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#31
Saturday Report (BelateddD) November 27, 2021.

The Bored Directors met precisely at 0830 hours to discuss serious business effecting the Town of Tahope and its commercial progress.  The contractors submited a report to advise of the substantial progress being made on the "Pub Crawl Enhancement."  Short-cuts are being made in order to schedule time for another build.  The archetects are supposed to deliver the plans and materials on Monday, November 29, 2021.  Meanwhile, when there is a lull in building construction, the Plants and Grounds crew will be sprucing up the area across from Butts Bar-B-Que. 

When the meeting adjourned, a freight train powered by L&N L-1 4-8-2 #415 climbed up the Ovalix, albeit with serious pusher service from GP7 1803.  The train was spotted a the main yard on the east side of Summit and a Pennsy passenger train (The General) was given her chance to show her stuff.  (For those readers who subscribe to MR or RMC, Walthers has been touting their version of The General along the lines of "A Train You Can Model" for several months.  Little did they know the A&S already had one in regular service.)  Our General travels a slightly different route than the route indicated on the Pennsy map.  Ours runs from New York to Miami during the winter season and uses the Seaboard route to get there.  A video of a different Pennsy train is provided at the end of this report.  The Broadway Limited swings South to Florida during the winter under an accommodation agreement the Pennsy has with the A&S.  It provides service to and from New York to the Sanlando Station in Tahope on a weekly schedule.

Meanwhile, a Central of Georgia freight, powered by two of CofG's beautiful E7A's toured the Midlands and provided delivery of goods to various customers along the way. 

Our guests arrived around 10:00 a.m., including some of the Saturday Butty Group (Greg DeMayo and Curt Webb) along with Curt's father.  This obnoxious bunch caused little damage to the railroad and all of us traveled the mile or so to Del Dio's for lunch.  The Saturday meeting terminated after lunch so those of us of the Gator persuasion could watch the annual Florida-Florida State football game.  This year's match-up was between two 5-6 teams who played down to their level of competition.  Florida managed to barely squeek out a win in the fourth quarter for a 24-21 finish.

This week's story has its inspiration from a tale told in the December, 1939 edition of Railroad Magazine.  It has to do with hot boxes, which were a constant problem back in the day and still are a problem on most of our HO empires.

                                                                                                                   HOT BOXES

The Seaboard has one Miami to New York daily hotshot that provides perishables, such as tomatoes, lettuce, mangos, and other vegetables from South Florida and citrus from Central Florida to the markets and restaurants from Washington, D.C. to New York City.  This train is given high priority and the consist is usually composed of the best equipment.  The train, named the Fruit Grower's Express, is diesel-powered and only stops for crew changes, one of which occurs at the A&S station in Sanlando. 

In late November 1951, the first Florida "cold snap" had come and gone and the citrus was ripening and ready for picking.  Ethan Douglas drew the FGX as engineer on November 27, along with Conductor Willie Wright, fireman George Whittle, head shack Charles Tanner, and hind shack Tom Miller.  The FGE pulled out of Sanlando on time at 8:07 a.m., powered by three E7 diesels. 

Willlie Wright and Tom Miller perched themselves in the cupola of the SAL crummy and kept a look-out over the train for any observable defects that might interfere with the train's progress.  In those days, before the common use of roller bearings on freight cars, the truck journals were regularly inspected and carefully packed with oil-soaked waste to eliminate the friction that would cause a "hot box."  A hot hox can result in the failure of a wheel and cause a derailment if not repaired.   

Lubrication experts will tell you that insufficient packing, waste with poor capillary attraction, a worn-out brass, a rough journal, or lack of lubrication are the main reasons for hot boxes.

The train was about 50 miles from Jacksonville when Miller spied a wisp of grey smoke coming up from one of the mid-train reefers.  It had to be a faulty brake or a hot box.  Either one would cause the conductor to stop the train.  Miller held out a yellow fusee from the cupola to signal the engineer to stop.  Tanner spied the fusee and Douglas eased the train to a stop.

The head shack and the caboose crew walked toward the source of the problem and soon had it located.  Miller pried upon the journal box cover with his hook.  The experienced crew looked into the box and immediately saw the problem.  A car toad had packed the journal box too tightly and grease (dope) was not getting to the journal.  Miller removed the waste with his hook and replaced it with new waste soaked in "dope."

