BRHS Bulletin 75 was mailed 16 days ago. From emails among the board of
directors we know it was delivered in MN,WI,Chicago land,etc within a week. I
received mine about 10 days after it was mailed. So Im hoping most members have
received their copies. Ive been waiting to ask a question that I hope some
knowledgeable reader/railroader can answer and cant wait any longer.
Please go to pages 83-85 of Bulletin 75 for the discussion of I.C. banana
traffic handled at East Dubuque and upon occasion Dubuque. According to these
pages the traffic went north from there. By the way for those who want more
info. On the Minneapolis “banana house” on pg 83,the 1931 Railway Age article
on it,is in the BRHS members only section of the web site. Just search on
Minneapolis and it comes up as the first item.
In the 1970s and 80’s CB&Q/BN conductor Russ “Rip”(RR) Repetto would often tell
the following story. Russ probably was the best tale teller on the Aurora Div.
And maybe the system. He could keep a crew well entertained during idle times.
Bear with me as I share the story and hopefully someone can shed light on my
question at the end.
Russ was conductor on the “pickup” eastbound out of Savanna,IL one day. The job
terminated at Cicero. It did all station work Chadwick to Stratford and then
made set outs and pickups at Oregon,Flag Center, Rochelle, Eola and Congress
Park. You planned to be on duty 16 hours or maybe “die” in route on the “hog
law”. So before departing Savanna and after looking over their train the rear
brakeman commented to Russ that while the “head end” was doing the station work
at Chadwick he was going to walk ahead and check out the I.C empty banana
reefers for any useable fruit. Russ advised the brakeman to be careful because
the banana cars could still contain tarantulas that had clung to the bananas.
When they stopped at Chadwick the rear man went ahead and opened the door on an
empty reefer and climbed in to search for fruit. Russ followed behind after a
bit and walked up to the door and slammed it shut and latched it with the
brakeman inside. Upon arrival at the next station,Milledgeville, Russ went up
and opened the reefer door and his comment was you never saw such a mad Italian
in your life. He actually used a less polite derogatory term for an Italian.
So heres my question, why would empty I.C. reefers be going east/south of
Dubuque/East Dubuque to go back to the I.C. ? It would add many miles and per
diem charges to the Qs account rather than have the cars interchange back at
East Dubuque. Remember the standard rule was “return empty via reverse route”.
And no there were not any stations between Savanna and Oregon that would
receive a carload of bananas.No Savanna’s population couldn’t consume a carload
of bananas.
Now if the La Crosse crew that brought the empty cars to Savanna “ran” the
Dubuque set out(crews would sometimes take it upon themselves to find a reason
not to do some work in route). This was frowned upon by management and fellow
crews but sometimes the excuse made sense. But why if this was the case did
Savanna yard send the cars on to Cicero with its many delays getting to the
I.C. Rather than send the cars back north ?
Also I gathered from other comments during the story that these cars were
routinely on the pick up…………
Hoping someone can shed light on this question that has bothered me for decades.
Thanks,
Leo Phillipp
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