elephant-style E units have about run their course! :-D DRB On 1/13/2018 2:34 PM,
LZadnichek@aol.com [CBQ] wrote:
__._,_.___ Posted by: jpslhedgpeth@aol.com __,_._,___ |