RR jargon Thanks for the jargon. I always like to see how creative they get with the terminology. I have seen some of those "Bare tables" now I can call them by name.
I've posted some memories(stories)on "The Ready Track" board, on the "Don't mean to be dumb" thread. Charlie
I saw the Loram RailGrinder up on the Hayford Siding (CN/former GTW main)this morning. and it was definitely grinding rails. This leads me to believe that the CN has plans for this former GTW main line other than its usage as the Hayford Industrial Siding. This line at one time went all the way to Dearborn Station. I do know a track connection from CUS had existed and may still, I cant tell for sure. Amtrak would sometimes detour E.B. trains over the former GTW main when there were problems on the regular route.(Pennsy/NYC) This line also supported the former intermodal ramp "Railport" which is now used for storage. It also ran thru Elsdon Yard,about a mile north of where I live,and which has been closed for more than 20 years and for the most part no longer exists due to development. There are a number of shops and stores where the roundhouse once stood. and part of the yard, the part oriented E/W, is now a bulk material transloading facility served by CN, What gives me cause to think that CN has other plans for the former main is that 1/ Last week I saw an intermodal train(double stak well cars) going INBOUND on the Hayford. I dont know the destination but there is a direct connection to Corwith Yard on the BNSF(former ATSF) and the NS at the(formerly) CJ yard(also former Conrail). 2/The fact that the CN was employing the rail grinder for what is normally used 2 -4 times a day,by local trains. Any of you CN/GTW fans got any ideas? Charlie
an update to my previous post... There have been more intermodal(Stack)trains going inbound on the Hayford since I posted my comments. Saw one last night with a CN loco MU'ed with a (crudely relettered)RELX loco, looked like a GE 80 or larger end cab loco,painted yellow,couldn't make out the original owner's logo. didn't have a camera handy! Charlie
Story I promised on another thread... Opening day of Cubs baseball, 1998,1999? CRS. I was working 1272(1274?) an afternoon commuter train job. Easy enough job,had a short turn at Congress Park(La Grange IL) and ran an EB deadhead back to CUS. Enehooo... We have a late evening WB. I am Rear Collector(brakeman/flagman). I am making a pre-departure check of the passenger load in my two cars. In the last car(last east car also the cab car for push mode)there are two groups of young bucks in the car,one group in the gallery, the other group on the main level across the aisle from the first group. They are sorta loud and boisterous and their language was a bit salty(they were also fairly drunk). I told them to keep it down and made my way back to the vestibule. I went back in a few minutes later and the rowdiness was still going on and I told them that unless they settled down, we weren't going to leave. That seemed to have an effect. A short time later, we made the highball from CUS and I began my ticket sweep. I start at the very east end of the train and work west. These young dudes appear to have settled down. I finish that half of the car and step into the vestibule. stop for a second to adjust my coin changer belt. I am just sliding open the door to the west half of the car when suddenly a voice behind me yells "Hey they're fighting in here" I stop, go back to the east door and sure enough the car is filling with knuckles. I see that it is too big for me to handle, I page the conductor and hogger on the intercom, they answer right away and the middle guy also picks up on the phone. I tell them what is happening and the conductor sez to call the cops. I hear the hogger on the radio calling the DS and telling him whats up. The DS calls back saying that the police will meet us in Cicero. The middle guy comes running into my vestibule to see what's going on, as we are talking a young man steps into the vestibule a bit scratched up and dusting himself off. As he is dusting himself off, another young dude steps into the vestibule and sucker punches this first guy and runs back into the car!!!!! By this time it appears that the worst is over. We tell the first kid to stay in the vestibule,he does,for a short time. We go in and tell these geniuses that they are gonna have a short ride tonight. They reply that "WE DIDNT DO ANYTHING"!!!(yeah! right!) By this time we have made Cicero. There were six,count 'em, 6 police cars waiting for us and two of them were BNSF special agents. The Cicero police board the train and I show them the offenders,who are by now all loudly proclaiming their innocence,including the guy who was beat on and had snuck back into the car. Well the Cicero police issue a very succinct invitation to these ruffians to join them outside. Several had to be "persuaded" to leave. One of the Cicero officers was a young man of short stature, quite muscular build,very clean cut,military appearing. He had military creases in his uniform that you could shave yourself with!!! Well he escorted one young rocket scientist off the train in a not so genteel manner. This youngster took umbrage at his treatment and said to this office..."You dont have to treat me like an @$$hole", To which our young officer replied..."if you act like an @$$hole, you'll be treated like an @$$hole". All in all, I ejected 9 overserved Cubs fans from that train that night. It was a short,very expensive train ride for these young geniuses, OH! and BTW all of them were drunk but only two of them were of legal drinking age!!! LOL There was no further action taken from this event, so I guess both METRA and the BNSF was happy. I earned the nickname of "Zero Tolerance Brakeman" from that brouhaha! Our children grow up so fast!!! Its a shame the intelligence falls flat along the way! Charlie
I wouldn't confuse "Growing Up" with "Getting Bigger." And "older" doesn't necessarily begret "wiser." I abhor the day there is a kiddie playground cubicle in every office...
