Gone But Not Forgotten

Classic Trains General Discussion
1

Reflct back to a time 50 or 60 years ago and think how many railroad sights and sounds that were commonplace then and taken for granted are largely only memories today. I’m thinking of things other than the obvious like steam locomotives, passenger trains, cabooses and branch lines reaching most every hamlet in the country. Things such as:

Car Knockers hitting wheels with their hammers to listen for the sound of a cracked wheel.

Stations manned by agent operators 5-10 miles apart along every line.

Flimsie train orders and train order boards.

Section gangs with their section houses and putt putt motorcars.

Railway Express Agency cars, signs and delivery trucks.

Semaphore block signals.

Mail cranes with their bag of mail waiting to be picked up by a passing RPO car.

Manned interlocking towers with their myriad levers, pipes and cranks.

Wig wag grade crossing signals and watchmen who came out of their shanties to stand in the middle of a crossing holding a stop sign.

Big hooks with their idler cars and tenders and wrecking trains.

Lineside telephones and booths.

Switchmen and shanties.

Locomotive whistle and hand signal communication between trainmen.

REA and baggage carts.

Boxcars spotted at every grain elevator before the advent of covered hoppers.

Telegraph keys rattling out train orders and sending an OS to mark the passage of trains.

Stock cars with their mooing, baaing and squealing occupants.

Peddler freights with an LCL boxcar and freight houses for LCL shipments at larger towns and cities.

A coffin on a baggage cart waiting to make that final trip home.

Mixed trains trailing a combine or coach.

Parmalee

2

The sight of a conductor in a dak blue suit standing at the foot of the steps into a chair or coach car with a stepbox painted in the colors of that railroad. The sound of the air whistle when the all aboard is given and the gental lurch of a train starting to move. The brass ticket punch and the sights of the dining car waiters and stewarts. The hard round cap of the conductors and brakeman the pullman porters and the red caps who helped you with your bags Yep times have changed Larry

3

Remember that old cliche about how little boys wanted to grow up to be policemen or firemen? Well when I was a tyke I wanted to be a crossing watchman somewhere along South Boulevard in Oak Park, Illinois - stopping traffic, raising and lowering the crossing gates, and watching those magnificent, 1920s-built, rapid transit “Plushies” trundle by as the trolley wire sang overhead. Each crossing had a small wooden watchman’s shack that contained a coal-fired, potbelly stove for warmth in the wintertime. What a great job to have - or so a very young railfan thought!

Later as a teenager who “superintended the moves” of the great Q streamliners into and out of Chicago Union Station, I was always amazed every time I saw cardboard boxloads of honey bees loaded into the baggage car of the Denver Zephyr. Imagine that: honey bees being shipped by train!

4

I’ll add a few more that have popped to mind.

Trackwalkers patrolling main lines on foot with a wrench and spike maul on their shoulder.

Stub switches. I never actually saw one except in photos.

Stretches of electified trackage on lines with lengthy tunnels.

39 ft lengths of rail stored along the ROW atop concrete posts for handy access when needed to replace a broken rail.

Journal boxes filled with oil soaked cotton waste.

Re-railing frogs and chains slung under engine tenders and cabooses.

Lineside poles with their myriad of Western Union and railroad telegraph wires.

The Y shaped sticks used to hoop orders up “on the fly” to train crews.

Determining train speed by counting the number of telegraph poles passed in one minute.

Stationmasters at big city depots.

Team tracks.

Millk trains picking up big cans of milk destined for city creameries.

Pullman cars with their signs stating “Dining Car This (or Opposite) Direction”.

Until next time -

Mark

5

Passenger trains that ran on time,had comfortable seats and even when full did not feel crowded.

Open,manned stations that had schedules availiable.

6

Don’t forget Gandy Dancers and the troughs where high speed trains could scoop up water on the run.

7

Multi-armed telegraph poles, complete with green-glass insulators. Any non-turbocharged EMD 567. Steam-era leftover cabeese like this one:

and this one:

Jointed mainline rail. The aroma of non-emulsified “#6 Diesel Fuel” exhaust. Telltales. Kerosene switch-heaters. Non-enclosed, bi-and early tri-level auto-rack cars {yes, technically not all gone yet, but still a cherished “endangered species.”}. Plush diaphrams on passenger rolling stock. Lavender {![:O]} - painted DT&I hy-cube auto parts boxcars. The original {privately-held} Auto-Train. Pacific Fruit Express, and American Refrigerated Transit reefers. Campbell “Humpin’ to Please” Express trailers as TOFC revenue:

Track torpedoes. Cinders along the right-of-way. Re-railing frogs AND push-poles mounted on the same locomotive at the same time. Waving to both ends of a freight train. High-nose GE U25B’s. Alco RS-11’s with EMD 567’s - riding on trade-in Baldwin trucks, complete with Westinghouse traction motors! {Can you say "Ultimate Mongrel?}