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Once they were in Savanna anyway, for whatever reason, could they have been routed east to return to IC at Polo, or was there no interchange track there?
Landon
From: CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io> on behalf of Leo Phillipp via groups.io <qutlx1=aol.com@groups.io>
Sent: Sunday, June 8, 2025 7:29 PM
To: BRHSlist@groups.io <BRHSlist@groups.io>; CBQ@groups.io <CBQ@groups.io>
Subject: [CBQ] Bulletin 75 I.C. Bananas ?
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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