Clean out tracks
NW Mailing List
nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Sun Jan 13 13:19:52 EST 2019
I turned up some new info on the improved boxcar clean out and upgrading
facility that was located west of Shaffers Crossing. At the monthly
breakfast of NS Mechanical Dept. retirees this past Friday, I discussed
this subject with Bill Pickle, General Car Foreman, Shaffers Crossing at
the time of the improvement and with Cecil Williamson who was a
supervisor at the improved clean out facility for several months. They
told me several details with which they both agreed, as follows: The
clean out facility consisted of two sets of three tracks each. The box
cars to be cleaned out were placed on the outer two tracks of each set
of three tracks and the Mule Train (both agreed that was the common term
for this innovation) operated on the middle track of each set, moving
from one middle track to the other as the cleaning progressed. The
laterally extended platforms of the Mule Train were mounted on flat cars
to place the platforms on level with the box car floors. The actual
cleaning was done by a extra gang of maintenance of way laborers who
shoved the debris from the box cars onto the ground on the side opposite
the Mule Train, where it would be bulldozed and loaded up in something
(not covered in the discussion with Pickle and Williamson) to be hauled
away (I don't know how the space between each set of tracks was accessed
for the bulldozing. Maybe there was an extra wide space between the two
sets of tracks?). As mentioned previously, the Mule Train was equipped
with tools (including an air compressor to provide a stream of air to
blow dirt and debris out of the cars, according to Pickle and
Williamson) and supplies to make minor repairs to boxcars, so that they
would not have undergo additional handling to take them to the shop
track for the repairs. I think this latter was the most important
benefit of the innovative Mule Train.
Gordon Hamilton
> On 12/4/2018 5:03 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>> When I was a Shop Inspector at Shaffers Crossing Car Dept. 1959-1961
>> they established a boxcar cleaning and upgrading place on three
>> tracks south of the west yard. They put a platform on top of a couple
>> of G-1 gons wide enough to make easy access to box cars on either
>> side (they were just at the right height). They had a Trackmobile
>> for motive power. The platform gons had tool boxes and even a steam
>> generator for washing cars out. I worked the thing for a few weeks,
>> there were probably a half-cozen carmen assigned to it. We’d go down
>> the tracks and clean out the cars, making small repairs to the
>> linings and floors, and classify the cars for distribution. I don’t
>> remember ever using the steam jenny. We’d do two tracks in the
>> morning and they’d pull them and put another two tracks in for the
>> afternoon.
>> We made a lot of class C cars for the Warehouse (freight station) and
>> B-1 cars for bag loading at Buchanan (couldn’t have any splinters
>> that would snag a bag). We didn’t get any cars that we could make
>> suitable for cigarette loading at Winston-Salem or Durham, or A-1
>> cars for bulk baking soda at Saltville. Those usually came off the
>> shop track. Cigarette cars had to have straight and vertical ends,
>> and we had no “stobo” machine to straighten ends. The stobo was an
>> ingenious way to straighten ends used in connection with a Hyster
>> crane. The boxcar side at the shop track made good use of it.
>> Ah, for the good old days of the 40-foot boxcar. And the Journapak
>> lubricator pads. I was lucky to be there then because journal
>> bearings were undergoing a metamorphosis that would culminate with
>> roller bearings, and cushion underframes, and all that good stuff.
>> Fun times. I saw the first H-11 hopper, the 30000, come out and do
>> its test runs.
>> BTW – it should be established that I hold the worlds record for the
>> number of hotboxes on one four axle car out of Shaffers shop track.
>> Eight hotboxes. That got me the Ig-Nobel prize . . .
>> Ed King
>> *From:* NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 04, 2018 3:44 PM
>> *To:* NW Mailing List
>> *Cc:* NW Mailing List
>> *Subject:* Re: Clean out tracks
>> Jim, Jim and Ken,
>> In my days on the yard, 1981 onward, the tracks Jim and Ken spoke of
>> , I knew as the "dirty hole", or "clean-out tracks". Even though
>> there was no cleaning of box cars at this date, there was an area
>> toward the east end of these tracks where MofW disposed of old rotten
>> ties, fill dirt, etc. There were only three tracks, I believe, that
>> were used at all. MofW stored their cars on two of them. The third
>> was last used to load fuel oil (for company use). We would spot as
>> many as 25, or a few more. Trucks from Montvale would continuously
>> ran back and forth filling these company tank cars. Almost every day,
>> a 2nd shift yard crew would pull the loads and re-spot the empties.
