Back When We Slept and Cooked on the Caboose

[NW Mailing List]

Chuck,

The best that I remember from my three summers working as a laborer in 
the N&W shop in Durham was that the dormitory (or whatever it was 
called) faced W. Trinity Ave.  in the southeast (compass direction) 
quadrant of the cross formed by the N&W tracks and the avenue.  I never 
had any interaction with the dormitory, so I did not pay much attention 
to it.

Regarding crew's eating, they sometimes cooked something on a small coal 
stove in what I believe was the crew register room next door to the shop 
office.  Passenger engineer "Uncle" Joe Richardson regularly dumped a 
can of spam into a skillet along with a sliced onion and cooked it on 
the stove.  This led some of the railroaders there to maintain that 
onions were healthful because of his advances age. "Uncle" Joe was in 
his eighty's but still ran the steam (Class K1) powered passenger train 
every day between Durham and Lynchburg.  I was told that the BLE stated 
that he was the oldest active engineer in the USA.  Even on the hottest 
North Carolina summer day he wore heavy clothes, maintaining that 
whatever kept the cold out likewise kept the heat out!

Gordon Hamilton

On 3/25/2022 11:42 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List wrote:
> When the Durham District had shops in in Durham, what would crews do 
> there for eating and sleeping?
>
> Chuck Stewart
> Bahama (the one in Durham County) NC
>
>> On Mar 25, 2022, at 11:04 AM, NW Mailing List via NW-Mailing-List 
>> <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org> wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>>
>>
>> As I recall, The West Virginian had nine floors (+ or -).
>> Arriving Bluefield on No. 3, I walked up the hill and
>> registered.  The clerk assigned me to a room on the
>> top floor.  I went to the elevator and pressed the UP
>> button.  NOTHING.  So I walked up the stairway and
>> found the elevator with the door braced open and the
>> operator asleep.                   Harry Bundy
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