Hi Doug,
Nancy and I have a friend in La Crosse who is retired from the BNSF. I sent your question in his direction as he has first hand experience with the Aurora roundhouse. Below is his response. If you would like more conversation,
I can put you in touch directly.
In
1969 when I hostler at the Aurora passenger roundhouse (now a hotel is there). There were 2 hostler shifts 3pm to 11pm, 11pm to 7am, however the night guy could leave at 5:45am after he let the last passenger engine out. We handled 17 E's all that days suburban
engines during the 2 shifts all the units where worked on all night long by a full roundhouse crew ( pipe fitters, machinists electricians and so on). Those were the 2 jobs the youngest Aurora Division Fireman were force to. I wasn't there very long account
the Q hired 10 of us in the fall of 69.
This paints a picture that would/could go with the discussion on the E-Units. Since the E's were serviced overnight in Aurora, I can see the rotation that's been discussed. Zephyr brings a train into CUS - takes a dinky
west to Aurora - gets serviced in the roundhouse - returns on a morning dinky and goes back on a Zephyr later that day. Any clue as to if I'm close with this guess?
Scott Stearns
Zumbrota, MN
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> on behalf of Doug Hartman douglas.p.hartman@gmail.com [CBQ] <CBQ@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 21, 2018 1:58 PM
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [CBQ] Aurora roundhouse hostler
Does anyone know how many hostlers were used at the Aurora (B'way) roundhouse - shifts, days, etc? And when the jobs were abolished?
Doug
Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone on the Verizon Wireless 4G LTE network.