>> Concerning the customers job of cleaning out their own cars, some
>> still didn't get the message! Crews were instructed not to pull cars
>> with trash still in them.
>> I forget which year, but the old "dirty hole" was turned into a nice
>> looking EPA approved landfill.
>> I personally believe the "super-elevation" was simply the lack of
>> track maintenance, coupled with the fact of the ground settling
>> around all the junk that had been dumped over the decades. It was
>> obvious during my time there was no maintenance on those tracks,
>> unless they were cleaning up a derailment!
>> Jeff Sanders
>> On Tuesday, December 4, 2018, 1:11:12 PM EST, NW Mailing List
>> <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>> Thanks Jim and Ken!
>> On Tue, Dec 4, 2018 at 11:52 AM NW Mailing List
>> <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>>
>> Jim
>> Just to add to Mr. Blackstock excellent write up. The are west of
>> Shaffers was referred to, at least by my father a Radford
>> Division conductor, as the “Clean-out hole”.
>> Now, my father was a child of the depression, and always wanted
>> to repair, fix or use something over rather than buy something
>> new. Now, I am not faulting him on that. So, with that in mind,
>> at least once, I recall him taking me down there one time to
>> pick up some good plywood he had spotted them tossing out, so he
>> asked, they said help yourself, and we went back in the truck to
>> load up. I honestly don’t remember what we used the stuff for,
>> but I remember walking around and like Jim said there was trash
>> and nails everywhere, did not remember seeing any rats. But it
>> was cardboard, paper, wood, scattered all over, and maybe 3-5
>> tracks full of boxcars.
>> I suspect there are not many if any photos of the area, not
>> because it was unappealing to rail fans, but it was deep on
>> company property. The area is now all filled in, nicely covered
>> with grass, and fenced off, hard to tell what might be buried
>> under there.
>> Ken Miller
>>
>>> On Dec 4, 2018, at 9:43 AM, NW Mailing List
>>> <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>>>
>>> Jim
>>>
>>> The clean out tracks at Shaffers Crossing was just west of the
>>> engine terminal on the South side. The old stock pen was in the
>>> same area.
>>>
>>> Re excessive super elevation. Not sure on this. Could be that
>>> the area between the tracks were worn down by removal of some
>>> dirt every time they ran machines to clean up the debris. On
>>> the other hand it could have been by design to keep those rats
>>> from jumping in the open box cars.
>>>
>>> I was only at the clean out tracks three times. One time to
>>> show me as a new employee where they were, one time to check on
>>> the location of a car and another to check out some interesting
>>> junk to see if it had potential use. When you were at the
>>> location you had to watch every step. There were plenty of nails
>>> and rats to avoid at all cost. I never did see a rail fan with
>>> a camera taking any photos in this area.
>>>
>>> As for me, I would rather walk through the stock pens than the
>>> clean out tracks.
>>>
>>> Several years after my clean out experience when I was in the
>>> Traffic Dept. we put in charges for cleaning out cars. This was
>>> a tariff charge that required all empty cars be cleaned by the
>>> customer before releasing the car to the carrier as an empty.
>>> The only exception was dunnage used to block and brace the load
>>> being returned to the original shipping origin. This eliminated
>>> the need to operate the massive clean out tracks.
>>>
>>> Jim Blackstock
>>>
>>> On 11/28/2018 12:57 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>>>> On another list there has been a discussion about clean out
>>>> tracks and the cleaning of cars; some photos show the clean out
>>>> tracks to have excessive super elevation that assisted in the
>>>> removing of dunnage and the cleaning of the car, i.e. steam
>>>> cleaning.
>>>> Does anyone have insight in how N&W handled cleaning of box
>>>> cars, etc? Were the clean out tracks super elevated? Any photos?
>>>> Thanks.
>>>> Jim Brewer
>>>> Glenwood, MD
>>>>
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