<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><HTML><FONT SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">I took a break from mowing grass, and decided to google "cotton thread waste" and came up with a number of sources, nearly all of them in China or India, and only one website that had a decent photo of the stuff. Here's the link:<BR>
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http://sonasales.tradeindia.com/Exporters_Suppliers/Exporter16391.249404/Cotton-Wastes.html<BR>
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Greg Harrod<BR>
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In a message dated 5/22/2009 4:05:26 PM Eastern Daylight Time, nw-mailing-list@nwhs.org writes:<BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SERIF" FACE="Times New Roman" LANG="0"><BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">Greg's description of the use of dampened cotton waste by VGN crews to breathe through in tunnels reminds me what my grandmother told me about a similar practice by the engine crews on the N&W (my grandfather was an engineer on the Pokey). She said that the crews would keep a bucket on the engine deck with water and burlap sacks in the bucket, and they would wrap the sacks around their heads except for their noses, and sometimes their noses would get blistered. The old, tight Elkhorn tunnel, aka Coaldale tunnel, was probably the prime culprit it this ordeal pre-electrification when an engine crew might be on the second engine where they suffered from the heat thrown off by both engines as they went upgrade through the tunnel.<BR>
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Gordon Hamilton<BR>
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