Middle Track Operation on the N&W

[NW Mailing List]

You can have it, Abram!

While that era had a lot of nostalgic charm, and I can appreciate the 
freedom that the train crews had, it was also a time when railroading 
was the #1 most deadly job in the world.  Look through any old 
locomotive roster, and you'll find multiple references to locomotives 
being damaged and rebuilt, or completely destroyed, in wrecks.  Same 
goes for rolling stock.  When wrecks did happen, coal stoves overturned 
and started fires that killed many people who survived the wreck.  I 
have read that you could tell how much experience a brakeman had by how 
many fingers he had lost.

We tend to forget that all of those annoying nanny-devices like 
telephones, radio, and CTC (or air brakes, or headlights, or knuckle 
couplers, speed limits, etc...) had a lot to do with railroads being 
both much safer and much more efficient.  Even with all of the 
restrictions, we can still move more freight today than anyone could 
have dreamed of a hundred years ago.

Speaking as a professional railroader who enjoys coming home to my wife 
in one piece as often as possible, you can have that era.  As the saying 
goes, nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.
Ken Rickman

On 2/6/2014 12:30 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:

> it was the day of PURE, unadulterated railroading.

> As for me, I'd go back to pre-telephone railroading in a heartbeat !


-- 
Kenneth Rickman
Salisbury, NC

One thing about trains: It doesn't matter where they're going.  What matters is deciding to get on.


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