The Atlantic & Southern Saturday Report

[Judge]

Atlantic & Southern Saturday Report – July 3, 2021.
   
   Your reporter is happy to be back at his 1950 Underwood typewriter, providing updated information about the adventures of the Atlantic & Southern Railroad and the many people who make the railroad profitable.
   The Board of Directors convened at 8:30 a.m.
   A tour was taken to inspect the new scenery covering the south end of the Tahope Peninsula (See http://modelersforum.com/index.php?topic=5836.180 pp 13-16. 
   The A&S took delivery of two separate orders of diesel-electric units this morning.
Two FEC F units that had undergone repairs at the Ucita Shops were returned to service. 
        Also, two SAL DR-12-8-1500/2 Baldwin Centipedes were delivered after a motor power conversion to TCS Wow Sound, including two 4-watt high base speakers installed in each unit.  The sound improvement is significant.   
         Baldwin's Centipedes had a checkered history.  They were built between 1945 and 1948.  Originally, Baldwin built two demonstrator units which they sent out to entice the railroads to buy.  The two demonstrators (originally ordered by Union Pacific Railroad as #998 and #999) were never sold and were eventually scrapped. The Centipedes were essentially obsolete during production, unable to compete with the more advanced locomotive design and technology offered by EMD. Reliability was an ongoing problem, and as they were built one at a time (like steam locomotives) each one was a bit different in the placement of wiring and equipment, which complicated even routine maintenance.  These locomotives required almost constant maintenance and were notorious for oil leaks from the engines. 
PRR bought 24 of these locomotives, SAL bought 14, and 14 were sold to Mexico's NdeM.  The Centipedes were originally designed for passenger service.  The PRR units were eventually derated and relegated to helper service. The SAL used them in freight service.  Most PRR and SAL units were scrapped by the early 1960s, while NdeM units lasted slightly longer and were in service until the late 1960s. No Centipedes are known to exist today. The Centipedes were the only diesels Baldwin produced that had two prime movers in each unit.  Each engine generated 1500 hp.  The Centipedes had pneumatic throttles, which precluded MU connections with most other locomotives.  SAL had their units rebuilt with EMD electric throttles.
         Video of Centipedes in action can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hi7GXjS0EG0
The two Centipedes leased to the Atlantic & Southern were not placed in service today because they needed maintenance after their long trip deadheaded from the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia.  Hopefully, they will perform a regular run next Saturday.
        For a view of the BLI model (with inferior factory sound) see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW1_y34LxAE
       While there is no "story" this week, information from the June, 1951 Trains Magazine is offered as a substitute.  Of particular note that the average hourly wage for a railroader in 1950 was $1.57 per hour.  Your reporter's first summer job painting Orange County schools in 1960 was $1.03 per hour.  Perhaps signing on with the ACL or SAL would have been a better choice for summer employment.

                                                                                                          Railroading in June, 1951

   The March 1951 edition of Trains Magazine provided the following statistical data covering various aspects of railroading in that day.
   During 1950, the average speed of freight trains increased slightly over 1949 to 17.0 m.p.h.  Passenger trains also had a slight increase to an average of 37.4 m.p.h.
   Freight engines ran an average of 117.5 miles per day while passenger engines averaged 234.5 miles per day.
   Passenger traffic suffered a decrease from 1949 but was over the traffic in 1940 and 1929.  Passenger traffic increase was partially due to military traffic during the Korean War.
   In 1950, there were 25,415 steam locomotives owned by the railroads in the United States.  Eleven new steamers were delivered in 1950 and seventeen were ordered. 
   There were 10,276 diesel-electric locomotives owned by railroads in 1950 and 1640 were on order.  2121 units were delivered in 1950.
   The average "straight time" hourly wage for railroaders in 1950 was $1.569 per hour, up a little over $.12 per hour from 1949.
   Among the "big news" items in 1950 was U.P.'s order of ten gas turbine engines from General Electric.  U.P.'s president, A. E. Stoddard, said, "the gas turbine-electric locomotive looks promising as an addition to steam and diesel power.  Tests to date have been encouraging."  The gas turbines were expected to be delivered in late 1951. 
   1950 was also the year the first GP7s were delivered to railroads across America. 
        The T&P converted a coach into a steam generator car for use on passenger trains when freight diesels are used for power.  The car could also be used as a stationary steam-generating plant.

[BandOGuy]

To sharpen our historic records, Centipede's would have been built at Eddystone, PA as Baldwin moved out of Philadelphia in 1906. Eddystone is south of Philadelphia near Chester, PA.
Additionally, according to some sources, Baldwin built the first diesel electric locomotives which proved to be maintenance nightmares, perhaps a precursor of the Centipedes future. They were not delivered to the B&O which updates my belief that the B&O was the first user of DE's in the US.
Not nitpicking, trying to add a historical perspective.

