Nostalgia & History >

Minnesota winters can be bitterly cold. For years during cold weather, railroads have left their engines running in idle in order to prevent the damage that would result from a freeze up of the engine. Of course, it was also necessary to monitor unmanned power to ensure that the engine was still running. At New Ulm, MN, which was not manned 24/7, the Chicago & North Western’s solution to monitoring whether or not an engine was still running during below freezing weather was the “Engine Watcher”. This enabled the dispatcher or other responsible party to check the status of an engine. In the accompanying photograph, we see on May 20, 1982 the New Ulm switcher, CNW #4517, tied up at the “Engine Watcher”. As you can see the device consisted of a pole with an attachment that looks like a former telegraph pole arm containing at its end a former light shade sheltering the microphone. Of course, this “high tech” device is properly labeled with a sign proclaiming it to be the “Engine Watcher”.

It is also very evident that the Geep tied up at the “Engine Watcher” with its dynamic brake blister and the striping bleeding through the yellow at the end of the long hood is not an original North Western unit. In fact, the Canadian built GP9 was originally Quebec, North Shore & Labrador Railway #162. The North Western had purchased the unit from Precision National in 1976,

Thanks for looking and Happy Holidays to all.

Gary Helling

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High tech indeed...thanks for the photo and story.

The C&NW, among others, also placed microphones under the eaves of depots or on line poles. These were tied into either the block line or the company phone system to allow the dispatcher to listen for the passage of trains when or where no operator was on duty.

I'm not sure whether you could treat these listening posts as an official "OS"...My thought is NO, as there was no way to visually confirm the train's identity or whether it was complete (caboose with markers), but corrections welcome. Certainly it could be handy for helping the DS know how a guy was doing getting over the road and plan his moves.

NZ

Curious three horizontal tows of a pattern in the top of the yellow paint.

JEB