Leo,
Thanks. That helps explain it.
I wish I had some other orders from West Quincy, Brookfield and St.
Joseph for that period to help better define what was happening.
Bill Hirt
On 8/22/2020 10:20 AM, Leo Phillipp via groups.io wrote:
Bill,
Any time a crew was unfamiliar with a section of track, a pilot would be required who
was qualified on that territory. While extremely rare it could even happen on
ones’ home division. One example would be an entirely extra crew with no one in
the crew with any experience on a section of track.
Another example I’m familiar with would be the division of labor between the two Aurora,IL lodges.
One based at Aurora and one based at Galesburg. The Galesburg based men operated the “mainline
freight pool” between Cicero and Galesburg. The Aurora based men operated on the mainline as far as
Mendota, with the exception of mainline passenger to Burlington and for short while to Ottumwa and then
everything else on the Aurora division. I won’t get into all the finer points of this arrangement.
So a case could develop where a Galesburg based Aurora div. crew could be
ordered to make a side trip on a branch where they had no experience. I have
found several incidents where an Aurora crew based at Galesburg was ordered to
make a side trip on the Fox River branch. If no member of the crew had spent
time working at Aurora then no one in the crew would have experience on the
branch.
Another example would be an Aurora division crew based at Galesburg detouring
via the Pea Vine to Denrock, the Denrock branch branch back to Mendota. That
crew would need a Galesburg division pilot to Denrock and possibly an Aurora
Div. pilot on the branch.
Finally, what happens when you don’t have a pilot ? Well here’s an example. I was
working at BN Chgo, div. H.Q. when I was asked how a crew could slide past a red signal at 16th st.
Headed to the ICG Glen yard with a coal train? It turned out the engineer asked for a pilot as he
had never made the right hand turn at Canal street and also worked to CUS. He was unfamiliar with
it. He was turned down. Despite crawling along with the air set, he got bye the signal at the Pennsy
main. If you’re familiar with this location, it is at the bottom of a steep grade from Union
Ave tower, the signal is hidden from view until you are almost upon it. In this case the weight of
the heavy coal train literally kept shoving.
I was part of a crew in the mid 70s with the exact same scenario and we managed
to get to and from Glenn yard w/o incident but only with the help of several
voices kn the radio guiding us step by step.
Sorry to be so long winded but hopefully this sheds some light on your question.
Leo
On Aug 22, 2020, at 9:18 AM, William Hirt <whirt@fastmail.com> wrote:
Dave,
That is what I figured. However, why would they do this? Was there some
agreement about crewing detour trains because obviously a Hannibal Division
crew could handle a train on the Hannibal Division.
Bill Hirt
On 8/21/2020 2:26 PM, Dave Weber wrote:
ottumwa div crews handeling the trains not qualified on hannibal div hence the
pilots.
On Aug 21, 2020, at 1:04 PM, William Hirt <whirt@fastmail.com> wrote:
More train orders from the Hedgpeth/Ohrnell collection.
June 22, 1967 was particularly busy day on the St. Joseph-Brookfield-West Quincy line as
trains were detouring off the Iowa east-west mainline. There is a track car line up in the
Hannibal file for that day. Usual Iowa mainline trains 7, 30, LW 68 and LC 70 were
detouring in addition to the regular scheduled trains on the line. Train orders from
Brookfield and St. Joseph have orders for Extra 9942A West running as #7. Both sets of
orders have pilots along the C&E. Maybe someone can explain why this CB&Q train
would have pilots on CB&Q track?
Bill Hirt
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