[Judge]

No offense taken.  I forgot the Baldwin works moved out of Philadelphia in 1906.  I guess the company was trying to foresee the famous W. C. Fields, who once said something like "In the event of my untimely demise, please place upon my marker my name, the date of my passing, and the words 'I'd rather be here than in Philadelphia.'"

[Blazeman]

Interesting mix of transportation industry within a mile or so of the Baldwin works in Eddystone.  At the Eddystone-Chester border (Chester Creek), was Sun Shipbuilding. The Manhattan (proved feasibility of navigation over the north pole) and the  Glomar Explorer (commissioned by Howard Hughes to recover a sunken USSR sub) were built there.   Head northeast from Baldwin's about a mile and there is/was the former General Steel Castings operation that later become the site of assembly of Boeing Vertol helicopters.

[Judge]

Saturday Report - July 10, 2021.

The Board of Directors met a little before 8:30 a.m. today.  Your reporter managed to swap his walker for a walking cane and made it from the driveway to the shed without much difficulty.  It seems that things improve slowly every day.

The discussion at the meeting centered on replacing the Digitrax command station.  Apparently. a Florida thunderstorm had its way with the old one.  The new command stations have significant improvements and one has been ordered.  A temporary replacement on loan from a friend allowed us to run trains today.

Which brings me to the topic of the two Balwin Centipedes, manufactured by BLI.  First, BLI should be applauded for even taking on the task of producing these unusual locomotives.  The prototypes were designed to have the front and rear trucks swivel on curves.  That does not work too well on 36" curves.  The engines get around them ok but the trucks swing too wide to look realistic.  Otherwise, we have no complaints about the operation, although installation of WOW sound and the TCS super speakers has made a great deal of difference with the sound. The metal devce that keeps the rear truck came off on one of the units and we were unable to find it.  This means a trip to BLI for repairs.  Fortunately, BLI is located a few miles north of Orlando. 

We ran the remaining Centipede coupled to our coal train and it handled it without difficulty.  A video of these engines will be produced after the second unit is repaired.

Greg DeMayo appeared shortly before lunch and, after we ran a Seaboard mixed freight for thirty minutes or so, it was time for lunch.

The January 1953 edition of Railroad Magazine had some interesting statistics provided by the Association of American Railroads, Car Service Division.  May of 1952 was the first month when diesel locomotives outnumbered steam engines as units in service.  Class 1 railroads owned 19,082 diesels and 18,489 steam engines.  (Wouldn't it be wonderful if only a few more of the newest ones had been saved.)  In May, 1952, 689 steamers were retired, which was a monthly record.  The railroads put 1149 new locos into service during the first five months of 1952 - all were diesel except for six steamers and one electric loco.  In August, 1952 212 new locomotives went into service, only two of which were steam.

This week's story also has its origin in the January, 1953 edition of Railroad Magazine, cover price 35 cents.  I have engaged in selective compression and moved the story from the far west to Tahope County but it is a kind of universal railroad story.  A story involving callboys was previously posted on this forum, but callboys were in interesting vanishing type and were unknown in years after WWI.  But the A&S Railroad uses callboys to this day in order to save expenses.  The kids that were callboys in 1950 in Tahope weren't paid much more than kids before the Great War.  My dad was a callboy in Lakeland, Florida, during his high school days.  He said they were paid 50 cents a day, plus "tips" in 1917.