Soon, Douglas eased the throttle up a couple of notches and the FGX was back up to speed.  The stop had cost nearly 30 minutes, but by the time the train reached Washington, D.C., the time had been made up. 

Today, there are no journal boxes on freight cars.  Roller bearings have replaced them and hotbox detectors notify the engineer to stop the train if in the unlikely event, a hotbox occurs.  The conductor, the hind shack, and the caboose have also been replaced. Computers handle the conductor's paperwork involving the consist and the hotbox detector eliminated the need for a rear brakeman.  These things also eliminated much of the romance of freight travel.  But that's progress.

Here is a short video of Pennsy's Broadway Limited making a whistle-stop at Tahope's Sanlando Station:

                                                                                 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vD0uwakaHo&t=19s


#32
Saturday report will be posted later this morning.  Sorry about that.
#33
Saturday Report - November 20, 2021

Sadly, there was no Board of Director's meeting this morning.  The next meeting is scheduled for a week from today. 

There is a story.  Your reporter got the inspiration for this tale from the January 1941 edition of Railroad Magazine.  Admittedly, much license has been used retelling this tale, but the inhabitants of Tahope County, Florida, a happy bunch of swamp dwellers and railroaders, have a different culture than their northern cousins.  Today, we are introduced to a new character - a brakie from out west who worked on the UP.  He forgot, or didn't know, that strangers in Tahope need to slowly assimilate into the local social scene, especially where the local "wimmins" are concerned.

                                                                                                        BRAKING ON THE OVALIX

Sandy Williams, age 28, had been braking for the UP out west for two years before he got the wanderlust to get out of the desert and hi-tail it to Florida.  Oh, he had pulled good jobs on the UP but runs "from no place to nowhere through nothin'" did not keep a serious young bachelor entertained. 

He landed in Central Florida and learned the Atlantic & Southern Railroad was hiring brakies for the Ovalix Division, known to the local railroaders as the "Up and Downer." Sandy entered the roundhouse at Tahope and applied.  Due to his significant experience with the UP and his glowing recommendation letter from that railroad, he was hired within an hour.  He stopped by the paymaster's office and picked up a "pie book" and walked down the City of Tahope's main street towards Sweaty Betty's Diner for some eats. 

Boomers knew the City of Tahope to be one mile long and one street wide.  However, it provided the basic needs of a young brakeman, with a movie theater, a pub or two, and the Trackside Tavern, which housed a bevy of inexpensive women, some of whom worked in the bar as dancers and some who worked out of the bar as independent contractors.  What else could a young man want? 

Braking on the Ovalix Division was hard work.  Three freights a day were scheduled to fight the grade from The Bottoms to Summit and there was usually an extra or two to make things interesting.  The A&S assigned its former C&O H-5 2-6-6-2, to the division to haul the extra trains.  Diesels pulled the scheduled runs up the grade.

Sandy soon learned that braking on the Ovalix meant he was expected to spell the regular fireman and shovel coal into the firebox.  The Mallet had a stoker but, due to its age and condition, the stoker could not keep boiler pressure up without help.  Hand firing an engine as big as an H-5 was dirty, backbreaking work.  It didn't help that the extra trains originated in The Bottoms and had to struggle up the entire Ovalix to make it to Summit.  At least the return trip to The Bottoms was easy, with the engine drifting all the way on the downgrade.

Now, Sandy decided he would bunk in The Bottoms, at least temporarily, until he could manage to land a place of his own.  It only took him a few days to scope out the inhabitants down there in the darkened freight yards.  He met Boxcar Bertha as she was nailing a drag out of town and he decided she wasn't his type.  He ran into Maggie Hussy while she was bathing in the river and swapped a bottle of bourbon for a home-cooked meal of catfish and hush puppies.  Maggie's little sister, Tawdry, joined them for dinner and Sandy was instantly smitten by her. 

Sandy invited Tawdry to join him for a beer at the Trackside Tavern and she agreed.  (Tawdry was very agreeable.)  They hopped a local from the yard at The Bottoms and jumped off at Sanlando Station.  It was only a short walk from there to the tavern. 

A beer here, a beer there, and Sandy was getting mellow.  He did not count on Tawdry's former boyfriend being in the tavern and when the two got into a friendly argument over territory, Sandy landed on the floor with his bell rung.  The night manager, a large Chinese person with a Fu Man Chu mustache, usually handled altercations with his baseball bat but he decided to call the police since the injury resulted in one of the parties no longer standing.

