Hey guys, lets not get carried away here, it is Charlies Show!!! I might tell an occasional tale but that is no reason to take Charlie's Thread away from him! It is all railroad, from kids at play, up to old fellows runnimg thousands of tons of freight and passengers across our nation. I would enjoy reading about your youth and what started each of you in your chilfhood 'Railroad Careeer' and funny or interesting things, that happened along the way. I only have a few eppasodes in my life to tell about. Maybe a little light hearted fiction could be in order too. Did you ever "daydream" about being all grown up? I have, so I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours! Thank you Charlie, but I am just a member of your team, too old and no longer dependable to be here every day, besides what would we talk about? .
Charlie, with your permission, I'll post this here, but of you prefer, I'll post it in a separate forum. I just want to be a part of the team, this od your show, if I can just hekp is enough. WW....How to be a Motorman in 1933...A True Story... My Grandma, Daddy's momma, used to ride what she called the "Old South Orient & Pacific" Doodlebug from her Beauty Shop in Anthony, Kansas up to Wichita, Ks. to get supplies and visit family every other week. Now if you have ever heard the exhaust of one of those monsters drifting across the prairie at a comfortable 40 miles an hour, you can feel it in your bones to this day. If you missed that thrill, let me try to paint you a word picture with sound here. It looks like an old heavy weight Pullman passenger car, or more preceisly a Baggage car. One end was painted white with black chevrons top to bottom, and the rest of the car was Pullman green. It was big, I mean BIG, BIG !!! at least to a 3 year old little boy. Grandma was friends with the Motorman so she always took me up to his window before we got on, so they could talk and I could be so scared I could wet my pants. I soon grew out of that, but maybe some of you have been that scared too. After four or five trips, that was all behind me, and the Motorman used to take me into the motor compartment and let me "help" him check the oil, air intakes, and see if the flywheel was turning, (all very important stuff you understand.) Yes Sir it sure was! Once in awhile he would let grandma "drive", so she had to sit on his lap, but she didn't stay long, so I guess she was too heavy maybe. ( looking back: She had long red hair that would blow in his face, so maybe that was the problem.) Suppose? HA! Well, it finally came time to go. I had to go sit with Grandma, but I could watch him shift gears and work the clutch, so I soon learned to run this here machine. That next spring, he asked grandma if it would be alright for him to teach me to run the "bug"? She thought the other passengers might not trust me. He saked each one and they all agreed it would be fun to tell there was a little boy running the "bug" now. Anyway, he had me come sit on his lap, while he showed me everything on the dashboard, and what it was for. Grandma drew a sketch of the dash and took notes. When we got off at Anthony, he promised I could drive back to Wichita, if I learned all the instruments by then. Since grandma was an artist, she made a copy of that dashboard and we studied until I knew everything by heart. Well, I did have to practice on the clutch, but I didn't kill the motor. Everybody laughed, it was a fun trip for everyone! It was a little difficult keeping the motor between 250 and 300 RPM because of the hills and valleys, and we had no traffic from tractors or trucks. The Temperature stayed at normal, and oil pressure stayed a 40 PSI. Air varied as used but stayed pretty close to 50 PSI, so all was well. That bigold Budda engine had cylinders like 3 buckets. The "Doodle" was from the slow RPM. When we got home, most of the people gave me a hug or shook my hand telling me how much fun they had on this trip! I was so excited I could hardly talk when I tried to tell Mom and Dad. Dad hugged grandma, then we all went out to Mrs. Dickerson's Fried Chicken at the Fair Grounds for supper to celebrate. So that is how I became a Doodlebug motorman at only three years old and started my love of trains, 76 years ago. . .
Priceless!I love old train stories! How i wish we still had doodlebugs today. I was fortunate enough to ride one on the FT Madison,Famrington and Western. It was a il tourist line in Ft Mad Iowa owned by a great guy name Dave Miner.He had restored this Doodlebug that had been someones house!Our conductor was a guy who had been a Santa Fe conductor and had worked on doodle bugs in his time. Ours didnt have a clutch I dont think.How I do miss those times. Now for an onery story. My grandfther jsut turned 82 a few days ago and one of my favorite railroad stories is him during the great depression living in our local area. The Rock Island Southern was mainly an interurban line however it did have a few steam locomotives.Granddad and his friends would wait by the tracks and yell up at the locals conductor who rode the cab ( not enough money for a caboose I guess).Said con would throw coal lumps at the kids making a great fuss. Well everyone would grab up some of the coal and head on home with their haul.Nothing like a lil extra heat for the house and all on the dime of the poor RIS!