Unrelated to trains, but as I was walking home from the labs last Tuesday, 3 punks decided they would jump me in attempt to rob me of my iPod and wallet. Now, my best friend is a seasoned Marine who taught me everything he knows about hand combat. You should have seen the look on these guy's faces when they realized this. They gave me a good beating, but I was able to counter their attack and hold on to two of them long enough until Police arrived. The third, unfortunately, got away. Anyways, turns out one of the two guys is a minor, which means juvenile detention. Isn't that the biggest laugh! He may have the mentality of a toddler, but if hes "wise" enough to make the decision to inflict physical harm to a complete stranger, then hes "old" enough to be charged with the felony he committed. Rest assured, I will not let him get off so easily. I will not rest until he finds himself in adult court.
Regardless of what you do, he will probably no doubt find his way to adult court just fine on his own with no further help!!
Track names???? Once a track(or a station or locale)gets a name, it usually sticks henceforth and forevermore. I have mentioned some of these before but here goes again... We mentioned Cicero Yard and its tracks, in the bowl there was a crossover track between Bowl 1 & 2 which was called the "hook" or "hook track"(it looked like a hook,it was a curved track). The "New" switch in the Cicero "B" plant was already some 20 or more years old when I hired out with the company. When one worked a job originating at the Hump Tower, one usually got the power on the "fuel track" . Dont ask me how, nobody else knows either! The only thing I can think is that when diesels first arrived they were fueled on that track. There was a short length of pipeline adjacent to the track which apparently served no purpose except to rust. The "Bad order Lead" naturally ran to the bad order tracks but also was the lead to Cleanout tracks 1,2 & 3. When you went to "beans" or maybe tied-up, you might be told to bring your power to the "way car" track(s). Surprise! you could also sometimes find a caboose on the "way car track"! What a novel concept!!!! If you were in the receiving yard or roundhouse area you might have need to access tracks that were not accessible from the track you were on,so the yardmaster would tell you to run your power to the "dirt pile" so that you could access other lead track. Guess what? The "dirt pile" was a dirt pile! it was a short spur track with a mound of dirt as the track stop! It could could accomodate(just barely!) a pair of Dash-9s. When you were at the east end, the East End tower would maybe want you out of the way momentarily for another movement. He would tell you to "pull up to da pole"(NOT an ethnic reference LOL). This was a utility pole near the east end tower and there was some trackwork there that acted as a "pocket track" and (s)he could run you or other movements around each other that way. You had to know from experience which pole was the "pole" since there were a number of them! Speaking of "pocket track", that is a soubriqet that accurately describes it's purpose. a short length of track connected by crossovers to another piece of track where the yardmaster could put your power or a car or two momentarily. Moving on west we come to Eola, my terminal of record. We had a "team track" there off the lead to East Yard. Nobody in living memory remembers when it was ever used as a team track or even if it was. It was mostly used to park the switch engines when idle. Quite frequently track equipment would be stored there when track gangs were active in the area. There was a roundhouse lead, although the roundhouse was long gone. There was a turntable which was out of service when I hired out, was repaired and used to turn certain freight cars and then was disused again when the switchman who knew how to operate it retired. One of the industries serviced by Eola switch jobs was an auto transloading facility sorta on the border between Aurora and Naperville. The tracks there were named by car badges and numbers,ie Mazda 1,2,3 etc, Datsun 1,2,3 etc, Ford 1,2,3 etc. Adjacent to the 3MT "Aurora Raceway" was a 3 track yard and a wye with the tail being the lead into the auto transload facility which has since been closed. The yard was used primarily for auto racks to be delivered or picked up by road trains. There was a long track, a middle track and a short track, the wye legs at each end being the leads to those tracks. The yard tracks were as follows, Long,Middle,Short! Howz dat for originality? If you were on a pool freight to La Crosse, you will encounter a station name of "Robinson Spur" just outside Savanna IL. I still dont know where or what "Robinson Spur" is or was, but I suspect it was the lead to the Savanna Army Depot,which is now home to a freight car rebuilder/leaser and some other industries. Moving on further north there was a short siding named "banana track". It looked pretty dismal and I dont even know if it was strong enough to use as a set-out track. I am gonna close this tale for now. If I can think of some other dandies,I'll add them later. Charlie
One more example of "It's always been that way!", it isn't just the railroads. My dad worked for a company with a loading dock but the delivery truck was always parked on a small hill across the yard, even though there was parking next to the loading dock. When he asked the owner's wife why, she said that it had a bad starter so they rolled it down the hill to get it going and that is where it stayed. The starter had been replaced years before but the owner said it was to park on the hill until fixed, and no one bothered to move it back.
