Re: (erielack) 'NK' Target - Mahoning Division

[Smtimko_@_aol.com]

Walt
 
Thanks for the memories about "The Target."
 
It was still in service when I started in June of 1965.  The women  operators 
were all gone by then.  The last one was Millie Mays who worked  the Operator 
Clerk's job in the DY office in Youngstown.  Millie did the  Operator and 
Dispatcher scheduling and payroll for the Chief Train Dispatcher,  John P Short.  
 
NK was the first place that I qualified and worked.  I was supposed to  
qualify at Valley Street, but the Operator on duty 1st trick, Fleet K Bowker,  said 
he was not training any more operators.  He trained all that he was  training 
in his time, so Mildred Mays assigned me to NK Target to post with Jake  
Gorman.  (Actually I was unofficially qualified at SN Jct, having spent  many days 
and nights there during high school.")
 
NK Target had no Dispatcher's phone line for any of the railroads that you  
worked with except EL.  None for the B&O, PRR or NYC.  It had  block lines to 
the various towers and yard offices.  
 
There were no approaches (indicators) on any of the railroads except EL so  
you did not know what was coming on those roads.  The B&O crossed the  PRR at 
NK Target and I believe that it was the most active move that  required a 
target to be changed.  The B&O would shove up from  Hazelton (B&O spelling) to the 
freight house and produce terminal.   They would show up and blow the whistle. 
 You would then run a release ( a  clock-timer device) and when that was 
complete, two, three, four minutes,  whatever it was, you could then manually 
throw the target for the B&O to  proceed.  More than once on second trick I did 
that, only to stop the PRR's  train from Cleveland to Pittsburgh....was it the 
Steeler?
 
There were three targets at NK Target.  I forget the details of who  went 
where other than the B&O crossing the PRR.
 
Interesting sidelight at NK Target;  Right behind The Target was the  
Republic Steel Railroad that ran from Hazelton Furnace to the rolling mill in  
downtown Youngstown.  There was a steady stream of trains on the RISCO  line.  It 
was 42" gauge, and there were about 7 or 8 large Plymouth  locomotives with side 
rods, I believe the models were 45 Ton KC, 65 Ton KC,  etc.  The RISCO line 
dove under the PRR in a tunnel right behind NK  Target.

SMT
 


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