Great story Watash!!! Wish I could have had a ride on a "doodlebug" . I do remember seeing one on the ATSF. They had one years ago ran as a local IIRC to Kansas City or something like that. They called it the "Motor". Magee, that RIS operated passenger service as an electric interurban and the freight service with steam loco. The freight part survived quite a while longer than the passenger. CT
Yup Charlie Ft Mad to KC is what Mr Lindbergh ran ( our conductor in my story) Ours was a Burlington car but Mr L said it was about the same floor plan. When I was on the Ottumwa Sub where we passed under the Sant Fe out at Cameron there was a little piece of roadbed off to the north of the double main that was part of the RIS branch into Galesburg.Was a neat little line which was also shared by the Rock Island and Mercer county.It only went out to Preemption then out to Sherrard and Cable.There is a yahoo group for it but it hasnt been very active. Ill have to check some records here but Dr Zimmer from the technical society and antoehr gentleman restored a car at the Historical Society of Rock Island County. I cant remember if it was a RIS car or a local trolley.
I was 10 y/o, my father had passed away the year before. My mother still had a little bit of money left over from the insurance and all my fathers hospital bills had been satisfied. She thought we should go to the West Coast to visit family friends. Our former neighbors had moved to the San Gabriel Valley(Rosemead CA) and the two families had remained close. Another ladyfriend of my mother's had moved to Portland Oregon with her husband and Mom had remained close with them too! At any rate she did all sorts of checking around and telephoning with railroads and airlines and she decided we would fly round trip to Los Angeles, and then take the train to San Francisco, spend a couple of days there and continue on to Portland and then train back to LAX. First flight for either of us and first really long distance train ride too. The only other train trips we took were to Wisconsin Dells on the Milwaukee Rd. It was a great flight and on a DC-6 to boot! We packed a sack lunch, we were flying "el cheapo" class. However the train trip was something else! We took "The Most Beautiful Train in the World", the Espee "Daylight" right along the Coast route! The "Daylight" had very recently been dieselized but that didn't distract all that much from the spendid scenery and the superb accomodations(even though it was day-coach for us). Got some good looks at the PE stuff but didn't get a chance to ride until a couple of years later.I also got a chance to see the cab forward articulateds in action as well on freight trains. Rode the cable cars in San Francisco. That particular trip caused San Francisco to become one of my most favorite places on earth. We took the ferry from the SP building across to Oakland Mole to continue our trip. While on the train I met up with a girl who was the same age as me and we started telling each other corny jokes that we learned in school. Little did we know,but the rest of the occupants in the car were listening to our jokes!!! Some folks asked us to keep telling more jokes. Well after the jokes "got old" we started singing songs and every time we would go through a tunnel we would hold the note until we exited the tunnel. That particular trip was on the "Shasta Daylight" and it was in steam with one of the beautiful Lima 4-8-4s AND we had a non-streamlined helper. CRS what the wheel arrangement was but even doubleheaded with two powerful locos we were still at a crawl thru those mountains. That was one heavy train, and a big one too! This is the early 50's when there were still lots of folks who counted on the Espee to get them around and the SP provided first-rate service. I still remember that absolutely fabulous salad bowl that the dining cars featured! My mother wanted to stay a while longer in Portland and she called the airline to change the reservations, they told her that we could fly back from Portland for no additional charge, so that's what we did. While I was there I got a chance to wander the neighborhood and chanced upon the SP secondary which was used to make up the passenger trains and serve industries. Also along with that was the famous Portland Traction line to Bellrose and Oregon City. I was to ride that a couple of years later while it was still in operation. All of that marvelous railroading and traction action is long gone but those sights,sounds,smells and experiences are still fairly fresh in my memory. A lot can be said for the "good old days" cuz for a young railfan, they really were! CT
