Railroaders' Nostalgia > Mad Dog Chronicle #112 Sid Helm and the Elevator at Cl

112 Sid Helm and the Cleveland Elevator.

Sid Helm was the SSW District Freight and Passenger Agent at Waco Texas. I had first met him in 1971 when I had been assigned to the Cotton Belt. Now, in 1976 when W J Lacy had broadened my responsibilities in North Texas to include all of the SSW as well as the SP operations, I was again spending time with Sid Helm. By the way, Sid was one of the last Railroad Officials that I worked with that still always wore a hat.

One day I got a call from Mr. Lacy, then the Regional Operations Manager or ROM for the Eastern Region. I was instructed to arrange to meet Mr. Helm and go to Cleveland, Texas. There I was to determine the feasibility of restoring service to a grain elevator that was located approximately seven miles from the H&TC main track at Mexia, Texas. This elevator was actually located on an old BRI, Joint Texas Division Branch line. This BRI branch crossed the SP in Mexia but there was no connection. At this time there was no rail service on the BRI branch. The rail was relatively light and the tie condition was awful.

I arranged to meet Sid Helm in Corsicana. He would then ride with me to Mexia and then over to Cleveland. The first task was to see what kind of a connection we could design at Mexia. Handling entire unit trains of rice via the existing industrial trackage was not going to cut it under any circumstances. This revealed a typical lack of operating knowledge on the part of Mr. Helm. This was not an uncommon phenomenon with the SP and Cotton Belt traffic beggars. They frequently knew less about current rail operations than the average rail fan.

It did not take that long at Mexia for Sid to realize that major construction would be required there for a direct move to the BRI branch. He also could see that ties were going to be needed in large numbers.

On to Cleveland where there was a large, fairly modern elevator, already storing rice that was being trucked in from Arkansas. This elevator, along with a number of surrounding oil storage tanks had been part of the Billy Sol Estes scam back in the sixties. The storage tanks were left over from the Mexia oil boom of the 1920s.

Grain elevators frequently have a lot of spilled grain around. This grain rots and the smell is awful. This elevator smelled about as bad as they can smell. Lacy had told us to really check this operation out. I decided that we should take the elevator manager up on his offer of a tour of the facility. In the end, I kind of got carried away. Most grain elevators have a device called a man lift to get elevator employees up to the works at the top. This elevator was no exception. Want to see the works up at the top asked our tour guide. By all means I said, don’t we Sid?

This guy then introduced me to the man lift. This device is a moving belt with grab irons and a six-inch by nine-inch step attached to the belt every so often. You grab one of the grab irons and step on to the next step. The whole rig is moving continuously at about 3 miles per hour. Once you step on you begin to ascend in a three foot tube. Very quickly you are hundreds of feet in the air, rising continuously in a dark dusty tube lit by occasional small light bulbs. There was no turning back.

Sid, of course, had chickened out. For me, there was no turning back, even though I now realized that this was going to be a sweaty palm experience of the first order. I did manage to step off at the top landing with a little gentle coaching from the elevator manager, who then proceeded to show me the guts of how a grain elevator really works. At least the view from up there was spectacular. Did you know that they even have a scale to weigh the grain up there at the top? This elevator had something like 130 cells. At least one cell must be kept free since grain must be rotated, or turned between cells continuously or else it will spoil. There is a whole system of belts and conveyors at both the top and the bottom of grain elevators to facilitate this movement.

What goes up must, sooner or later, come down. So we did, again on that man lift. Getting on going down was worse than going up. You are stepping out over this tube thirty stories high with no safety net Oh well, I sure showed up Sid.

It turned out that even without all of the potential costs to rehab this old BRI branch, this was not going to be a profitable move. All of this rice would move on a storage in transit rate, first from the Stuttgart area of Arkansas. All of the covered hoppers would then return to Stuttgart 100% empty. Later when the grain was sold, another 100% empty deadhead move to position the covered hoppers at this elevator at Cleveland. Then after a one way loaded move to a grain facility at some gulf coast port, another 100% empty move back to Cleveland. (Perhaps WAF can explain transit rates to those of you who don’t know how they work) Suffice it to say, even Sid Helm had decided that this wasn’t quite the big business opportunity that he had first imagined.