Officer Poovey appeared almost instantly and Tawdry's ex was arrested for assault and battery and hauled off to the county jail.

While the medics were cleaning Sandy up from the fight, a reporter from the Tahope Daily News, Roger Ragweed, asked Tawdry for her comments on the incident.  Tawdry, always willing to accommodate, said, "I think I'll get a bigger boyfriend."

The next day, when Sandy reported for work, the engineer, "Fatso Johnson," took one look at Sandy and said, "Must have been quite a night at the Trackside Tavern.  Any joint that has blood on the ceiling is a rough place."


                                                                                     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0hjJvH4zEA&t=8s

                                            And here is a video of C&O H-5 1534 coming off the Ovalix and storming through Sanlando with a heavy drag.
#34
Thank all of you for the kind comments. 

Tom - I hope the Chief of Maintenance, Will Fixer, orders crossing gates that actually operate.  The crossing is very dangerous unprotected. 
#35
Saturday Report – November 13, 2021

The Board of Director's meeting for today and next week have been canceled by the management. 

However, there is a story this week.  The idea came from a book entitled "When Deadhead Counted as Rest and Other Railroad Stories, by a former engineer on the Grand Trunk. 

                                                                                                                  NEAR MISS

   It was a clear, crisp (for Florida) day in November when engineer Ethan Douglas and his fireman, Franklin Smith drew the weekly Pennsy coal train.  Conductor Bud Millstone reviewed the manifest and noted the train was heavier than usual, consisting of loaded coal hoppers that stretched nearly a mile behind the A-B-A brace of Baldwin Sharks.  Douglas backed the diesels into the string of hoppers and pumped up the air.  One thing Baldwin did right was providing robust air pumps so it only took a few minutes for the long train to be ready to roll.
   The Sanlando dispatcher cleared the board and Douglas moved the throttle a notch to take up slack.  Then he gave her another two notches and the train slowly picked up speed and moved to the mainline. 
   Oddly enough, on the A&S in order to head north to Summit from Sanlando it is necessary to run south until the train reaches the grade on the Ovalix. 
   Douglas proudly eased the Sharks up to 45 mph and approached Eaton's Curve and The Great Divide without incident.  Those Baldwins will lug as long a string of hoppers as can be coupled on – and more.
   The train crossed the Suwanee River Bridge and passed Piney Woods Station on its way to the cut at Perkins' Farm.  Old man Perkins and his wife, Paula Deen Perkins, gave the crew a waive as the train passed under the overpass connecting the farm to the cow pasture.
   Baker's Crossing is dangerous.  The mainline comes out of the cut at Perkins' Farm and makes a sharp curve to reach the crossing.  Vehicles have little warning other than the whistles and horns of the locomotives and the locals make sure to look out for the train before venturing over the track. 
   As the coal train approached Baker's Crossing, Douglas sounded the horn for the crossing.  The train approached the crossing at 30 mph.  When the nose of the lead shark rounded the bend Douglas let out a scream of expletives and hit the emergency brake.  A Gulf Oil fuel tanker was inching across the track but was blocked due to traffic on the other side. 
   Douglas and Smith had a split second to take action.  Clearly, the train would not stop in time to avoid what would be a fatal collision with a gasoline tanker.  Just as they made the decision to jump from the engines, the truck slowly pulled forward and the diesels missed it by inches. 
   The truck driver, who realized how close he had come to making his last run, pulled over as the diesels screeched to an emergency stop.  Douglas climbed down from the engine and ran to the fuel truck to give the driver a piece of his mind.  The driver climbed down from the cab Douglas realized he was well over six feet tall and weighed close to 300 pounds.  Douglas calmed down and suggested the driver should watch for trains at crossings.  The driver said, "I don't know what your problem is – the tank was empty."  Realizing you can't fix stupid, Douglas walked back to the train and, after clearing with the dispatcher, continued on the way to the Ovalix.
   Running a heavy coal train up the Ovalix was supposed to have been the challenge of the trip, and it would have been but for the fuel truck. Douglas attacked the 1 percent grade at 35 mph and notched the throttle to number 8.  The 608A prime movers growled mightily and the train slowed to 12 mph.  With black smoke pouring out of the exhaust stacks, the Sharks inched up the grade all the way to Summit.  Douglas and Smith spotted the engines in front of the Summit Dispatcher's Shack and reported the near-miss.  Then they returned to their train and "whistled off" to finish their run.
   In his report, Douglas recommended a crossing gate for Baker's Crossing.