As promised on the "New York Central System" thread on the "Fallen Flags Board"... It was in summer 1964 that a group of electical engineers were installing and testing some new electronics in our Operations building. There were multiple connection ports on the equipment, the screw in type. Covering the ports were small, red circular plastic cups which were acting as thread protectors/dust shields. Now as bunch of bored young G.Is, as we were at that time, working on afternoon shift, we wondered what we could use these red plastic covers for. We decided that they would make good "panic buttons" since someone in our command always seemed to be "pushing the panic button". Well it seems that there was a seldom used rotary function control switch on our R-390 receivers and doncha know those red plastic cups fit perfectly over that function switch. We now had our "panic buttons" Well it seems that since everything in the Army has to be "uniform" so we installed the "panic buttons" on all the receivers in our area on exactly the same switch. Nice! Well it seems that we had this shavetail 2Lt. working our shift. The man was totally clueless, someone had sent a boy to do a man's job and he was it!!! It seems that after we had installed our "panic buttons" , this young Lt. happened to walk thru our bay carrying a sheaf of papers and undoubtedly not knowing what,why or where he was going. He walked into our bay(the entrance/exit doors were exactly in the center of the room)stopped, looked up and down both sides of our bay, he knew something was different but didn't know what it was, he shrugged his shoulders and moved on! The moment the door closed behind him, every one of us started pushing our "panic buttons" LOL Now the railroad part of this story... I was working a qualifying run on the long pool when I was in engineer training. We had a problem with the radio and we were ready to go and the dispatcher wanted us out of there! We were using the conductors walkie-talkie. The roundhouse foreman told us the electrician was on his way with a replacement radio. We pulled the old one out and the electrician climbed on the power,plugged in the new set turned it on and tested it. It worked as intended. He took the old radio and bailed off the power. What he didn't do was connect the hand set to the new radio! I told my mentor I would connect it myself so I could familiarize myself with the equipment. I opened the back access panel on the control stand and there before my very eyes was the "panic button", the very same circular red plastic thread protector/dust cover that I had played with 35 years before!!! I couldn't believe it. I got the biggest laugh that I had had in quite a while over that. Never thought I'd see the good old "panic button" ever again!! CT
Trying something new...bear with me here...grit teeth Charlie, If you see stray numbers in here, they are just my line notes, znd you can delete anything or all of it, no problem. ........LITTLE KIDS PLAYING RAILROADERS... ...............................1933-1941............ ..............................Chapter...(1)......... This is fiction, probably, so I'll tell it in first person to make it seem more as if you are here just one of us guys. Age 4 was another story, and we take it up at age 8 here and go on. "Leave us go back to the 1930's when we were just bare foot raggamuffins playing one warm spring morning," There is you, and Gilbert (13), Wylie (14), Little Wayne (7), and Me (8). (When one of our moms called, we both ran! We wasn't going to take any risk!) Some times we could tell who's mom it was if she yelled "Wa-y-e-e-n-e, GOT YO SEFF IN DISS HOW-U-S-S !!! Then I knew I was OK. Yeah it was a bit tense at times, having two 'Waynes' there. But we survived through it all. The land, the countryside, Southwest of Wichita, Kansas, is slightly dished, (like a big salad mixing bowl, enough to make the the surface lay down close to the water table, so the City and Sedgwick County had dug a drainage ditch from somewhere up Northwest of town, to curve down around to the south and go off Southeast to eventually dump into 1-30the Arkansas river south of the John Mack Bridge between there and around Haysville, Ks. if I remember correctly. They called it the "Big Slough", (Slew) I don't know why, but it was more like a river averaging about 15 to 20 feet wide at water level and about 1-1/2 to 3 feet deep most of the time. There was the old original bank on our side, about three feet high except where it was added to after a flood. The bank on the other side was what was called "The Bluffs", where a crane line shovel had dredged the course out deeper and to widen it, to carry more water when it rained. There was very little trash, maybe an occasional can or bottle, some box or small piece of wood, nothing dirty like garbage though. There were little snails, frogs, and minnows swimming in schools, so the water was clean looking with patches of moss for the little frogs and fish to hide in. I never saw any other kind of fish. ...............Continued.......
