Railroaders' Nostalgia > Water Cartons-was First generation GE control stand

The mention in the original thread got me to thinking about that horrible pasteurized water we got to drink.  On the Joint Texas Division (Rock Island and BN [Forth Worth & Denver]'s line between Dallas and Houston) we were supplied with the Santa Fe's water cartons and later The Rock's bankruptcy blue cartons.  I think they came out of the same dairy in Kansas City and none were welcome unless you were already spitting cotton.  The pasteurization process is what made the water taste the way it did and it never got better as it sat.  Much later we got the small plastic bottles with the foil caps like Steve mentioned and that reminded me of a switchman we had on a local job.  He used to love taking the sealed bottles and slamming them down on a hard surface, forcing the water to exit through the top, blowing the foil seal clean off and causing most if not all of the contents to shoot straight up out of the bottle in a column, then fall back down into the bottle.  One day while out on the main at track speed, he pulled this stunt and at the instant he slammed the bottle down on the top of the refrigerator we hit a torpedo.  There were five of us in the cab all wide eyed at what just happened, and he was happy he had four witnesses because nobody would have believed his story.  Here's a few cartons I still have that might bring back some memories (good or bad...).

Tom Kline
Houston, Texas   



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/24 18:59 by cuontv.

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Nice collection Tom.

The old trainmaster with SP (UP by then) in Eugene refered to them as panther p*ss.  Wally Tabenkraw, he was a character, got demoted and went back to his conductor seniority.

A Rock Island engineer got on the radio at Blue Island and requested new water
because what he had "tasted like hog slop". That was in the mid 70's.  It might have still
been jug water.

Those old Igloo coolers we had on the L&N before the bottled water. Don't let me catch a sweaty brakeman reaching into one to dig out his coke he slipped in without me seeing.. I made the water for drinking, not your personal cooler for drinks. Most of the time we would bring a second one during the summer for drinks.
Steve

In the late 60's the Frisco started run-through train service with Seaboard Coast Line to Hamlet NC.  The Frisco engines had natural color steel cans of drinking water marled for the SLSF.  I saved one, and about 10 or so years later it finally rusted through - draining out the water.  Thankfully the can was sitting on top of some Pullman towels.

Notch7 Wrote:
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> In the late 60's the Frisco started run-through
> train service with Seaboard Coast Line to Hamlet
> NC.  The Frisco engines had natural color steel
> cans of drinking water marled for the SLSF.  I
> saved one, and about 10 or so years later it
> finally rusted through - draining out the water. 
> Thankfully the can was sitting on top of some
> Pullman towels.

I did the same thing with a 12 pack of The Rock carton pictured.  I figured they'd make a nice collectors item someday.  The cartons were sealed in clear plastic wrap and while sitting on the shelf in the garage over time the cartons began to leak and drained their contents, so I wound up with a empty sealed 12 pack which was unique.  Later the plastic wrap deteriorated and broke down, finally disintegrating leaving the 12 individual sealed cartons behind.   

Tom Kline
Houston, Texas 

Didn't one of the roads in Southern California use Arrowhead water in the small plastic bottles for awhile?

Remeber the Santa Fe yellow and blue very well, aweful, sometimes with somthing floating around in the water.
JB

PHall Wrote:
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> Didn't one of the roads in Southern California use
> Arrowhead water in the small plastic bottles for
> awhile?

The Pacific Harbor Line uses Arrowhead. The UP usus Crystal Geyser.

Posted from Android

Not cartons, but ~ 25 years ago we used to get CP power on a run through assignment.  Spring water in a plastic cup-like container with a foil top.  A hundred times better than what my employer provided. 

Preface: I am older than dirt.
I have been in cabs containing an 'office-type' water cooler, topped with a five gallon GLASS bottle.
Humping those 45 pound gems into position must have generated some mishaps!
...Lorenzo

567Chant Wrote:
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> Preface: I am older than dirt.
> I have been in cabs containing an 'office-type'
> water cooler, topped with a five gallon GLASS
> bottle.
> Humping those 45 pound gems into position must
> have generated some mishaps!
> ...Lorenzo

I remember those glass jugs and the package of folding drinking cups. The best water on the SP came from Indio.

Posted from Android

I was told by some of the Old Heads that the contents of those water jugs could sometimes contain orange juice, and other “ingredients”.

Regards

Posted from iPhone

This was the Western Maryland version, supplied by a Cumberland, MD.  dairy.
Our milk cartons at the local schools looked similar.

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567Chant Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Preface: I am older than dirt. I have been in cabs containing an 'office-type'
> water cooler, topped with a five gallon GLASS bottle. Humping those
> 45 pound gems into position must have generated some mishaps!
> ...Lorenzo

Thankfully they were only one-gallon glass water jugs but, upon reporting to work on the first day of the last third of the twentieth century for my first day as an SP&S Ry employee, cleaning them was my first assignment as the day shift laborer working for the Hoyt Street Roundhouse foreman.  Cleaning the jugs couldn't have been easier.  Along the south wall of the powerhouse (which was near the middle of the building housing the diesel/steam roundhouse and the three-straight-tracks electric enginehouse) was a comb-like pipe apparatus with many valved vertical "teeth" over which the jugs were placed.  As I recall, we steamed the jugs for about 20 minutes or more, during which time we were cleaning the drained pots of the refrigerated coolers in the engines.
(Hoyt Street Roundhouse photo is a tight crop of a many-years-old photo by nomosantafe) 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/24 02:21 by Jim700.

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