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Post by Inspeqtor on Jan 13, 2022 4:05:03 GMT
I saw BuckSkins thread about the CSX RR and thought I would add one about the rail yards in Elkhart, Indiana My father worked on the New York Central lines starting I believe in 1935, then retired from Penn-Central in 1975. New York Central and the Pennsylvania Rail Road merged on January 1, 1968 He worked out of the Elkhart rail yards his entire work life, as a conductor mostly on freight trains back in the day when they used a caboose. Wait, Caboose? What in the world is that??? Oh how I miss seeing them at the tail end of a train! My dad mostly went to Blue Island a lot (west of Chicago) but there were a few other places he also went also in the Chicago area that I can no longer remember. When the yards in Elkhart were built in about 1953, at that TIME it was the Largest Rail Yard in the WORLD. The largest yard now is Bailey Yard in North Platte, Nebraska This is from Google Earth what it looks like today:  Trains will come in from the east and west, but some of the trains coming from the east will get broken up into new trains separated into new trains 1 or more possible cars at a time first going up a small hill called the HUMP, where at the hump they will get separated then go slowly down hill to one of the 72 inner tracks.   All of this is done by computer, and it was done by computer also back in 1953! There used to be a tall tower near the hump the computers were in. I was in that tower 1 time!! As the cars go down hill they are slowed down as needed by brakes on the rails so they do not crash into the train it is going to. The car just slowly bumps into the waiting car and connects to the waiting car. Here is a picture I took in 1971 of a car going down the hill right from the HUMP.  I found on YouTube several years ago a video someone took from a drone flying over the rail yards that is quite interesting. The video is 9 Minutes 44 seconds long. At 4 minutes you will see the drone coming up to the Hump where a car was just released and you will see it slowly going to the left side. At about 6 minutes you still see that car moving down the rail but the drone operator moves ahead a bit not on the car any more but at about 7 minutes the operator stops the drone, spins it around now facing the opposite direction and finds that car again now coming at you! At 7:35 you see the car bump into the waiting car!! Keep watching and you will see 5 cars hooked together all going to the same rail to connect with another "new" train. You will see a 2-lane highway near the rail yard, I have driven that road more times than I will ever know. The people driving that road for the most part have no idea how large this rail yard is. Because the rail yard is slightly higher then the 2-lane road you can not tell. I know because I was there a few times when my father worked there. My father also had a full passenger uniform for NYC and he also had PennCentral buttons to use on the uniform. I do not know how often he wore the uniform as I never saw him wear it. |
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Post by BuckSkin on Jan 13, 2022 4:37:57 GMT
Thanks for posting; this is great !
Way back when I was a kid, railcars had placards on them with huge bar-codes.
These switch-yards had bar-code readers many years before the common public had any idea what a bar-code was.
I cannot say who had/used bar-codes first; as, some brands of breakfast cereal also had them on the box top.
It was a sad day when two of the largest railroads in the world merged, The Pennsylvania Railroad and New York Central, to become PennCentral; that was the beginning of their end.
When PennCentral fell apart, it became ConRail; and, when that fell apart, it was divided between Norfolk Southern and CSX.
The Pennsylvania Railroad was known as The Standard Railroad of the World; among many other things, they created and established Time Zones and Standard Time; before that, each community had it's own "time" and the mayor would declare noon each day and everyone would set their clocks by that.
Of course, politics have raped and pillaged the original, sensible and accurate, Standard Time, destroying the integrity and accuracy that The Pennsylvania Railroad created.
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Post by srmoment on Jan 13, 2022 6:13:43 GMT
so interesting - My dad was a station agent in Canada with CNR. We lived in train stations for most of my childhood and moved fairly often.
I also worked as an operator for the CNR. All of the operators were on the same line and took train orders from a dispatcher 100 miles away. We delivered train orders to train crews, yarded trains and had cars moved around to make up new trains.
Mostly I worked as a relief operator in main terminals, but sometimes I was sent to small stations in the middle of nowhere, where I saw flying saucers, got chased by bears and 'hooped' trains, which is a whole nother story.
...and when I needed a ride to another town, I could always hop on a caboose or catch a ride in the engine. I even got to drive a train once - cool eh?
