(erielack) Re: EL in Railfan and Railroad

[krinmich_@_aol.com]

Paul

The last crew at Harding was done on Saturday morning.? Sometime on Friday/Saturday whatever westbound with a divisional crew that came along and could work without delaying anybody would gather up the engines.? Could be MC-3, 93, 95, 89, 61 whatever - any Marion hump train.? Might not be the same train for all the engines because there was a timetable limit on how many engines you could have together.? Ashland had a lot of little places.? There was some kind of foundry and a lot of stuff along the old LA&S south.? Biggest place was probably Eagle Rubber (I think that's the name).? They did a lot of business but no tonnage because it was a lot of rubber toy products.? Eagle Rubber still was using a lot of the old 40 ft box cars just because of?their product with low tonnage.? I nerver worked as an agent there so I couldn't tell you all the places.? Ashland was the end of the turn because we had to get the serviced engine back there in time for Monday morning.? There wouldn't be anything to pick up coming back unless for some reason the Marions from Friday had gotten missed at Ashland or Mansfield or maybe there was still a WB of all Marions still sitting at Martel WB siding that had been set off because Yard C was filled up.? You couldn't pick up anything off the PRR at Mansfield because that would be a yard move and I don't really think it would be a wise idea to have rord power going into the sidetracks at Mansfield to pick up.? If there was anything, there wouldn't be anyone there to tell us it was ready.? Anything that got picked up on Sunday night was because it had not been picked up since?it was ready on Friday or the aforementioned Marions not moved because Yard C was full.? Usually by Sunday night we had cleaned up what we had set off on Wednesday through Friday that?had been?held out of Marion WB Yard.

Keith


- -----Original Message-----
From: Paul Brezicki <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>
To: erielack_@_lists.railfan.net; krinmich@aol.com
Cc: Smtimko_@_aol.com; stwarogowski@windstream.net
Sent: Thu, Jun 18, 2009 2:05 am
Subject: Re: EL in Railfan and Railroad



Keith,

?

As always, thanks for sharing your insight and experience. I was referring to FB-4/FB-5; wasn't sure about the numeric part of the symbol. What did they call the WB train that gathered the 1000's on Friday night? So apart from Fisher Body at Harding, the Ashland turn handled general merchandise at Mansfield, Ashland etc. What traffic did Ashland generate? It must have been substantial to make it the end point of a turn job. Did the AT run light back to Marion or did it handle pickups along the way? I'm thinking there wasn't much to pick up on Sunday night, especially with all the switchers spending the W/E at Marion! Perhaps some interchange off PRR/PC at Mansfield.

?

Paul B


- ----- Original Message ----- 

From: krinmich_@_aol.com 

To: doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net ; erielack@lists.railfan.net 

Cc: Smtimko_@_aol.com ; stwarogowski@windstream.net 

Sent: Wednesday, June 17, 2009 11:11 PM

Subject: Re: EL in Railfan and Railroad



Paul:

Ashland Turn was all it was called.? It was not a regular job but was run off the road extra list so it did not have a road switch symbol.? There was not FB-1 and 2.? If that symbol was used it was before my time.? The crews at Harding (which were road switch crews not yard crews), were symboled OD-1, 2,3 - theoretically you could have sent the Harding Yard crew out of the yard with no penalty except one rarely did because you could not afford not to have the plant properly set up and switched.? The crew at Mansfield was a yard crew and the crew at Ashland was a road switch crew.? FB-4 and 5 was the Monday thru Friday turn to Harding.? What we originally did on the Ashland Turn was use the RS-3 power to run the train and drop off the RS-3's in succession leaving one to run back lite with caboose.? At the end, the units were getting so bad that it seemed to really screw them up if we MU'd them so we would use regular road power to run the train and tow the 1000's to Harding, Mansfield and Ashland.? Also, there was only one auto plant east of Marion or on the entire Kent Division and that was Fisher Body at Harding - not several although it would have been nice to have several instead of the overall lack of industry.? If there were Mansfield propers or Ashland propers in the yard, they would be on the Sunday train.

