The Atlantic & Southern Saturday Report

[Zephyrus52246]

Thanks for the A&S update and videos.  Did the SAL run them elephant style or back to back?  CB&Q often ran E units elephant style.


Jeff

[Judge]

I have a photograph in a SAL book that shows Centipedes back-to-back with an FB unit in between.  So they had it both ways.  A lot of SAL passenger trains ran elephant style.  It was handy if the New York to Florida train was going to split at some point in Florida, with half going one way (Tampa-St. Pete) and the other half going another (Miami).  The ACL's Champion did that at Auburndale daily for many years. (The club car made the short trip to Tampa and the diner went to Miami so everybody was able to enjoy cocktails all the way to the end of the line.)

[tom.boyd.125]

Tom,
Checked out all those video...well done !!!
Tommy

[Judge]

Saturday Report – November 13, 2021

The Board of Director's meeting for today and next week have been canceled by the management. 

However, there is a story this week.  The idea came from a book entitled "When Deadhead Counted as Rest and Other Railroad Stories, by a former engineer on the Grand Trunk. 

                                                                                                                  NEAR MISS

   It was a clear, crisp (for Florida) day in November when engineer Ethan Douglas and his fireman, Franklin Smith drew the weekly Pennsy coal train.  Conductor Bud Millstone reviewed the manifest and noted the train was heavier than usual, consisting of loaded coal hoppers that stretched nearly a mile behind the A-B-A brace of Baldwin Sharks.  Douglas backed the diesels into the string of hoppers and pumped up the air.  One thing Baldwin did right was providing robust air pumps so it only took a few minutes for the long train to be ready to roll.
   The Sanlando dispatcher cleared the board and Douglas moved the throttle a notch to take up slack.  Then he gave her another two notches and the train slowly picked up speed and moved to the mainline. 
   Oddly enough, on the A&S in order to head north to Summit from Sanlando it is necessary to run south until the train reaches the grade on the Ovalix. 
   Douglas proudly eased the Sharks up to 45 mph and approached Eaton's Curve and The Great Divide without incident.  Those Baldwins will lug as long a string of hoppers as can be coupled on – and more.
   The train crossed the Suwanee River Bridge and passed Piney Woods Station on its way to the cut at Perkins' Farm.  Old man Perkins and his wife, Paula Deen Perkins, gave the crew a waive as the train passed under the overpass connecting the farm to the cow pasture.
   Baker's Crossing is dangerous.  The mainline comes out of the cut at Perkins' Farm and makes a sharp curve to reach the crossing.  Vehicles have little warning other than the whistles and horns of the locomotives and the locals make sure to look out for the train before venturing over the track. 
   As the coal train approached Baker's Crossing, Douglas sounded the horn for the crossing.  The train approached the crossing at 30 mph.  When the nose of the lead shark rounded the bend Douglas let out a scream of expletives and hit the emergency brake.  A Gulf Oil fuel tanker was inching across the track but was blocked due to traffic on the other side. 
   Douglas and Smith had a split second to take action.  Clearly, the train would not stop in time to avoid what would be a fatal collision with a gasoline tanker.  Just as they made the decision to jump from the engines, the truck slowly pulled forward and the diesels missed it by inches. 
   The truck driver, who realized how close he had come to making his last run, pulled over as the diesels screeched to an emergency stop.  Douglas climbed down from the engine and ran to the fuel truck to give the driver a piece of his mind.  The driver climbed down from the cab Douglas realized he was well over six feet tall and weighed close to 300 pounds.  Douglas calmed down and suggested the driver should watch for trains at crossings.  The driver said, "I don't know what your problem is – the tank was empty."  Realizing you can't fix stupid, Douglas walked back to the train and, after clearing with the dispatcher, continued on the way to the Ovalix.
   Running a heavy coal train up the Ovalix was supposed to have been the challenge of the trip, and it would have been but for the fuel truck. Douglas attacked the 1 percent grade at 35 mph and notched the throttle to number 8.  The 608A prime movers growled mightily and the train slowed to 12 mph.  With black smoke pouring out of the exhaust stacks, the Sharks inched up the grade all the way to Summit.  Douglas and Smith spotted the engines in front of the Summit Dispatcher's Shack and reported the near-miss.  Then they returned to their train and "whistled off" to finish their run.
   In his report, Douglas recommended a crossing gate for Baker's Crossing.

                                                                                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojY9BlCQAQo

[Zephyrus52246]

Another great story and video, Your Honor.

Jeff

[PRR Modeler]

Great story Bill.

[postalkarl]

Hey Judge:

Very much enjoyed that story.

Karl

[GPdemayo]

Good story Bill.....

[jrmueller]

Interesting story Judge. Always look forward to seeing your creative work. Jim

[deemery]

Sharks and PAs are on my very short list of "acceptable diesels".  So are RS-1/RS-2 and SW-1.  Otherwise, yuck     It was good to see and hear the Sharks swimming uphill.

dave

[ACL1504]

Judge,

Crossing gates will be installed at Baker's Crossing. Work order has been sent to the MOW Dept.

