The Atlantic & Southern Saturday Report

Started by Judge, January 05, 2019, 03:59:09 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

jbvb

B&M employee timetables specified that passenger train crews must lock toilet doors approaching stations and on a couple of line segments near public water supplies.  I don't know how often they actually did that, particularly in the commuter district.  And of course, that didn't affect those who could afford Pullman spaces with private toilets (drawing room, compartment, double bedroom, roomette).  I do know I sometimes encountered waste when walking the track in my hometown. There was only one round-trip a day and its final stop was about a half mile east of where I was walking.  I remember thinking those passengers must have been in a hurry, regardless of whether the train was arriving or departing.
James

Judge

Saturday, January 4, 2020.   70 degrees and overcast.

The Board of Directors met this morning promptly at 0830 hours and discussed the pressing question of the day - installation of lighting in the Walthers Mainline passenger cars.  We decided to install lights in two coaches.  Your reporter was given the opportunity to have fun installing the little metal pieces that have to be threaded on the plastic tips that stick out of the forward bulkhead.  Smaller fingers would have helped but after much muttering, the deed was done.  Completed installation on each coach was disappointing.  We got to disassemble the whole thing more than once and determined it was the use of the wrong screws that caused the problem.  Switching the screws around gave us additional confidence in the process of assembly and now we have two more coaches to list on our Southern Roster.  We decided that lights in the RPO/baggage car would be counterproductive so we added it to the fleet sans illumination.

Lunch was at Smokey Bones and back to the layout.  Construction crew has been working on the south end of the A&S (see Tom's thread) and the decision was made to add trees and other scenery in that area instead of more structures, at least on the south side of the Tahope River.  Good decision.  That area is very rural and already has a furniture plant and a pest control business in place.

Happiness and Joy!  Our decoder installer has decided to come out of retirement and two Southrn E8 diesels were delivered to him this afternoon.  This takes much pressure off of the A&S President so he can continue progress on the railroad.

The idea for this week's story came from one of my favorite Mark Twain tales.  I wonder how he would go over on late-night television today.

                                                                                                               THE REA ICEMAN

You may remember Newt Fisher, Luke and Tallula's boy.  Newt lived with his parents in one of the shacks on Eaton's Curve until he moved to the Bottoms at age 32. 

Well, Newt finally managed to get a job with the Railway Express Agency (REA) as a baggage watchman.  His job involved riding in the REA baggage car and protecting the cargo entrusted to his employer.  The job was perfect for Newt because he didn't have to do anything in particular and, while the train was between stations, he could catch some shut-eye.

Some of the REA baggage cars had standard vestibules that allowed access to the rest of the passenger cars.  The car assigned to the Seaboard's Silver Meteor had such a car in January 1950, and Newt was in charge of security for its contents.

Naturally, Newt found it convenient to roam through the train between stations on the trip from Tahope to Jacksonville.

Now, there was a party of salesmen who boarded the Meteor in Tampa who were headed for Washington and they were having a good time playing poker in the club car.  Since none of them were temperance men, they decided to order a drink.  The porter apologized and said, "I'll be happy to git y'all a drink, but there ain't no ice."   

Newt happened to be observing the card game and he offered a solution.  "I've got cargo that has to be iced down and a little won't be missed if I bring it for your convenience."  So Newt disappeared for a few minutes while he retrieved a bucket of ice and the drummers all had a drink.  Newt got free drinks as compensation.
There were refills as the night went on and Newt made several trips to get more ice.

Around midnight, Newt was asked to make another ice run, but he declined.  One of the salesmen offered to pay some cash for more ice but Newt had to politely decline, saying "I sure could use some cash and I could get more ice, but I'm afraid if I take any more off of the corpse it will spoil."

It's good to have a dedicated employee like Newt.

PRR Modeler

Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
Freelanced PRR Bellevue Subdivision

ReadingBob

Terrific story Bill.  I think I'll start drinking my Jameson neat.   :P
Bob Butts
robertbutts1@att.net

There's a fine line between Hobby and Mental Illness.

GPdemayo

Didn't see that one coming.....great story Bill.  8)
Gregory P. DeMayo
General Construction Superintendent Emeritus
St. Louis & Denver Railroad
Longwood, FL

ACL1504

"If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed."
Thomas Jefferson

Tom Langford
telsr1@aol.com


Judge

#487
Atllatic & Sourhern Saturday Report - January 10, 2020 Temperature in Central Florida, Partly cloudy, 81 degrees

The Board of Directors met promptly at 0830 hours and spent considerable time deciding how to "thin out" our passenger car inventory.  Sooo, if any of you are chomping at the bit for Walthers passenger cars of the Pennsy or Southern RR persuasion, we've got 'em and they are going on Ebay unless you speak up. 

