Railroaders' Nostalgia > Santa Fe "Split time Engr's"

Back many many years ago, when the ATSF was operating their crack fleet of streamliners, some of the hoggers operated on Split Time!
It wasn' good enough, for example, to arrive at the station at let's say 4:10. They would arrive in the first 30 seconds(split the minute in half)
of the digit. I guess this was a reputation thing or a long standing practice maybe on just one division or two? Contest between speed demons maybe.
I guess arriving minutes early didn't matter as much?
I remeber as a kid staying in a motel along Route 66 somewhere in N.M. or Ariz and watching the trains brake of the upcoming depot.
Sparks from the brake shoes looked like a fireworks display.
Stuff really rolled "back in the day".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/23 20:56 by ApproachCircuit.

ApproachCircuit Wrote: > ...  Sparks from the brake shoes looked like a fireworks display ...

Sounds like a Hollywood movie script...

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ApproachCircuit Wrote: > ...  Sparks from the
> brake shoes looked like a fireworks display ...
>
> Sounds like a Hollywood movie script...

That and cast iron brake shoes.

I was told by a towerman that worked there
that in the NYC commuter territory they recorded
the passing times as 1/2 if it was after the 30 second
mark.

An old-timer  towerman at Englewood told me that some of the westbound
Pennsy trains would come in hot for the station stop. At night
when they came around the State St. curve the wheels were
lit up like pinwheels of sparks.


 

Cast iron brake shoe sparks set a lot of right of way fires, from my experience on the SP.
When the industry changed to "High Friction" (composition) shoes right of way fires were reduced significantly.
The San Antonio Division Engineer was asked to report how many right of way fires they had year by year as the idea of eliminationg cabooses was in play.
The trainmen claimed that their reports of these fires was a reason to keep the cabooses.
Except that the number of fires simply dropped away, not withstanding dark rumors of people tossing lighted fusees off to try and  help the cause.