Ball's Hole Revisited

[NW Mailing List]

The discussion on Ball's Hole reminds me of an incident involving Ball's 
Hole that I heard about many years ago.  Although time has dimmed my 
recollection of the narrator's identity, I do recall that it was someone 
who was involved first hand.

It seems that a particular Radford Division eastbound crew would always 
have some stuck brakes in the rear portion of the train by the time they 
got to Salem necessitating a stop there to release the brakes.  
Operating officials suspected that improper use of the air brakes 
through Ball's Hole might be the cause of the stuck brakes, so a road 
foreman of engines was assigned to ride with the engine crew to try to 
determine what the engineer might be doing incorrectly coming through 
Ball's Hole that might cause the stuck brakes, but he found nothing 
wrong in the way the engineer was handling the train through Ball's Hole.

Further investigation revealed that the rear brakeman had a girl friend 
who lived in a track-side house near Ball's Hole and on every trip by 
the house the rear brakeman would blow a long blast on the air whistle 
on the back-up hose on the rear platform of the caboose to let his girl 
friend know that it wouldn't be long until he would be there to see 
her.  The bleeding off of a little brake system air through the whistle 
would be enough to actuate the brakes on some of the nearby cars.

Gordon Hamilton

On 3/6/2021 8:22 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>
> Jimmy,
>
> With Ken and Abram’s help (and a track chart that had the notation 
> “BALLS HOLE” almost completely erased) Ball’s Hole was determined to 
> be located at MP. 274.3 between Singer and Elliston. See red line 
> marked across tracks below.
>
> Still wondering why “Ball’s Hole” has a wide reputation as being one 
> of the most dangerous places on the N. & W. system” per the 1899 Salem 
> Sentinel article that Bruce Harper found.  Why was this such a 
> dangerous location?
>
> I’m also still trying to decipher if there was a separate “Ball’s” 
> telegraph office and if so where was it located.      John Garner
>
> *From:*NW Mailing List [mailto:nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org]
> *Sent:* Saturday, March 6, 2021 2:54 PM
> *To:* NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
> *Subject:* RE: Ball's Hole Revisited
>
> I would think that a look at the track chart should bullseye the location.
>
> Jimmy Lisle
>
> Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
>
>
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