Switchtenders at Roanoke

[NW Mailing List]

On 3/24/2020 10:22 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
> /Two quick questions: What time frame (or decades) would most of these 
> names have been familiar to RT operating crews/dispatchers?/
I hired on in 1972, so, before then. For example, the Old Pull Up at the 
west end of Park St yard was from the days when the Shenandoah Div. 
trains were yarded there before the big hopper yard was built and crews 
took their trains out to 672.
> /Secondly, could a new hire have read/learned any of this in a 
> bulletin or ETT, or was it all learned by ear from older men?/

     Not much! It was mostly learned. Even learning the yard tracks was 
done by experience, not book learning. Later on there was a map of sorts 
floating around to try to teach the new hires, but, the map looked 
NOTHING like the yard, so, it was hard to make out what was what.

     A couple of other things that I thought of last night;
Inbound trains from the east would come up usually the WB Running track 
(sometimes the EBRT) to the hump and stop, waiting for yarding 
instructions. The place where they stopped was just east of a crossover 
from the WB to the EB running track at the hump road crossing. This spot 
was known as "The Coat Rack".
Over on the north side at the Call Office, the tracks were from north to 
south, the Westbound Main line, #1 Park St and the Tail Track (closest 
to the Call Office). The Tail track went east and connected to the 
westbound Running Track west of the signal circuit at 16th St.

     I was a road man, so, there are a lot of other names that I know 
yard man Jeff Sanders could fill you in on.

Jimmy Lisle

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