                                                                                            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojY9BlCQAQo
#36
I have a photograph in a SAL book that shows Centipedes back-to-back with an FB unit in between.  So they had it both ways.  A lot of SAL passenger trains ran elephant style.  It was handy if the New York to Florida train was going to split at some point in Florida, with half going one way (Tampa-St. Pete) and the other half going another (Miami).  The ACL's Champion did that at Auburndale daily for many years. (The club car made the short trip to Tampa and the diner went to Miami so everybody was able to enjoy cocktails all the way to the end of the line.)
#37
Saturday Report – November 6, 2021

     The Board of Directors of the mighty Atlantic & Southern Railroad, including the CEO and the Ticket Agent, met a little before 8:30 a.m. this morning.  The agenda was scant but the BS was plentiful.  The A&S has received three locomotives back from the shops.  One of them, a brass Southern RR MS-4 Mikado, was in need of a new decoder and the other two, SAL Baldwin Centipedes, had undergone minor repairs.  The MS-4 runs smoothly and performed well.  The Centipedes performed adequately after CV2 was set were set to the same numbers in both locomotives.
     This week the readers of this report will be entertained with two related stories.

                                                                                                     A TALE OF TWO CENTIPEDES

   Several years ago, your reporter read of Baldwin Centipedes being offered in HO scale by Broadway Limited Imports.  The locos were offered in the SAL paint scheme.  The Seaboard Airline Railroad had fourteen of these monsters.  They were Baldwin's first attempt to compete with EMD.  They had a wheel arrangement designated as 2-D+D-2, which explains the Centipede moniker.  Originally intended for passenger service, they posed too many maintenance problems to be reliable.  They were constructed individually, like steam locomotives, so the wiring and electronics were different on each engine, causing confusion in the repair shop.  The two Baldwin prime movers developed 1500 hp each, making these 3000 hp locos the most powerful of their day.  The crews said they "slung oil everywhere."  The SAL's Centipedes were bumped from passenger to freight service and finally assigned as helpers.  All in all, a noble, but disappointing, experiment into dieselization. 
   Two of the SAL Centipedes were assigned to the A&S Tahope District and were assigned to freight service from Jacksonville to Tampa.  The original intent was to have only one of the locos and an order was placed for it with Baldwin.  Unfortunately, there was such a delay in delivery, the A&S management assumed the order was lost or could not be filled.  Not to worry, A&S management attended a train show not far north of Tahope and found Baldwins for sale at a reduced price.  A purchase was made and the engine was transported temporarily to your reporter's home.  The next day, the doorbell rang and your reporter found another Centipede on his front porch.  Two is not always better than one. 
   The A&S took delivery of these engines and gave them a test run.  The sound was unacceptable and the engines were placed in storage.  Many months later, TCS introduced Baldwin prime movers to its WOW Sound inventory and, finally, the new decoders were installed. 
   This morning was the inaugural run.  The engines were coupled up "elephant style," like they usually ran on the SAL, and they were ready for a test run.  The engines simply could not run through turn-outs without derailing.  It was discovered that CV2 was set differently for each engine and, once the adjustment was made, the engines ran better.  We found that slow-speed operation through turnouts helped prevent further problems.
   These engines are interesting but suffer from design flaws like the prototype.  Your reporter believes both the front and rear trailing trucks are too lightweight and are part of the all-to-frequent derailment problems.  In addition, the articulation needed to navigate curves might have worked well on the prototype, but the sharp curves on a model railroad make the model look like a toy.  Your reporter gives these diesels an overall grade of "C."

