Salem Shifter

[NW Mailing List]

Adam,
Those are great and almost unbelievable stories about getting things done. Back then railroads did anything they could to please a good customer.
Roger HuberDeer Creek Locomotive Works 

    On Thursday, September 16, 2021, 01:58:11 PM CDT, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:  
 
    One memory I have from Days-of-Yore is coming out of Bluefield on Time Freight No. 84, and having a hot load of meat (in a refrigerator car, probably an iced wooden car, rather than a steel mechanically cooled refrigerator car) for Kroger at Salem/Glenvar.       To save stopping 84, the load of meat would be carried behind the caboose.  Approaching Salem, the angle cock would be closed behind the caboose and the coupling pin pulled.  Eventually the car would separate from the train, the air hose would separate and the brake would apply on the car.  The Salem Shifter crew would go fetch the load of meat, wherever it stopped, and place it on the Kroger siding.       Of course, to do a move like that involved stretching the rules quite a bit, but back then the rules were often observed more in the breach than in the letter.  Someone must have complained about the practices involved, for the last several time I recall handling Kroger meat on 84, we had them on the head end, made a stop, and set them off in a more rules-appropriate manner.       I can also recall No. 4 leaving Roanoke with a tank car tied onto the rear end (no markers or anything resembling markers... not even a lantern or flag.)  The story was that it was a hot load of something-or-other paint destined to the Ford plant at Norfolk.  I also recall that the tank car had a broken pipe hand-rail (not grab iron) running laterally along the side of the cylindrical tank, and flapping in the breeze.  The Car Foreman came out, eyeballed it and said something like, "Looks good to me!  Highball."  (I heard him say it...)       Oh, for the Good Old Days !       -- abram burnett,   Department of Turnips, Bureau of Distilling          ________________________________________
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