Tom 

[Judge]

Thank all of you for the kind comments. 

Tom - I hope the Chief of Maintenance, Will Fixer, orders crossing gates that actually operate.  The crossing is very dangerous unprotected. 

[Judge]

Saturday Report - November 20, 2021

Sadly, there was no Board of Director's meeting this morning.  The next meeting is scheduled for a week from today. 

There is a story.  Your reporter got the inspiration for this tale from the January 1941 edition of Railroad Magazine.  Admittedly, much license has been used retelling this tale, but the inhabitants of Tahope County, Florida, a happy bunch of swamp dwellers and railroaders, have a different culture than their northern cousins.  Today, we are introduced to a new character - a brakie from out west who worked on the UP.  He forgot, or didn't know, that strangers in Tahope need to slowly assimilate into the local social scene, especially where the local "wimmins" are concerned.

                                                                                                        BRAKING ON THE OVALIX

Sandy Williams, age 28, had been braking for the UP out west for two years before he got the wanderlust to get out of the desert and hi-tail it to Florida.  Oh, he had pulled good jobs on the UP but runs "from no place to nowhere through nothin'" did not keep a serious young bachelor entertained. 

He landed in Central Florida and learned the Atlantic & Southern Railroad was hiring brakies for the Ovalix Division, known to the local railroaders as the "Up and Downer." Sandy entered the roundhouse at Tahope and applied.  Due to his significant experience with the UP and his glowing recommendation letter from that railroad, he was hired within an hour.  He stopped by the paymaster's office and picked up a "pie book" and walked down the City of Tahope's main street towards Sweaty Betty's Diner for some eats. 

Boomers knew the City of Tahope to be one mile long and one street wide.  However, it provided the basic needs of a young brakeman, with a movie theater, a pub or two, and the Trackside Tavern, which housed a bevy of inexpensive women, some of whom worked in the bar as dancers and some who worked out of the bar as independent contractors.  What else could a young man want? 

Braking on the Ovalix Division was hard work.  Three freights a day were scheduled to fight the grade from The Bottoms to Summit and there was usually an extra or two to make things interesting.  The A&S assigned its former C&O H-5 2-6-6-2, to the division to haul the extra trains.  Diesels pulled the scheduled runs up the grade.

Sandy soon learned that braking on the Ovalix meant he was expected to spell the regular fireman and shovel coal into the firebox.  The Mallet had a stoker but, due to its age and condition, the stoker could not keep boiler pressure up without help.  Hand firing an engine as big as an H-5 was dirty, backbreaking work.  It didn't help that the extra trains originated in The Bottoms and had to struggle up the entire Ovalix to make it to Summit.  At least the return trip to The Bottoms was easy, with the engine drifting all the way on the downgrade.

Now, Sandy decided he would bunk in The Bottoms, at least temporarily, until he could manage to land a place of his own.  It only took him a few days to scope out the inhabitants down there in the darkened freight yards.  He met Boxcar Bertha as she was nailing a drag out of town and he decided she wasn't his type.  He ran into Maggie Hussy while she was bathing in the river and swapped a bottle of bourbon for a home-cooked meal of catfish and hush puppies.  Maggie's little sister, Tawdry, joined them for dinner and Sandy was instantly smitten by her. 

Sandy invited Tawdry to join him for a beer at the Trackside Tavern and she agreed.  (Tawdry was very agreeable.)  They hopped a local from the yard at The Bottoms and jumped off at Sanlando Station.  It was only a short walk from there to the tavern. 

A beer here, a beer there, and Sandy was getting mellow.  He did not count on Tawdry's former boyfriend being in the tavern and when the two got into a friendly argument over territory, Sandy landed on the floor with his bell rung.  The night manager, a large Chinese person with a Fu Man Chu mustache, usually handled altercations with his baseball bat but he decided to call the police since the injury resulted in one of the parties no longer standing.

Officer Poovey appeared almost instantly and Tawdry's ex was arrested for assault and battery and hauled off to the county jail.

While the medics were cleaning Sandy up from the fight, a reporter from the Tahope Daily News, Roger Ragweed, asked Tawdry for her comments on the incident.  Tawdry, always willing to accommodate, said, "I think I'll get a bigger boyfriend."

The next day, when Sandy reported for work, the engineer, "Fatso Johnson," took one look at Sandy and said, "Must have been quite a night at the Trackside Tavern.  Any joint that has blood on the ceiling is a rough place."


                                                                                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0hjJvH4zEA&t=8s

                                            And here is a video of C&O H-5 1534 coming off the Ovalix and storming through Sanlando with a heavy drag.

[GPdemayo]

Young men and women.....quite the explosive combo at times. Good one Bill. 

[PRR Modeler]

Another great story Bill.