                                                                                                         OPERATIONS ON 11-6-21

       After the Director's meeting was adjourned, the day's operations began.   
       The SAL mixed freight, X44, powered by two SAL GP7's walked up the 1% grade of the Ovalix from the Midlands to Summit without breaking a sweat, and, after being cut off, the Geeps shunted into a siding.  The Centipedes backed into the train and we were off for the maiden revenue run.  The single-note Baldwin horn is certainly different from the melodious EMD horns, but it is pleasant in its own way.  Of course, TCS has provided many different horns for those who want variety. 
   The train made its way down the Ovalix without difficulty and it was interesting to hear the prime movers ramp down on the downgrade.  Once back to the Midlands, X44 toured the district and received waves from local citizens who watched the unusual locomotives from a distance to avoid being soiled with spatters of oil from the engines.
   The Centipedes headed north towards Jacksonville and the A&S photographer caught a video as they crossed the Suwanee River Bridge. 
   The trip back from Jacksonville to Sanlando Yard was powered by one of the Southern RR's MS-4 Mikado locomotives.  The photographer managed to record its passing over the Suwanee River bridge late in the afternoon.  Turns out, he was spending the weekend fishing and enjoying the company of a companion in one of the fish camp's "Happy Huts."     

                                                                                                               THREE VIDEOS

This early video provides an amateurish view of the Centipedes as they head north out of Sanlando.  The main feature is the likeness of your reporter at the controls. Note the poor quality of sound.   
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4phUKjs0Ee0


This second video was taken by the A&S photographer as X44 was heading north to Jacksonville.  Note the authentic single-note Baldwin horn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DykfrFDaBBs

This third video was captured by the photographer when he was awakened by the whistle of the Southern RR MS-4 as it approached the Suwanee River bridge late in the afternoon.  Note the quality of the sound produced by the TCS decoder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rfp3Mu2l6Sk

P. S.  Last week's report was viewed 1470 times.  Either a lot of people viewed it or two guys had nothing else to do all week but reread it.

#38
Thank you, Curt, Jim, Dave, Greg, and Bob for your kind comments.  835 can pull a heavy load if it doesn't have to struggle up the Ovalix.  See the link below.

                                                                                           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLk50mPWfbU
#39
Saturday Report – October 30, 2021.
   The Board of Directors of the Atlantic & Southern Railroad met promptly at 8:30 a.m.  The Board viewed a number of unpublished Videos involving the evolution of the railroad and it was decided to load some of the best of them for publication in future Saturday Reports.
   The Pennsy has a special relationship with the A&S.  The Pennsy announced the newest addition to its passenger fleet, a diesel-powered train called the Tampa Bay Special, which runs weekly from Philadelphia to Tampa.  The inauguration run of the train took place right after the Board completed its meeting.  The Tahope Times picked up the action at Sanlando and followed the train around the Midlands and up to Summit and back.  The train then took a turn through downtown Tahope before being sided due to the lunch hour scheduled at Del Dio's Italian Restaurant. 

   The idea for this week's story came from the June, 1940 Railroad Magazine.  Naturally, the story was modified to fit local railroad conditions.

