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« on: February 14, 2014, 01:09:12 PM »
Thanks, Wayne,
I got tired just watching the video! And to think those guys worked that hard every day, all day. No hard hats or yellow vests, either!
That side tank engine looks similar to the engine at the Erie Canal operation.
I'm amazed by how much they used box cars for shipping ties. Seems like a lot of extra work loading and unloading as opposed to gondolas. I guess maybe there were plenty of empty box cars available and it was better to load them back than to send them empty and scrounge around for gons. Years ago, I was a brakeman on a work train on the Southern Railway. At that time (late '70s), Southern loaded ties in special rack cars, with hatches which opened at deck level. Sort of a door, hinged at the top, which when opened, allowed room for ties to be kicked out the bottom of the stack. They had a "kicker" machine which ran on rails on the deck of the cars. This machine had a paw which would propel the ties through the opening at the side of the car, the stack would fall down, putting the next tie in position. A track man would walk along side the car and alert the operator of the "kicker" when to kick a tie, using a button wired to a loud buzzer on the machine. My job was to walk along side and signal the engineer to proceed at the appropriate pace (a slow walk), or stop him when the machine fouled up or the ties fell wrong (frequently).
On the work train of which I started rambling on about, one day a cut of 40' gons loaded with ties showed up. Seems the regular tie cars were in short supply. The track gang had to unload those gons by hand, tonging them up to the top rail of the side and heaving them over! Those guys always earned their pay, but this was over the top (so to speak) in my opinion!
John
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