still trying ..........Chapter 2 ..............Chapter (2)........ Mom wouldn't let us even go look at it when it rained up north of town, she said those banks were too dangerous! That whole country around Wichita is mostly a fine black loam silt left by the Arkansas river years and years ago and if you get too close to the edge, the banks will cave off with you in some places even when it is a dry hot summer day !! It is really soft on bare feet too!! We could grow almost anything in it. So here and out West is wheat country for as far as you can see!Mom was told it drained off extra sewage from the hotels down town. That was just gossip the other kids told me when we first moved there, so I got Dad to walk over there with me and he could see it was to drain water so it would not flood our houses! Dad said we must watch where we are stepping because an undercut bank could cave off and fall in with us, or on us kids when we are down in the water, and there might be quick-sand or quick-mud in places! We looked around and finally found a small place that was quick-mud! He pitched a dirt clod in to show us what it looked like. Dry ground swallowed our clod! He stamped his foot and you could see ripples like on 10water. You really double don't want to mess with quick-mud!! That stuff will suck you up and swallow you whole!!! He said we can pitch a clod ahead of us when we walk, so if one goes "Ploop!" and makes ripples on what looks like dry ground, that is where you don't want to step! Dust and even some bits of grass can cover the whole surface on most all of them, except way out in the very middle of a big one where its deep, so it would be like stepping into a bowl of Quaker's Oatmeal cereal! They can be as deep as the silt is thick, and when jiggled by the Atchison Topelka & Santa Fe train a half mile away, they can liquify almost anywhere up on the west end, so we don't go there! But I digress, My father came out to watch us play ever so often and look for signs of mud holes and check the water in the slough.. One day while Dad was out there, he saw a crack growing along behind a pointed bank that he thought was about to fall in. He called us boys over ...................Continued.............
............Chapter...3.....maybe ..................Chapter...(3).......... to watch how it happens. We saw a large crack you could stick your finger in about 10 feet long that slowly widened as it grew longer. Soon, a piece of earth the size of a Volkswagen toppled over into the water! WOW! JUST LIKE DAD SAID IT WOULD! We didn't doubt him, it was just awsome to actually see it happen with our own eyes! We had sometimes sat back in under that very over hang where it was cool. What if one of us had been in the shade under there? That was impressive!!! You can bet we watched out for each other after that! TSK TSK! Just typical kids playing but without much common sense! Where were you? You should have told us to not sit under that over-hanging bank! Youre the smart one after all !!! Getting a mental picture? In 1938 we started out making wooden boats, tying on string and pull them on the slough. The water was clear and warm, so it wasn't long before we were in the water. The current was very slow and we could tie our boat to a tree limb and watch it ride the waves and eddies. There were days when I was alone over there, and of course I was currious. The bank on the other side was too high to see over and too loose and steep to climb Then I thought of a solution! There was an abandoned shack where I had located a 2x12 board about 18 feet long. Remember, we drug that plank to a narrow place and scooted it off our bank to stand it up in the slough? You tied one of our ropes onto the near end, and while Wylie and I held the rope, you and Gilbert tipped the board over to rest against the other bank. All of us pulled the near end up our bank about half way, then we rested awhile. You steadied the board from tipping over while Gilbert skooted along trying to keep his balance and make his way up the board carrying another rope, (the other one from our swing.) Then he got off, turned around, and the two of you worked it one end at a time until it reached across from bank to bank. Then he suddenly slipped down the bank into the water! We didn't dare laugh. When he dried off, he said, "Gentelmen, We have a bridge!" Whew, I thought he was mad enough to kick it off into the water! ...............Continued...........
............Chapter...4 ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Chapter (4)............... Gilbert was first to go across, on hands and knees, and got excited when he stood up and saw a railroad track on that side just over the bluff !! We all went over to see and sure enough it was railroad rails, and way down the line we could see a yellow something on 'our' track! Excited, we ran, then walked winded, to see what it was! (It was farther down there than it looked. IT was a very old rusty steam crane with a skoop bucket hanging from some cables off the end of the boom. We had never seen it because of the trees. Wylie looked it all over and said it was all there, but probably had not run since they last dredged out the slough. Boy-o-boy, that sure would be exciting to have watched! We spent the rest of the day swinging in the big skoop bucket. You had rigged one of the ropes from our swing, to pull the bucket back to the bank with. The old cables creaked .and shed flakes and splinters of rust down on us as we took turns riding it. Lil' Wayne got scared on his last ride. He said something 'jolted' him as if the bucket dropped down a bit while he was swinging back towards this bank! Wylie didn't like the sound of that, so he suggested we stop for the day, and ask my Dad about it. Wylie knew my Dad was a Design Engineer, so he figured my Dad should have a look. Next Saturday, Dad put the "Whoah" to our bucket riding! Dad asked, "What are you going to do when that cable lets go and the bucket hits the bank and rolls back down with you in side and lands up side down? ~Silence~ (whisper).... as that sank in we looked at each other. OOPS! Who usually sat there? We couldn't begin to lift a two ton bucket, the crane would be of no use, and we would drown by the time we could run get a wrecker truck out here to drag it off us!! Dad went on, "You might get "Lock-Jaw" if you get a cut on this rust too. Its best you find something else to play with.. So we started exploring along "our" new RailRoad-Track-&-Company-Inc. right-of-way both ways. That was when we found our... ...................Continued.............