                                                                                                         THE STUDENT BRAKEMAN

   William Hatch, his friends called him "Willie," worked for Old Man Martin at his cattle ranch in Osceola County, South of Orlando.  He was one of many who herded the cattle to the loading point on the ACL and chased the reluctant cows up the loading ramps into the stock cars for their last trip to the slaughterhouse at Summit. 
   One day he vowed to find work on the railroad.  He watched while a brakeman signaled the engineer who was running 1559 with four empties attached back into the siding and come to a stop at the cattle pens.  When the cattle were loaded, the brakeman gave a signal and 1559 chugged off towards its destination.
   Willie thought to himself, "If I could land a brakeman's job, I could ditch this cowpoke job and gain some adventure." 
   He approached a railroad employee who was standing near a tool shack and inquired as to just how he should go about obtaining a job with the ACL.  The employee said, "The best way I know of is to ask for it." 
"Fair enough," said Willie, "but where?"
   "Ask the trainmaster at any division point," said the employee. 
   "But where is the nearest division point," said Willie.
   "Tahope."
   With that, Willie hopped the local and soon arrived at the Sanlando Station.  He hoofed it to the roundhouse and found Trainmaster "Tater" Cartwright.  Willie took a short, written exam designed to make sure new hires could read and write and was hired as a student brakeman.  He began his on-the-job training the next day.
   At first, Willie was confused with the lingo he heard and the new mechanical braking and coupling devices with which he had to become familiar.  He learned how to use a brakeman's club and how to replace a broken knuckle.  He became familiar with journal boxes and how to cut out a car that had a hot box.  He climbed up the side of boxcars and became sure of himself "on the tops." 
   Finally, the day came when he was assigned to a train heading from Tampa to Jacksonville.  He climbed into the crummy at Sanlando and perched in the cupola with the conductor for a routine trip.  The train was powered by number 835, a USRA light Mikado coupled to twenty cars of mixed freight. 
   The engineer, Russel "Ballast Scorcher" Taylor, and his colored fireman, Jim, climbed into the cab of 835 and in no time the conductor gave the high ball and Taylor whistled off.  The challenge of the trip was the climb up the Ovalix to Summit.  The grade was a steady 1% and the track passed over itself six times.  It was said that if the train was long enough the engine could provide its own helper service. 
   The consist was just about all 835 could handle and it disgorged heavy smoke and cinders as Jim fed the furnace and the engine maintained a steady 5 mph. 
   Unfortunately, about halfway to Summit the knuckle on a mid-train boxcar coupler failed and the consist broke in two.  The conductor was sitting in the cupola and he immediately signaled the engineer, who applied brakes and awaited further instructions. 
   Willie climbed down from the caboose and pulled a new knuckle from the box hanging under the floor of the crummy.  It hit the ballast with a thud.  Knuckles are heavy objects – too heavy for one man to handle.  Fortunately, the head shack walked back to the stricken boxcar, and, between the two of them, they manhandled the new knuckle up to the scene of the problem. 
   "Well, Willie," said the head shack, "replace the knuckle and tell the brains to signal for a highball." 
   Willie struggled to remove the broken knuckle and finally met with success.  Not so much with trying to replace the knuckle by himself.  After several minutes of struggling and straining, the head shack returned and lent a hand.  New brakies routinely are the recipients of good-natured hazing and Willie learned he was supposed to have help replacing the knuckle of a coupler. 
   The rest of the trip to Summit was uneventful, although Willie pondered what he would have done if the train had broken in two and the air brakes had failed on a 1% grade.       
#40
Thank you, John.  It's always good to know you are watching and reading the Saturday  Report!
#41
Saturday Report - October 23, 2021

The Board of Directors of the Atlantic & Southern Railroad met at 8:30 and discussed progress on the structures being built for placement in downtown Tahope.  Then we ran a freight train powered by an A-B lash-up of Seaboard E4s.  The train made its run around Summit and down the ovalix to the Midlands.  Meanwhile, another SAL freight powered by two Geeps delivered goods to industries within the Tahope city limits.  Trains really look good as they snake through the middle of the street heading towards the engine facility and roundhouse. 

Invited guests began arriving including Bob Butts, Greg DeMayo, and Curt Webb.  A general bull session consumed the remaining time, except for the attempt to get Greg's steam engine running.  Seems like there is always a problem with guest motive power.  Surely it is not the guests.

We foldied our tent and repaired to Del Dio's for lunch promptly at 11:00 a.m.

Sorry, there is no story this week.  Your reporter has a weekend guest arriving soon and, besides, he needs a break. 

The A&S CEO turns 75 tomorrow.  Cards and gifts are not requested, although money is allowed.

Happy Halloween!  Boo!
#42
Saturday Report - October 16, 2021.

This week's Saturday Report reports happenings that took place on Thursday.  The Board of Directors convened at 8:50 a.m. but the agenda was blank so the board members talked about their various health problems.  Happily, the CEO's skin cancer surgery is healing nicely. 

We ran an SAL freight on The Midlands  and discovered the decoder in Pacific #1516 is shot so the engine and a Southern MS4 will be taken back to ALCO this afternoon for overhaul. 

Greg DeMayo joined us for lunch at Del Dio's adn we called it a day.

This week's story is an attempt to give some biographical information about one of the characters that make up the A&S. 

