I grew up alongside the Missouri Pacific railroad in Southeast Missouri. 19 miles North of Arkansas. My grandfather worked on a section gang. The railroad was maybe 30 yards from the front door. Right in front of the house was a junction called Harviell Junction, where single tracks turned in to double tracks heading North to Poplar Bluff. We were 8 miles South of the yards in Poplar Bluff. So many times as a boy I walked beside Missouri Pacific Diesel-Electric locomotives at the front of a train waiting for a Northbound train to pass. Grandpa always taught me to be safe on the tracks, knowing that there was another train coming. We had to be aware. Now the tacks are owned by CSX and no trespassing signs everywhere. As a kid, I always walked up the tracks to the Cane Creek trestle, where we would fish and swim in the creek.
After U.P. merger with Missouri Pacific in the 80's, they rerouted trains. The branch for Southbound traffic goes down through Piggott and Paragould Arkansas, and on South to Little Rock. The Northbound traffic comes up through Little Rock, Hoxie, Walnut Ridge and Corning Arkansas. Passes in front of my grandparents old house on the way to Poplar Bluff and Saint Louis. This is the main line of the Missouri Pacific (now U.P.) from St. Louis to Dallas. There used to be constant train traffic passing in front of the house with a Southbound train sitting on one side of double track, waiting on Northbound to pass. The junction was right in front of my grandpa's house. Now days, it's pretty boring with only Northbound trains, the Southbound traffic on a different branch.
Here's a couple of photos of my grandpa and uncle Joe at Harviell Junction in the 70's and a Union Pacific Southbound train waiting at the signal for a Northbound train to pass. The trestle is about 1/4 mile farther up the tracks.
I can still smell the smell of creosoted railroad ties, walking on the tracks on a hot summer day.
The best frogs we cault as kids...
Were in the train track run offs...
Lots of big ..Bull frogs...
You could hear the tracks singin..just before the train came..
We used to find pellets of iron ore in the ballast. They were the size of a marble and made great sling shot ammo. The pelettized iron ore would come out of gondola cars. I guess the ore was pelettized somewhere else for easier loading and shipping off to smelter. It didn't take long to find a coffee can full.
Edited by - MoPac fan on 09/14/2024 16:14:09
Summer college jobs I had on the railroad:
Gandy dancer
Ticket agent
Passenger coach mechanic standing in a pit installing break shoes
Stores clerk
Scariest…switch tower operator. Big board that lit up when train approached and I had to pull out the correct big handles to operate the switch..don’t know how I didnt crash the trains.
My grandfather was an engineer on a train. Gee, it's been so long ago that I've forgotten which company it was. He used to be on one day and back the next.
"...and the Greenville Trestle now don't seem so high..." Doc Watson
The C & O ran right through the center of the small town where I grew up. Our house was up on a hill, less than a quarter mile from the tracks. The trains sounded like they were going through our back yard. There aren't any tracks where I live now. I sure miss the sounds of those trains.
Below is a link to Tony Rice's great version of Norman Blake's "Greenlight On The Southern". I think it's the best "train" song that's ever been written.
quote:
Originally posted by TexasbanjoMy grandfather was an engineer on a train. Gee, it's been so long ago that I've forgotten which company it was. He used to be on one day and back the next.
My grandfather had two brothers that also worked for Missouri Pacific. Uncle William, we called him uncle Dugie, was a welder and uncle Eugene was a conductor. This was back in the days of the caboose. The caboose was uncle Eugene's office. He would make a run between Poplar Bluff and Little Rock. He would spend the night at a motel in Little Rock and come back North the following day. He had a heart attack and died in that motel room in 1977, the year I graduated from high school.
My grandpa's brother Eugene was a Conductor on the Missouri Pacific railroad. This was back in the days when trains had cabooses. When I was a kid, uncle Eugene would wave at me as the caboose would pass the house. He would usually be out on the porch of the caboose.
The caboose was his office. Every car on the train had a waybill that would follow that car until it reached it's destination. Uncle Eugene would keep that paperwork in the caboose. He would monitor air pressure for the brakes at the end of the train, and watch the train, keeping an eye out for hot boxes.
But technology won out. The waybills became computerized, so no need for paperwork. The air pressure is monitored at the end of the train by a device called EOT. It attaches to the coupler on the last car and communicates with the front of the train by radio. Hot box detectors along the rails watch for hot boxes and dragging equipment.
The caboose has gone the way of 8 track tapes.
I have a caboose coal stove in me cabin i am building..
Pretty cool Randy, I always enjoy hearing your family stories, especially about your grandad and the M.P.
I grew up in Grand Prairie, TX, and my mother’s family was all from Missouri…Shell Knob and Monett…with my grandparents in Berryville, Arkansas.
I can’t remember what year the U.P. bought and took over the M.P., but as a kid I remember seeing the old blue MP locomotives leading trains right through the middle of down town Grand Prairie, TX since it’s all UP trackage. Lots of SP engines through there back then too after the UP swallowed them up as well.
I am a switchman/brakeman/conduct-or for BNSF currently…17 years now.
There’s still a few trains that have and need a caboose out there. 3 man locals and road switchers, and yard switch jobs still use them….trains that have a lot of work to do. But this is few and far between…1-2 trains in a terminal, compared to EVERY train years ago.
It was all about money……and THAT’S IT. The railroad companies will cry and advocate for safety…but in the end, they didn’t want to pay a man to be back in the caboose anymore, and they don’t want to pay me to be on a train anymore.
Used to have 5 men on a train crew, then 3, now 2….they are pushing for 1….and eventually they want zero….just a computer running it.
Dow
Edited by - Texican65 on 09/17/2024 21:29:23
quote:
Originally posted by TexasbanjoMy grandfather was an engineer on a train. Gee, it's been so long ago that I've forgotten which company it was. He used to be on one day and back the next.
Sherrie...I'd sure like to hear more about your grandfathers railroading when you have time. I'd sure like to know what outfit he was with too, if you can try and remember. Maybe I can help...there were only so many lines in certain places.....where did he live and work?
Dow
Any photos of uncle Eugene on the caboose?
Do you know what railroaders call the caboose….other than caboose?
Dow
No ... but my Mom [a non-railroader] used to refer to ladies with an ample (?) rear end as having a big caboose. I don't recall others using that descriptor .... but surely there must have been.
I'm not 100% sure of the details, but the "box on wheels" that sometimes served as spartan sleeping quarters for threshing crews in bygone days was sometimes called a caboose ..... did look a bit like one albeit not nearly as big. The switch to combines was well underway by the time I remember things, but an uncle of mine had one of them sitting in a corner of his barnyard.
Always wanted to live in a caboose,, Jake Neufeld, who made quality banjos in the 1970’s, lived down the road from us - he bought a caboose and fixed it up for him & his wife.
I used to sit in this train station as a kid in my home town (originally a Great Western RR line) and listen to the destinations for the incoming passenger trains being announced over the speakers ,, gave me a thrill and sense of adventure. Here's a link to the history https://stcatharinesmuseumblog.com/2022/01/30/history-from-here-st-catharines-train-station/
Edited by - chuckv97 on 09/18/2024 06:59:41
