While doing some railroad-related web surfing I came across a page of recollections from Tom Gloger, a man who spent time in Greene, North Dakota as a boy in the early 1950s to a final visit in the late 1960s. Lots of model railroaders target this transition era as the basis for their layouts and I was fortunate to have Tom allow me to republish his recollections of this time in railroad history. I think I enjoyed Tom’s writing so much because he speaks about a place that, to this New Yorker, seems a million miles away. I hope you enjoy this article; it gives a great voice to the scenes many of us have built in our basements and back bedrooms SOO Line Memories Enjoy, and have a great weekend! John Cubbin Ztrains.com | Z scale (1:220) Model Railroading J.Cubbin.com | Scale Model Railroad Accessories US|ZSCALE.com | Featuring American Z Line
Love the checker taxi cab is soo colors! often I look at old picutres for motivation. This is some really cool stuff.
Okay, so normally I try to avoid talking about Soo Line because I somewhat resent their involvement in making the old Milwaukee Road disappear, not that it was technically really the fault of the Soo Line. But I also love talking about the Milwaukee Road as if it was still alive, and about what might have happened. It just got me to thinking that, if the Milwaukee had survived on it's own, there would have been no need for it to be absorbed by Soo. What might have happened to Soo under a scenario like that? Would it still ultimately have lost its own identity and been covered over by the parent CP? Might something like that have happened sooner under different circumstances?
The writer's comment about trains in 1967 receiving their orders by radio is misleading if not untrue altogether. There were some orders by radio or phone at the time, but that was the exception. While agencies were indeed closed and their work consolidated with another, (a cost saving technique, which at times backfired), most trains were remained operated under the rule of train orders, still copied at lineside offices. Growing miles of CTC on main lines was a factor, but not on dark branches. There were simply fewer such sites, hooping up orders for longer distances between them. The larger swing to crew copying came some years later, when they really did away with the masses of operators and agents. Finally completed by the late 1980's.....