                                                                                       Forty-six Years on the Atlantic & Southern

    "Uncle Henry" O'Leary was born on May 12, 1890, in Chicago.  His father, Patrick O'Leary, was a well-to-do livestock broker who made his fortune buying and selling cattle shipped to the stockyards in Chicago. 
    When Henry was six years old his father took him to the stockyards to watch the cattle being unloaded from the stock cars into the pens awaiting slaughter.  While the livestock initially held Henry's attention, he was fascinated by the smoke and noise from the little consolidations moving the stockcars around the stockyards. 
    Henry started school that September, but he was an indifferent student whose mind wandered to the railroad and the smell of grease and coal smoke.  By the time he was 12 years old, he had managed to work his way into the LaSalle Street yard office for a part-time job of "sweeping up" and running errands around the yard.  Much to his father's disappointment, Henry never developed an interest in brokering cattle so he quit school when he was 15 and began a career as a railroader.
     In the summer of 1904, Henry's family took time off from the hustle and bustle of Chicago and traveled by train to sunny Florida.  In those days, Henry Flagler's vision of development of the east coast of Florida was just coming into shape and there was increased interest in an area called Miami. 
    Henry B. Plant had begun developing the west coast of the state and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad's tracks meandered down from Jacksonville to Tampa-St. Petersburg.  Henry's father's attention was drawn to a sleepy town in the center of the state named Tahope.  The little village was served by a railroad that was developed during reconstruction after the War of Northern Aggression called the Atlantic & Southern. (See p.14 -Dixie Days). The railroad had been financed by none other than Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt.  (See p.1). The main attraction Patrick O'Leary saw with the A&S was its proximity to thousands of acres of orange groves.  Patrick bought 10,000 acres of in Orange County and installed his brother, Sean O'Leary, to manage the groves.
    Henry decided to stay in Florida with his uncle.  One day he caught the local A&S passenger train to Tahope to see what he could see.  The round trip ticket to Tahope and back was $.25 and that left Henry with just enough money for lunch at Betty's. 
Henry wandered into the yardmaster's office at the Sanlando Yard and struck up a conversation with the yardmaster, Clarence Mason.  In no time Henry was offered a job.  He was given the day shift at the roundhouse so he could commute back and forth from his uncle's place.  Salary was a dollar a day, which left Henry with just about enough money to get to and from work and eat lunch. 
     In those days, the yardmaster hired their own brakemen and Henry was soon wielding a brake club on top of the freight cars.  A brakeman's pay was considerably better than that of an entry-level laborer and Henry moved into a rooming house in downtown Tahope. 
     Henry was a natural-born railroader and in no time he was allowed to work as a student fireman.  In those days a student fireman's training was "on the job" and Henry learned what it was like to shovel several tons of coal on a run.
     There was more to a fireman's job than shoveling coal.  Henry learned a great deal about how a steam locomotive runs and how to keep one in good repair from the engineers he fired for.  He also learned about the ins and outs of locomotive repairs by spending time with the skilled workers in the roundhouse.
     Henry was promoted to the righthand seat in 1917, just 12 years after he signed onto the A&S. 
One of the main challenges facing locomotive engineers in the days before dieselization was pounding up the steady 1% grade on the ovalix to move trains from as far as The Bottoms to Summit.  Fortunately, the east and west sides of the ovalix are flattened with straight track, which reduces the strain on the engine and allows more cars to be in each consist.  Henry became a master at moving steam engines up the ovalix.  It was said that railroaders could tell Henry was running up the ovalix by the bark of his engine.
     Sometime during Henry's career, the younger railroaders started calling Henry "Uncle Henry" due to his seniority.  By 1951, Uncle Henry had been on the A&S payroll for forty-six years.  His seniority put him at the top of the board and he had moved from steam to diesels.  His favorite run was the through freight from Tampa to Jacksonville hauling perishable vegetables from Tampa and citrus products from Central Florida.  This train was so long and so heavy that it always required three "F" units to pull it up the ovalix. 
    Uncle Henry may be in his 60's but he is not ready for retirement.  The union contract with the A&S will allow him to continue working until the company doctors say he is no longer capable of running an engine.  Until that time he will spend his off days with his wife of 40 years and his grandchildren.  And he does not regret escaping from the stockyards of Chicago.     

 
#43
John - Beautiful photos.  I like the wall under construction.  Nice touch. 
#44
There was an ice house next to the ACL mainline on Lake Ivanhoe and Highland Avenue when I was growing up in the 50's.  They iced down reefers one at a time but they mostly provided ice commercially.  We used to get the "shavings" and make snow cones out of them with Coca-cola, Grapette, or a Big Orange draink.
#45
John - Ice must have been a scarce commodity in Florida in 1919.  My dad was born in 1902 so he would have known what people did (or did without) back in those days.  Like many other things, I never asked him about it. Maybe they just used ventilated boxcars to ship fruit and veggies.  But what about beef and pork?  And I know my dad and my grandparents drank iced tea every day.  This subject requires more research.   
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