..............Chapter...5.... .....................Chapter...(5)......... found the rolling stock that became: THE RAILROAD! We went for Sunday Drives back when white gas was 12 cents a gallon at 75 octane, regular was pink, 15 cents at 80 octane, and High Test was red, 25 cents and 95 octane, so you could drive all day for pocket change. Guys flew WW I Jenny areoplanes on it! Mom was afraid but Dad and I went up. Sometimes we drove out in the country. It was 1940 and Dad would let me drive some, to learn how to stear. We would see an old John Deere, or steam tractor, and occasionally they were running, sawing wood, or pulling stumps. This particular day we went west off South Seneca on Patterson road by the west side of the slough and found an abandond house with a shed in back. An old railroad bed ran sort of north/south out behind this house. We wondered if it might have been the old Orient railroad my grandmother took me on the Doodlebug? Dad let me look for old tie date nails. As I dragged my magnet along, I wondered if anything could be in the shed out behind the house. In those ending days of the Depression, WW II going on in Europe, and all, it was OK to go look in deserted buildings. What you found you could keep, most of the time, or turn in for the scrap metal drives. They were taking rails, spikes, tie plates, fish plates, nuts and bolts anything metal for scrap to build Lend-Lease ships with. Kyser could build them quicker than he could get supplies! The shed was leaning but not falling apart, so was hard to see in. The roof let in light humm-m I wondered... Every time I tried to look into a knot hole, a spider tried to look out! We pried a board loose and found an old railroad trailer or push cart inside!! The AT&SF wasn't very far west of where we were, but the cart had no markings on it. Dad said we might be able to keep it, Wylie's Dad had to do with City Hall, so Dad asked him. It rained and stormed till Wednesday. I ran my Lionel layout in the basement and waited. Next Saturday we got the boys and fathers together at our house, hooked up Dad's trailer and went to get our train. (I think Wylie's Dad called the City and County and got permission to move the cart to the track, and found out the City was going to move it there anyway for the clean up to get the old crane out.) They thought we boys were learning good things and were in fact helping to keep the slough in good shape. We threw any 'trash' up on the bank so it wouldn't go on down stream and maybe do some harm. Well, we got the cart into the trailer, and stopped by our home so Dad could re-grease the axel bearings. Then we went over to get our "Train" off onto the rails at a crossing. The cart was heavy but rolled so easy, the Dads went on home, leaving us to push the cart down to our area and play. We let Wylie and Lil' Wayne ride while we pushed and road and pushed. I had not been back to our section of the slough for a couple of weeks or so.... ..................Continued...........
.................Chapter...6.... ...................Chapter...(6)........ As we rounded the bend, we could see someone had given us a susprise! The rusty rails were` wire-brushed pretty clean, and weeds were all cut or burned back exposing the cross ties! You had been there when they did all that. It was your idea to brush the rust off our rails So the people would not get soiled when we had our "Official Opening Day," The Contractor had sent a clean-up crew to burn off the weeds in preparation to move the old crane out. The man in charge was the Gandy Dancer who thought You had a good idea and furnished some brushes and several men to be your "employees" and that made you "BOSS!" He was going to enjoy this fun. The crew liked the idea too since it was an easy job and they could kid around. They would take turns saying things like, "Hey Mister Bossman, ken weums go gets a drink now? or When is we gwine rest a bit?" You enjoyed being the Boss aneveryone had a good laugh when we arrived. It was easey going after that. Everyone agreed that you made a good 'Boss' and no one got fired! The Gandy Dancer asked, "What cha gonna be as a man?" We had to think about that. WE decided what we wanted to be in this Company....Gilbert wanted to be an engineer. You wanted to be Chairman of the Board, (we didn't know what that was?) Wylie wanted to be a Conductor, Lil'Wayne wanted to be Owner of this Company so he could collect Tickets. "No body rides without a ticket!" I wanted to be an engineer so I could ride more times! The cross ties were spaced maybe two feet apart, so this track was not for heavy use. It was not strong enough for an engine, but since the old crane was self-propelled, the Contractor had saved money. Where the rails followed the lay of the land, we got to ride, coasting down the short inclines. We found several and our "Train" was a fast runner! Dad had sanded the gawllded places on the axels, and turned the bushings over to use new brass, made some new felts, packed each bearing block with his Penzoil Super-Slick Fifth Wheel grease and re-assembled them. Then he had me pump them full of 200 weight Hypoid Differential Oil. The cart rolled so easy, he made us some brakes out of... ................Continued...........
