Worked in a supervisory position at B&O’s Clark Avenue Yard during the Summer of 1971. Looking out of the windows of the office - everything appeared obscured and in fuzzy focus when looking out of the windows. Decided I would try an clean the outside of the windows - first window I tried to clean with Windex was an absolute failure - the outside surface of the window had the texture of medium grit sandpaper. All the ‘air pollution’ generated by the various steel and chemical plants that surrounded the area had etched away the original smooth surface of the common window glass that the window frames were glazed with.
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Well yeah, Clark is right there at the mill! 
I remember the smell on the freeway and the orange sky over downtown. And the blackened Old Stone Cathedral on Public Square that turned out to be limestone after they blasted it clean. I walked down Main Avenue from Detroit and West 25th Street recently into the flats and some of the old old maybe 19th century brick and stone factories and shops down there make me want to go back with a good camera because they’d be fun to model. One looked like a locomotive shed.
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Probably a good idea to catch them before they’re gone Becky. While visiting the Lower Susquehanna Model Railroad club in Columbia PA I couldn’t help but notice a 19th Century building, a classic old brick model, was being demolished. I asked one of the club members about it and was told the facade facing the street and part of the building was going to be preserved but the rest was going to become a hotel. I was glad to hear that part, Columbia’s a classic old town, but the moral is those old buildings we too often take for granted can disappear in a heartbeat. Hey, when we moved to Richmond the old coaling tower in the C&O Fulton Yard was still standing and then one day it was gone without a trace!
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Balt:
You were the Forest Gump of the B&O/Chessie/CSX.
Why dont you write a book outlining your career? I will purchase a copy.
Ed
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90% of the career was going where I was told to go and doing what I was told to do. For the most part I enjoyed doing what was presented for me to do. Along the way there were jobs that I felt that weren’t ‘my cup of tea’, like them or not I would do the best I knew how to do.
I was placed in first level supervision, before I had children in my own family. After having kids I came to the realization that first level supervision is exactly like trying to stay on top of your children and guiding them in the right direction - those employees are children, just 20+ years older and still trying to get away with the same things as MY children, just in a workplace setting. If I had had children earlier I would have been better as a first level supervisor, as it was being thrust into first level supervision made me a father that could tell what the kids ‘next move’ would be.
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Maybe so, but there HAS to be stories (many) where that didn’t work out as planned.
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Everybody has amazing stories of their life. They should share them more often.
I was working the Atlanta Division - CSX at the time had three loaded auto rack trains that would operate out of Chattanooga - Q211 operated to unloading facility on the Abbeville Sub that was East of Atlanta with an assigned crew that had a designated on duty time. It was followed by Q213 that was destined Tampa and Q215 that was destined Jacksonville. One Senior Manager of the Dufford Dispatching Center ordered that the three trains be fleeted to Atlanta without delay - despite being told what would happen. The Q211 assigned crew wouldn’t go on duty until 0700 - thus forcing the train to Atlanta at 0300 would block up the Atlanta Terminal for at least 4 hours with a train being on a track with no crew. The snowball effect of having the wrong train force to be at the wrong place at the wrong time ended up creating chaos in Atlanta for the next 24 hours and the calling of FOUR RELIEF Crews to drag in trains that had been forced onto the Hours of Service at outlying points. All because Management thought they knew better.
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Love your stories!
Rich
Good Decisions come from Experience! Experience comes from Bad Decisions.
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And you know something? Show me a man who never made a bad decision, and I’ll show you a man who never made a decision. 
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Or a pathological liar 
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