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Post by BuckSkin on Jan 13, 2022 6:52:08 GMT
so interesting - My dad was a station agent in Canada with CNR. We lived in train stations for most of my childhood and moved fairly often. I also worked as an operator for the CNR. All of the operators were on the same line and took train orders from a dispatcher 100 miles away. We delivered train orders to train crews, yarded trains and had cars moved around to make up new trains. Mostly I worked as a relief operator in main terminals, but sometimes I was sent to small stations in the middle of nowhere, where I saw flying saucers, got chased by bears and 'hooped' trains, which is a whole nother story. ...and when I needed a ride to another town, I could always hop on a caboose or catch a ride in the engine. I even got to drive a train once - cool eh? After reading this, your "COOL" rating just went up several notches ! When you say you 'hooped' trains, I am assuming you are meaning the method of handing up orders to moving trains. There were several methods of accomplishing this; the two most common being either a widely forked stick that held the orders on a loop that is held open by the fork; the person on the ground held the forked stick and the person on the moving train ran their arm through the fork and thus the looped string that was tied to the orders. The other method being a big hoola-hoop-like hoop that the person on the train ran their arm through; they removed the orders from the hoop and tossed the hoop back to the ground. Am I even close to what you were meaning ? |
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Post by srmoment on Jan 13, 2022 15:46:39 GMT
ahahahaha.....oh yeah! I used the forked stick which had two slots which you ran the string holding the train orders through. There was a long-handled stick for the engine and a shorter stick for the caboose. It was not my favorite activity as you have to stand on the platform about two feet away from the track. You have to watch for banding on the cars which can de-capitate you and in my case, because I was small, I had to brace against the train's wind suction pulling me into the train.
...in fact, one time, I was hooping a train and as the head-end (engine) came at me, I felt like I was being pulled into the train and my involuntary reaction was to pull the fork back just as the head-end brakeman leaned out the window to put his arm through the hoop. I managed to whack him. At that point, you know you are in trouble because a long train takes two miles to stop and then back up so that any train meeting schedules are thrown off. ...so to resume my tale.....I ran back and picked up the shorter forked hoop, knowing that I had to get it to the tail-end brakeman. It took forever for 100 cars to go by and as the caboose came at me, the tail-end brakeman was holding on to the caboose rail leaning way out to get the orders. Well, you can probably guess what happened next. I was so nervous, I misjudged and whacked the tail end brakeman almost off the train. .....then....being somewhat of a coward, I left the train orders on the platform, ran back in the station, locked the door and wouldn't answer the radio until the train was well on its way. ......and.......I was transferred back to a main terminal the next day because, even though I was a good operator, I couldn't hoop worth a *!*!!. ......the end
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Post by Inspeqtor on Jan 13, 2022 16:49:20 GMT
BuckSkin,
At what point in your life were YOU a railroad man? You seem to know so much more than I do!!
srmoment,
You and BuckSkin both talk about stuff I have never heard of before in my life, and it all goes right over my head! Using terms like "hooping" I still really do not know what that means at all.
Life goes on!!!
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pontiac1940
CE Members
Posts: 6,359
Open to constructive criticism of photos: Yes
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Post by pontiac1940 on Jan 13, 2022 16:55:51 GMT
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Post by Inspeqtor on Jan 13, 2022 17:26:27 GMT
Pontiac, Thank you for this. In the first video, was the man on the ground GETTTING or GIVING something at front of train AND at end of train and WHY did he need to do that with TWO different gadgets, rather than use the same one both times?? Is hooping still needed to be done today, or with today's digital technology is that now a thing of the past? Again I thank you! |
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Post by BuckSkin on Jan 13, 2022 19:58:27 GMT
You have to watch for banding on the cars which can de-capitate you This is an ever-present danger around moving trains. Lumber and many other products are secured together or to a pallet by 3/4-inch wide steel strapping, pulled tight as a guitar string by a strap binder (bander) and then clinched together with a metal strap crimp (band clip). Often, one of the metal bands will break at the crimp and be waving wildly out the side of the load with one end firmly caught underneath the load. Imagine a sharp ten-foot long sword coming at you at sixty-MPH. When this happens on a tractor-trailer, the driver will soon spot this in his mirrors, pull aside, and address the issue. There are no mirrors on a locomotive and no way could anyone spot a thin metal strap half-a-mile behind them anyway. If one will pay attention when a mixed freight passes, it is not uncommon at all to spot at least one broken band and often several on a long train that has a lot of flat cars. www.youtube.com/watch?v=MECx_z5WzOIwww.uline.com/BL_3553/Standard-Steel-Strapping-Tools |
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Post by BuckSkin on Jan 13, 2022 20:12:10 GMT