He spent most of the time on the way back to Corsicana explaining to me why the railroads never should have gotten out of the lcl business. That was Sid Helm, a real piece of work.

mdo
3/20/05

Another great story. How do you remember all these details, or have you kept notes all these years? Reminds me of a covered hopper load of corn that somehow derailed in the industrial part of San Francisco around 1979. It had turned over on its side onto an adjacent truck scale (built flat with the ground in the style of a 40 foot long concrete pad). The scale only had about $3,000 of damage. But the spilled corn that got under the scale could only be retrieved through a small opening which the owner used to excavate the corn by hand - one bucket at a time. It only took about 3 days for that corn to exude a foul odor that must have been very similar to what you described in Texas. And the poor guy that cleaned it out had a multi-day job in a space less than 4 feet high with little air circulation.

When I worked for the Rock Island, George Voss, the Assistant General Manager, and I were sent to Hooker, OK to look at a great potential opportunity for more business by switching the elevator on the BM&E, an MKT branch/subsidiary, after the sure to be granted abandonment was processed. We found an elevator owned by the same company who owned the one on the Rock. The BM&E elevator had not been active for at least three years, and more likely twice that. The rail was 60 or 70 lb on ties with no tie plates or ballast. The BM&E local was famous locally for being a real try-weekly. They left their home terminal on Monday to try to make a round trip in a week. Three days out and three days back. The local grain elevator folks had seen the handwriting on the wall for some time. The only ones who had not gotten the message were the Rock Island folks in in Chicago.

MDO #110 was posted 2-27, when was MDO #111 posted? I can't seem to spot it.

Thanks,

Josiah

Mike:
As we talked on the phone the other day, I am amazed at your memory, not to mention your notes. You sure bring a lot of things to life. I remember some moments like yesterday, but don't remember what I had for breakfast. Duh... Keep up the great stories!
JB

Josiah Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> MDO #110 was posted 2-27, when was MDO #111
> posted? I can't seem to spot it.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Josiah
>


MDO #111 was posted 3/07/05 at 17:05.

W3 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Josiah Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > MDO #110 was posted 2-27, when was MDO #111
> > posted? I can't seem to spot it.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Josiah
> >
>
>
> MDO #111 was posted 3/07/05 at 17:05.
>


Here is the link:

http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,883679

Craig

Amazing memory, yes. I rather believe that we are being privileged to share some of the highlights of a career professional who obviously enjoys the heck out of his life's chosen work. Any of us who choose to, could do the same, given that we avoid becoming dulled by the day to day grind. That, and the 'luck' to keep our minds healthy and productive. Next.

Charlie

Crig,

Thank you for posting the link to MDO's #111 post, I missed the post and as a heritage member, if I don't surf every day (and I can't), I miss all kinds of stuff on T.O..

An update on the connection to the BM&E at Hooker, Ok: The switch has been partially removed for a number of years, so even the grainery on the old Rock Island has not used rail service. Currently there are a couple of panels there so they can pull the remaining switch out and replace with panels and be done with it. It will probablt happen in the next two months. The old Elevator on the BM&E still stands, unused of course but the grass is always mowed around it.
There was another of these Rock Island 'takovers' not far from Hooker. This one occurred at Baker, Ok. which was east of Hooker on the BM&E. When the Katy was torn out in 1973, the Rock Island may have tried working the elevators there too. This one was the same, horrid trackage on the connection as well as going west across the Rock Island and to the elevator which most likely did not produce much traffic.
Here is a photo of the elevator at Hooker.

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Here is the old connection from the main line of the Rock Island to the BM&E at Hooker, Ok. The metal grainery on the left quit using rail service a number of years ago and in fact may not even be in use at all. Very close to the grainery was the switch that led to the BM&E. This line went north, across the county road and became a 'wye' on the BM&E.
During heavy rains, the BM&E would often experience flodding between Hooker and Baker and their agreement was to use the Baker connection, get on the Rock Island's ACR line and head northeast to Liberal, Ks. At Liberal, they went down the siding, ran around their train and then high balled west on the Golden State line to Hooker ( 20 miles of fast track ) then backed through this connection to their line again and wobbled on west at 5 mph.

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Mike,
I was about 10 years old when my mother took me into SF to visit some relations that were staying at the St. Francis Hotel on Union Square. Well, there was a tunnel from the St Francis to where you left the car at the Union Square Garage and right next to the office was one of those man lifts that took people up one story or down a few to get the cars. Well, 10 years old, it was too good to pass up. I got my butt blistered when I came back up and hopped off. Had no idea how unsafe those were. It was fun though.


Nudge

As a long time engineer at Ford Motor Company, I can only recall one of these man lifts. It was in Ford's Monroe, MI Power House. I rode it up and down several times. At each floor level it had both upper and lower well-polished flanges so the rider would not be caught or struck by any of the floors or ceilings. It moved pretty slow and I never had any fear or any problem getting on or off.

Best regards, Frank Corley, PE, Retired Mechanical Engineer