We used the fueling facility at the depot right up to the end and that was six years after 5 and 6 came off.? I guess you could say that we were a little high handed but we held the hammer at AC and could within reason do damn near what we wanted.? NE74 stopping to get fuel is no worse than a 120 car WB hump train dragging into Yard C at 5 MPH.? Could also refuel at Huntington on the main so probably what happend in this specific case is that no one tumbled to the fact that the units were low on fuel until coming into Marion.? When NE 74 or any train that was hot had to be refueled at Marion, and if they couldn't be refueled at the Marion station, you are right in that you would not take the power back to the house for service and then back on the train.? You would just get another set of power ready.? You have to understand that when you put a unit into the house, it just never goes in there for one thing.? The diesel house (no diesel shop) is not going to switch everything out of the way and disrupt their entire process with many units to rush one set of power through just to get fuel.? The only place you can do that quickly is when you have a main line fueling station.? We usually did a fuel check on the WB vans and if low or in doubt that they would make Huntington would often fuel them at the station.? Eastbound you would have Kenton Avenue blocked for a little and a WB with any length of train would have the town of Marion tied up for a little bit.? I don't want to make it sound like we didn't try to do what we could could not to block crossing but if we had to we did.? Marion knew how important the EL was to the town and I can't ever remember getting complaints about the crossings.? It was just a way of life plus there were two overpasses over the Erie and Big Four.? Akin to the WB dragging into Yard C, the Dayton 97 backed out of the yard every night on the EB - blocking the crossings - stopping and then proceeding west slowly down the DaytonBranch.? The Dayton 98 reversed the process.? So fuelin!
 g at the




 station was no worse than that.? Yes, AC was a busy interlocking but I think the C&O and N&W were more or less resigned to the fact that they were going to get delayed at AC.? As I said, the El had the hammer and there were no quick moves in or out of the yard except maybe for a trip off the EB main or down the WB main.? A train getting fueled there was no worse than all the other slow moves.

Keith Robbins


- -----Original Message-----
From: Paul Brezicki <doctorpb_@_bellsouth.net>
To: EL Mailing List <erielack_@_lists.railfan.net>
Cc: Keith Robbins <KRinMich_@_aol.com>; Smtimko@aol.com; Stephen Twarogowski <stwarogowski@windstream.net>
Sent: Wed, Jun 17, 2009 9:52 pm
Subject: EL in Railfan and Railroad


I don't recall this being discussed previously. The cover of the current issue (June) of R&R caught my eye at the Strasburg RR retail store yesterday; the cover story is a Preston Cook reminisce about his 3 years (1971-74) as Marion-based Service Engineer for EMD. The seemingly limitless supply of EL photos never ceases to amaze me, and most of the photos were new to me. Of course, Preston had unfettered access to the property and took many photos. The most interesting paragraphs dealt with the oft-discussed crankshaft problems of the 20-cylinder SD45/SDP45's. The problem wasn't the shaft itself but the "welds that held the crankshaft supporting A-frames" developing cracks and eventually coming loose, causing the crankshaft itself to fracture due to lack of support. The replacement crankcases and those on the Dash-2's had more robust welds that corrected the problem. So there was nothing inherently flawed with the long 20-cyl crankshaft per se, but the damage was done as far as most RR mechanical people was concerned, and the SD40-2 far outsold the 45. I wonder how differently things would have turned out if there was no A-frame weld issue.?
?
He mentions Sunday's "Ashland Turn", departing in late afternoon with a brace of RS3's to be set out (along with their blocks) at several auto parts plants east of Marion. I've always wondered if this was another name for FB-1 and FB-2 (Fisher Body) or was this a Sunday-only extra??
?
A few errors crept into an otherwise excellent article. The joint trackage with the Big Four extended from the east end of Marion yard to Galion as stated in a photo caption, not Galion to Mansfield, which appears in the text. He reversed the symbols for Dayton-97/98; the EB gets the even-numbered symbol. Finally the WB UPS symbols were A/CX-99 and CX-99, not NY-99, which was the primary WB schedule for general TOFC/COFC business.?
?
Finally I'll mention the photo of BN power, presumably on NE-74, dated March 1973, which I believe was close to the end of the BN power pool. They're shown being fueled on the main in front of the depot, fouling the busy interlocking. Evidently the locos were fueled at St Paul and were not refueled by either BN or EL at Chicago. Was this common practice for this hot train? I thought only passenger trains were refueled at AC. I assume a trip to the Marion engine facility would have incurred unacceptable delay.?
?
Thank you Mr Cook, and I highly recommend this article for those interested in EL's west end.?
?
Paul B ?



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