.............Chapter...7.... ...................Chapter...(7)........ ...2x4 drop-offs, he had laying around his shop. We enjoyed riding our Train and soon 1940 became 1941 and we were at war with Japan, but it had no real effect on us kids. One day a man walked up and asked if we knew who owned this here railroad? We all chimed in saying, "Yes Sir, we do!" He said that was great because he had some papers for us to sign and questions to ask. He wanted to know who was the President of this railroad? Little Wayne jumped up telling him, "I own this company!" The man said, "The owner can not sign papers of this kind, sorry, I have to speak with the President." Gilbert told the man we didn't have a President. The man told us to elect one now, so we could get on with the business. You were not there right then, so we elected Gilbert because little Wayne and I were too young, and Wyile's crippled back often took 250 him to have treatments, so that left Gilbert to carry this load. The man said, "Fine, each of you take this paper to your parents, then turn them in to your President before next Saturday. Mr. President, you are to collect the papers and meet me here at 10:00 next Saturday morning." He thanked us, turned and walked back to his truck. His truck had little flanged wheels so it could run on the rails!! (I'm going to get me a set of those when I grow up!) We all skidaddled for home! The next Saturday Wylie and his Dad gad talked to the man before I got there. The man said, the papers were to be kept on file in case one of us fell under a passing train, the office would know who to notify. Another paper was our "Official Engineer's License" so we could legally run our train on their rails! Turns out, we may own the railroad, but the "company" owned the rails and were going to allow us to have "running rights" until further notice. Since all the parents had signed and agreed to a few rules, we had our railroad! We had all worried that we might have to buy it, but the man said the work we had already done more than paid for our railroad. Here we were supposed to be grown up business men; owned a railroad, all jumping and hollaring like wild hooligans having a beer bash! The man said they were going to come get the crane in the next week or so, that it was needed for the War effort. That would mean we must put... ...............Continued..........
..............Chapter....8..... ................Chapter...8........ ...something at the end of track to keep our cart from rolling off into the slough. If we wanted to keep our cart, we were to to run it off to one side and cover it up so the salvage crew wouldn't see it. One of us watched each day taking turns until on Gilbert's day his mom called and told my mom they were going to move the crane tomorrow morning! Gilbert said he was told we could see from the high bluff. We could go watch, but, we had to stay on "our" side of the bluff so the moms could see us sitting in a row. That was ideal!! We were up high and could see everything going on. They had a flat car being pushed by a big FWD Dart flat bed truck. One of those that had the three-banger engine! There was a section of track layed on the flat car with a new looking little crane on that. While the guys were removing the tie-downs from the flat car crane, the truck backed up all the way to the crossing turned around, and was backing back to us again. This was great fun! (It was next year that Dad bought the Eastman Kodac 8mm movie camera.) None of us even thought of taking a picture of the goings on here. We were seeing it all first hand, so who would want a picture? Who knew?? They lifted the old crane onto the flat car, boomed both cranes down tight, then that big old long bed truck started to pull, and killed the engine! We all giggled. It had one of those "whooper" air starters, that made us jump! He shifted into "Great Grandaddy's Lost Dog Compound" gear, dropped the Brownlipe axels into Low, then started to lean into that load with his winch. ( I used to stand on our corner of West Street and West Douglas, The Cannon Ball Hiway, and watch these big trucks heading out from this last stop light to go flat out to Colorado! While gassing up, I asked how many gears did he have? He said it had 24 but they never used all of them, usually what I was counting was the first 18 or 19 shifts. I ran along side until he out ran me and I couldn't hear any more shifts. It was a thrill to hear him go whoop,shift,whoop,shift,whoop and he was just rolling across the intersection! WOW!) One of the men told us to get down below the bluff in case that cable broke! The driver had used the winch to pull the front of the truck up off the ground so he had more weight on the tandem dual rear wheels. We had not heard raw power like that exhaust thunder before! WOW! He wound that three-banger up to the red line as those tires got more bite into the ballast! He spewed a few ballast rocks around, binging and spranging off the flat car wheels, but eventually drug the whole shebang all the way to that crossing. Intent on watching the truck, we had not noticed a small steam engine was waiting for him at the crossing! I was off like a shot! Even Gilbert didn't.... ................Continued............