Years ago when I was listening to my scanner I always heard reference to tying up power on the "Mudge" track at Englewood yard in Houston on the SP. I imagined all sorts of reasons why it would be called that but never really found out. When I was given a tour of the yard soon after UP took over, it was pointed out to me but no one I talked to knew where the name came from. UP did not want to call it that any more so I guess that name slipped away.
Mudge & Co., Chicago made "Motor Inspection Cars" and associated equipment 100(+/-) years ago. The Railway Gazette Maintenance Of Way Encyclopedia (1921) discussed their products on pages 750 & 751. http://books.google.com/books?id=pMk7AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA750&lpg=PA750&dq=mudge+railway&source=bl&ots=4F7qvRwEPb&sig=neDAyJyGqN4hqYjR3s_WhC2yjRs&hl=en&ei=0fCNStDvGtuPmAeH7LCkDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3#v=onepage&q=mudge%20railway&f=false It's possible that SP's Englewood Yard had a bunch of Mudge equipment which was normally stored on the "Mudge Track". Just a SWAG (Scientific Wild Ass Guess), mind you...anyone is welcome to offer another opinion. :tb-wink:
sounds logical enough for me!!! At Rochelle, a couple of the tracks that I remember and which were used for switching were the "Erie" track and the "Nickle Plate" track. They were tracks which at one time served industries there. I am only guessing that the cars that were on those tracks were destined for those railroads. The yard was called "Carny Yard", not because it was a carnival to work, but because Carnation Milk had a facility there at one time. There was a high rise building there which had a large illuminated cross atop it. The cross was designed so that it could be seen from any direction. I thought it was a hospital and one day I asked the crew I was working with what the name of the hospital was. Well, it WASN'T a hospital. It was a building used in some sort of agribusiness. I was told that the owner of the business was a devout Christian and wanted to advertise such to any and all! In spite of that, I STILL HATE ROCHELLE!!!!!! Charlie
That sounds like a good explanation. I am sure most of the guys working for SP in the 1990's were not around back when that kind of equipment was still in use. Those machines were probably long gone by the time any of them hired on but some of the old timers still there when they were newbies still used the name so it was passed down. Thanks.:thumbs_up:
quite true r i straw! Other things with longevity... "Highball", the universal signal for "proceed". In antediluvian railroading, a ball attached to a lanyard and raised high was the signal to proceed. It was used mostly "way down east" and a couple of small pockets on the left coast. I dont know that the highball is used anywhere at this time, but then again, I dont get around like I used to! LOL The term and its usage sticks! "BNSF XXXX Highball dat switch, I got another movement right behind you, he'll restore the switch", "C & I Dispatcher to M ABC DEF over... "M ABC DEF(answering)over"..."M ABC DEF highball Rochelle, they dont have the cars ready yet, over"..."Roger dat, highball Rochelle(M ABC DEF answering), out" Your name is Robert Hopkins, your initials are R.H. You hire on with a railroad. You will henceforth and forevermore be known by the soubriquet "Roundhouse" The abbreviation for roundhouse is "RH". You have no choice!!! You are a locomotive engineer, you will be known as a "hogger" "Hoghead" "greasehead" "hogmeister" etc. Those are just the printable names! "East Yard, who's your hogger"? "Q HOT STF , we're gonna have to swap your train, your hogger is runnin' late. The crew of M CRA PPO will take your train, You'll take their train when your greashead gets there" To old heads a diesel locomotive is a "motor" "Charlie, get on the motor, take it west, drop the derail, line him up for 2 track and send him back to me. Stay at the switch, I'll send him back to you and you turn him back on 1 track, get back on the motor." There are more, but I'm suffering a senior moment right now! Charlie