Our guests today were the usual suspects , including Curt Webb, Greg DeMayo, and (late arrival) Bob Butts.  Bob was given an all 'round attaboy for his lighting efforts on Sokols Furniture Factory.  Bob, who must have infinate patience, installed forty lights inside and on the exterior of the building.  The A&S electric bill will undoubtedly go up accordingly.   Here is a pic of the finished product.  Much better photo coverage next week after detailing and landscaping has been done.

                                                                             

Our TCS Wow Sound intaller has come out of retirement and he installed new decoders in our new Southern E8's.  We wonder why Walthers thinks LOC Sound is a good system for locomotives.  We are very disappointed in the product and both of the decoders that came with our new E8's were defective.    These units are no longer available and, while it stretched the A&S budget, we were glad to get them.  See page 28 for a photo.  Probably more pics next week. The air tanks on the roof make these models interesting. 

Regular readers of this report will recall the mild complaining about installing lights in Walthers Mainline passenger cars.  Well, we now have six cars on the track and only three to go.

We adjourned to Smokey Bones for lunch and engaged in BS, as usual.

Upon return to "The Shed" we calibrated the new E8's and ran a Southern passenger train.  The lead truck on one car had a wheel out of gage and some other gremlin, causing derailments.  The gage problem was an easy fix and turning the truck the other way around fixed the gremlin. 

This week's story involves a by-gone occupation, the RPO mail clerk. 

                                                                                                         The Origin of "Sack Time"

Almost from the beginning of railroading,until the 1960's, when the airlines stole the business, every passenger train had a Railway Post Office (RPO) car.  The last mail run was in 1977.  The U. S. Mail is the business of the Federal Post Office and the governmnet contracted with the railroads to carry mail to the cities along their ruoutes. 

The mail clerks had to pass a rigoruous examination and they were very skilled and dedicated to the joby of sorting and delivering the mail.  Sometimes the RPO cars also served as baggage cars and sometimes they doubled as crew dormitories, but there was always a crew of clerks who sorted the mail into mail sacks.  Pick-up of mail bags was accomplished by "catching on the fly" through the use of a snagging device called a trackside crane, which was attached to the door of the RPO.  Deliveries were made by simply tossing out the sack of mail from the moving train with enough force to clear the car.  This manual sorting, collecting and delivering was all very low tech, but the government claimed a 99% accuracy rate for delivery. 

THe mail clerks developed a language all their own in order to get the mail sorted, sometimes under great pressure, especially during short trips between stations.  But it was not all work and no play, particularly when the mail stops were many miles apart.

The Atlantic & Southern RR was a government-designated United States Mail Carrier and employed and furnished clerks for all of the railroads that had trackage rights over the A&S.  New employees were called apprentices and were subjected to good-natured hazing until they achieved clerk status. 

Henry Herder was an apprentice on the A&S with a run on ACL's Champion from Tahope to Jacksonville.  He recalled that during the early '50's the mail would be sorted before the train reached Palatka and the clerks could get a little "sack time" from Palatka to Jacksonville.  "Sack time" was literally that.  The RPO had hundreds of mail sacks and those not in immediate use were piled up at the end of the car.  Clerks used to stretch out on the sacks and catch a quick nap. 

Naturally, the clerks who were old-timers liked to have fun with the new apprentices.  One apprentice was told to distribute the mail "nice and evenly" among the sacks without regard to destination.  Another apprentice boasted of the fairest distribution ever made.  Following instructions, he dumped all of the mail on a big table and, when the engineer whistled for a station, he looked to see how big the town was and filled the sack for delivery proportionately before he threw the sack out the door.


                                                                         

                                                                                               RPO Heavyweight at the turn of the Century


                                                                           

                                                                                                            Interrior of RPO in the '20's

The videos below are instructional on how the RPO"s operated during their hay-day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IirDQzgzlQg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnGfWw7Bgu0







PRR Modeler

Curt Webb
The Late Great Pennsylvania Railroad
Freelanced PRR Bellevue Subdivision

ACL1504

RPO workers were also Signal 0, meaning armed. :-X

Tom ;D
"If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed."
Thomas Jefferson

Tom Langford
telsr1@aol.com

GPdemayo

#490
That must have been a fun job in its day.....neat story & videos Bill. I bet Jesse and Frank James didn't mess with those Signal 0 feds.  :)
Gregory P. DeMayo
General Construction Superintendent Emeritus
St. Louis & Denver Railroad
Longwood, FL

Zephyrus52246

Thanks for the video links, Judge.  The first is at the Illinois Railway Museum.  The RPO is a restored CB&Q car.  :)

Jeff

postalkarl

Hey judge:

Sokols came out very nicely. Great job.

Karl

Judge

Karl - While I thank you for the compliment, I cannot take credit for Sokol's.  That was the artistic work of Reading Bob Butts.  Forty lights!  I almost can't count that high.  Wouldn't have a reason to except for my age, which is 41.

GPdemayo

Gregory P. DeMayo
General Construction Superintendent Emeritus
St. Louis & Denver Railroad
Longwood, FL

Powered by EzPortal