...........Chapter....9.... .................Chapter...(9)......... catch up to me. The steamer was just gettring ready to pull away when I got there. The engineer, watching us run to him, waved at us but kept on going a little faster than we could run. I swore if I ever got in his position and some little kid had run his heart out but got there just as I was going to pull away, I would wait for him to come to the cab if it hair-lipped the Govenor! I might even let him ride a little way, Yeah, I kicked clods and pouted all the way back!! Years later I was able to keep that promise! (That's another story.) (I sometimes smile about the hair lip) Lil' Wayne's mom had fixed up a "Ticket Agent's" Collection Case for him. It was an English cookie tin with a hinged lid, that became a coin .bank when all the crumpets were gone. Daddy gave him his old Interurban Motorman's cap so he really looked "Official". Someone else gave him a handfull of Movie Theater tickets, so he was ready for business! He felt so "Offishfully Groan Up!" (from a note he sent his grandmother) I got one of mom's clothes pins, the spring plier kind, and we were all set for business!!! We had found a place where the rails were shaped like those big play-ground slides that had the "hump" in the middle where you felt weightless as you flew over it. We had that same effect too! The whole Train flew up to be actually off the rail head! You kinda wonder if the Train will run out from under you. The wheelas "CLANGED" when we came back down on the track! So you had us make some test runs and found the flange was still able to keep us straight. Putting weed stems on the rail head, let us see the cart did fly over them!! That was a thrill! Saturday the moms , sisters and dads came to ride our Train. Someone handed out tickets, then the passenger would come to me and I pinched a validationon on their ticket. Then they went over to Lil' Wayne and he took the ticket and put it through the coin slot into his ticket case and said, "Have a nice trip, and hang on!" As the passenger climbed aboard, Wylie yelled, "All A Board!" When two or three passengers were on, you and Gilbert would put a 2x4 against a wheel as a lever, and push to start the Train off the high top to coast down and "fly" over the hump to coast on down to where the track started up grade again. Coming down off that hump the train got up to a pretty fast.... ...............Continued.........
.............Chapter...10....... ...............Chapter...(10)... .....clip, so everyone held on tight! It was an exciting ride! Both of you hopped on so you could push the Train back. I didn't get to ride because I had to validate tickets. I got to ride other times though. All the passengers walked back or could ride if a man was with them to help push. We got to ride every day and you and I grew up enough that we could push the Train back up for another ride by our selves alone, after all every one of us was a licensed engineer!. That was good Sweet Crude Fifth wheel grease straight from Pennzoil in those bearings! From start to finish, the section of track we used the most was about 350 to 400 feet I guess from the high point down over the crest of the big hump then another maybe 5-600 more feet down to where the track starts up grade, then ends at the 2x12 we used for a barrier, There were other places with humps too. We had use of track from one section line road to the other road, about a mile in total length, low in the middle and high on the far end, but higher on this west end. It was great fun and every one enjoyed it, We ran our Train all that summer, next summer and into 1942, then as the weather started getting nippy out, the war effort needed our rails, so they took the Train too, and that ended our railroad career. Lil'Wayne's Dad was transferred to another state, Wylie stayed in Wichita until next year, then his Dad was called back to California, and I was sent away to boarding sDid you ever try to ride abandoned chool in Arkansas where it was safer from bombs than Wichita with all the essential industry there, I was 12 by thgen. What happened to you after I left? Well, so that's how I was a full fledged licensed engineer at age 8 !! .......................... ~30~ ................ With Charlie's permission, QUESTIONS............................... Did you feel like one of us there? Did you ever make a vehickle to ride the rails with? Please tell us about it. Did you ever use a cart (or) like we did, on active track? How? .
...........Corrected... a mistake ... Thanks Charlie, I have gone back and corrected mistakes etc, so it is a better read now. This is 1942 and leads into my next story, which is real railroad. One of Trainboard's members, Westend Hand, was at the same railroad after I was there and knew some of the same guys I worked with during WW II. That will be later, if the guys like my style of writing. I even type slowly for those who are slow readers. I am hoping this story will jog the memories and bring out some stories from the guys about their adventures.