It was not my favorite activity as you have to stand on the platform about two feet away from the track. Some railroads got smart and used pivoting stands to hold the train orders, instead of a person having to stand beside the train. The train orders were placed on these long pivoting arms; one high for the engine and another not so high for the caboose. The head-end brakeman caught the top one and the rear-end brakeman the lower. The reason they pivoted was so that they were less likely to knock the brains out of someone. There was at least one trackside diner that had such a device for the trainmen to grab their dinner as they passed by; if you missed the grab, you went hungry, and also felt the wrath of your co-workers who also went without on account of your mistake. |
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Post by BuckSkin on Jan 13, 2022 20:31:39 GMT
At what point in your life were YOU a railroad man? In the late 1990s, Norfolk Southern, Danville Yard, Locomotive Attendant; I was considered a Fireman and Oiler. Not to blow my own horn (but nobody else will), when I applied for the job, I was told by the company man who gave the tests that I was the only one who had ever scored perfect on the mechanical aptitude test and that I scored by far the highest overall on all tests of anyone who had ever applied. Nevertheless, that didn't account for much when it came right down to the actual hiring. I had applied for one of five open positions as carman; a somewhat lucrative and sought after position; those five positions went to brothers, son-in-laws, and nephews of people who already were employed at NS. A year or so later, after I had already given up on the deal, they called me out of the blue and offered me the position of Attendant, which paid about six bucks an hour less; which they did not know and therefore did not tell me when I agreed to take the job; I was told I would receive the higher amount and that amount was entered on every one of numerous papers that I had to fill out during the hiring process; imagine my surprise after my first six weeks when I finally got my paycheck for the first two weeks. If NS had made it right and paid me what they first said they would, I would still be a railroad man today. |
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Post by hmca on Jan 13, 2022 20:44:33 GMT
Fascinating reading here! Thanks so much for starting this thread, Inspeqtor ! Love reading about your experiences srmoment and BuckSkin ! Your links were very helpful, Clive. Was looking forward to reading your answer to Charles' question, Buckskin. Will continue to follow. |
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Post by Inspeqtor on Jan 13, 2022 22:57:22 GMT
At what point in your life were YOU a railroad man? In the late 1990s, Norfolk Southern, Danville Yard, Locomotive Attendant; I was considered a Fireman and Oiler. Not to blow my own horn (but nobody else will), when I applied for the job, I was told by the company man who gave the tests that I was the only one who had ever scored perfect on the mechanical aptitude test and that I scored by far the highest overall on all tests of anyone who had ever applied. Nevertheless, that didn't account for much when it came right down to the actual hiring. I had applied for one of five open positions as carman; a somewhat lucrative and sought after position; those five positions went to brothers, son-in-laws, and nephews of people who already were employed at NS. A year or so later, after I had already given up on the deal, they called me out of the blue and offered me the position of Attendant, which paid about six bucks an hour less; which they did not know and therefore did not tell me when I agreed to take the job; I was told I would receive the higher amount and that amount was entered on every one of numerous papers that I had to fill out during the hiring process; imagine my surprise after my first six weeks when I finally got my paycheck for the first two weeks. If NS had made it right and paid me what they first said they would, I would still be a railroad man today. Did you quit after that first six weeks or did you stay longer? So sorry they did not pay you what they said they would, but a lot of companies do that every day. I thank you for your insight on your other posts you have talked about in this thread!! Do you know if hooping is still done today like the old days or is it all digital now? |
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Post by Inspeqtor on Jan 13, 2022 22:58:34 GMT
Fascinating reading here! Thanks so much for starting this thread, Inspeqtor ! Love reading about your experiences srmoment and BuckSkin ! Your links were very helpful, Clive. Was looking forward to reading your answer to Charles' question, Buckskin. Will continue to follow. I am very happy you have enjoyed this thread Helen!! |
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Post by BuckSkin on Jan 14, 2022 0:04:35 GMT
Did you quit after that first six weeks or did you stay longer? I stayed longer. They kept claiming they would get it straightened out and they sent several company big wigs, one at a time, to try to coerce me into staying; my answer = pay me what you promised and no problem. These big companies are so used to dealing with sheep people who are in debt up to their eyeballs; they do not know how to deal with someone who refuses to get in debt and therefore at their mercy. One very good example of this is the fact that they hold back your pay for so long; there is no sound business reason for this other than they are hoping that by the time the money starts trickling in that you will be so deep in debt that you have no choice other than to play along. If an independent operator, running on a shoestring, can pay me each day if I want it, then there is no reason some mega-million company cannot do likewise; it is all about keeping control of their employees. |
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