While I haven’t dug deep enough to find my blank Q switch list here is a photo of one from an article I wrote in 2016 for Friends of the BNSF’s Expeditor. This is exactly what I was trying to describe in words. As always a picture is worth a thousand words. This example is from switching operations at West Chicago,Illinois by one of the “mail” road switchers for staging tracks for input into General Mills from the yard adjacent. Barely visible at the top is the notation cars are in denoted as being on yard one and listed east to west. Unfortunately the bottom and top are cutoff so we still don’t have a form number. Since the destinations of the cars are listed as “E” and “W” I can verify this is Q activity because by sometime around 1964 or 1967 General Mills added to the warehouse and then building tracks were numbered one through four. I can’t say for sure but I would bet the writing is by Russ”Rip” Repetto of story telling fame. Oh and as further info. We were still using switch lists at West Chicago into the late 1970s. It’s the last location I remember them being used. Every where else Compass, the computer car inventory system would provide a pre-printed form with a list of the track and cars in it. All one did from there is write where you wanted the car to go to. The agent or operator would have written the destination of each car in the column. But there were very few numbered tracks at Rochelle. Every one had a name. As the new man in the job I had to quickly learn what CN,115,199,Swift,new city, standard and many more meant. When I worked the Rochelle night job in the 1970’s it was routine to be handed 6-8 pages when we went to work and then 4 or 5 more as we progressed through the 12 hours of just about non stop movement. That entire story will be a future article. As an aside if you are interested in knowing what really went on behind the scenes in working the suburban trains(dinkies). I just turned in a lengthy article to Friends of the BN. At first cut it looks to be a two issue article next year. Leo Phillipp -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#62143): https://groups.io/g/CBQ/message/62143 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/83389192/703214 Group Owner: CBQ+owner@groups.io Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/CBQ/leave/1544929/703214/691670059/xyzzy [archives@nauer.org] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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