                                                                                          Back in the Day – Callboys Revisited

   During the summer of his junior year in high school, Archie Tinker and his best friend, Randy Miller, applied to be night Callboys for the Atlantic & Southern Railroad.  They were hired because their fathers were well-known and respected employees of the A&S. 
   Things were busy that summer and the A&S had a  contract to provide callers for all of the railroads that serviced the Tahope Division.  The night shift callboys worked from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m., seven days a week during the three summer months.  They were paid the handsome sum of $1.00 per day for their service.
   There was more to calling crews than knocking on doors at the local hotel.  A number of railroaders lived locally and the callboys had to know each of their addresses.  Travel was by bicycle.   When a call was made, the crew member had to be awakened and was required to sign the callbook acknowledging the call. 
    Callboys charged an extra dollar to report a crew member as "unable to find" if the crew member was "sick," in violation of Rule G, or otherwise engaged. 
    In the busy fruit season from June through July, it was common to have up to 30 trains depart during the night trick.  This kept the two callboys busy on most nights. 
    In early August of that year, there was a hurricane that made landfall just south of Miami.  It was a big'un and it did serious damage to Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties before it turned northeast and zeroed on the Carolinas. 
    Archie and Randy learned of the hurricane from the night telegraph operator, who warned them of incoming extra passenger traffic.  Sure enough, seven extra passenger trains were assembled in haste and scheduled as sections of the City of Miami, the Champion, and the Dixie Flagler.  The hurricane washed out the FEC mainline south of Palm Beach so the extras were rerouted over ACL tracks through Tahope County. The extra traffic required another 35 crew members to handle the extra varnish.  Both of the boys were "plum tuckered out" by dawn that morning.  They broke their record and made 64 calls that shift.
    A number of the train crew members were "Boomers" with questionable credentials.  However, during the summer season, the railroads took anyone who had railroad experience with few questions asked.  Archie remembered calling a brakeman at the Imperial Hotel one night and noticing his artificial leg standing by his bed.  The brakie signed the call book and told Archie the only thing he couldn't do was dance.
    Sometimes there was a break in the action and Archie and Randy would hang out at the roundhouse.  They rode with the hostlers who were spotting the steam engines for their runs on the ready track.  One thing led to another and soon these would-be hostlers were running engines when "Tater" Cartwright, the Foreman of Engines, was not looking.
    One day while Randy was spotting a steamer on the ready track, his brakeman fell asleep on the pilot and did not throw the yard switch.  The steamer headed for a boxcar full of strawberries and it collided with the boxcar coupler with a bang.  The impact caused twenty boxes of strawberries to fall out of the boxcar's open door and land on the ground with a smushing sound. 
    Foreman Cartwright was fit to be tied and threatened to fire both boys.  However, they convinced him that he could not find and train replacements who knew the crews and where they lived or could usually be found, especially not at $1.00 a day.  So, the boys promised to quit hosteling until they received the necessary training and experience and all was well once again on the A&S.

[Zephyrus52246]

Another great story.  Glad to hear your getting better day by day. 


Jeff

[GPdemayo]

Enjoyed another yarn Bill.....

[postalkarl]

Hey Judge:

Thanks for posting the report.

Karl

[ReadingBob]

Great story Bill.  Glad to hear that you're making progress on your mobility.  Also glad to hear that the A&S is up and running again!  See ya' soon. 

[S&S RR]

Judge


Another fine story,  as always, thank you for sharing it.

[PaulS]

Another wonderful story Bill,
And very happy to hear that you continue to make progress on your recovery from back surgery !!
All the best and be well,
--Paul

[Judge]

Thank y'all for your kind comments. 

I have mentioned that the A&S acquired (leased) two Baldwin Centipedes from the SAL for heavy freight service.  They have been repowered with WOW sound to enhance the 2 Baldwin 606C prime movers, which develop 1500 hp each.  The engines had the highest tractive effort of any engine produced before 1945, with 205,000 starting and 105,600 continuous tractive effort.  The engines were 91 feet long and weighed in at 593.71 tons.  No wonder they were so hard on the rails.  The engines were basically assembled by hand like steam engines.  Electrical devices and other mechanical details were placed differently in different locomotives, making maintenance a nightmare.  In addition, the engines leaked oil like crazy, which added to their troubles.

The A&S locos were deadheaded from the SAL's major repair facility in Portsmouth, Virginia, and, by the time they made it to Tahope, one of the units developed major problems with the rear truck. (It fell off and the retaining ring is missing.)  The A&S Head of Maintenance, Will Fixer, claims getting parts should not be difficult but the unit will have to be deadheaded to the BLI shop in Ormand Beach for repairs.  The stockholders will be kept informed of repair progress.

One feature of WOW sound that we like is the ability to set the prime movers in locomotives with two engines (E units, Baldwin Centipedes) to respond out of sync so one engine responds a secod or two after the other.  It makes for realistic sound, especially when starting or "notching up." 

I became friends with a bunch of old railroaders who had a club called the Coastliners back in the late 80's.  One of these guys actually was an engineer who ran ACL's famous 4-8-4's.  Most of them had some experience with steam and one guy told me when the EMD E units first arrived the engines ran in sync but soon they ran more independently.  I was told before they worked the bugs out of the E units they used to couple three of them together, hoping two of them would run. 

[deemery]

I never realized early diesels had such reliability problems!


dave

[postalkarl]

Hey Judge:

Wow they must have been some engines. Thanks for the report.

Karl

[jbvb]

I've read quite a bit about the feats of ATSF Diesel Maintainers assigned to ride FT A-B-B-A sets across the southwest during WWII - fixing all kinds of things on the move, including changing out power assemblies. I expect that experience contributed a lot to EMD's market dominance in the 20 years after WWII.