FROGS...Lord how I hated them...

We used mainly two types 'CAMEL BACK" and "BAT WING" the "bat wings" were the best as they would pick up wheels further from the rail and usualy guide the wheels right back on only one problem...."HEAVY HEAVY"

When i hired out all units were equipped with their own set and all cabooses as well. I have carried or helped carry frogs 60 car lengths..ready for bed when the day was done.

Then the railroad took them off the engines and cabooses. they had them in vehicles that would be sent out so as to drive them right to the derailed car or cars. the main reason was to stop injuries to crews that carried them many car lengths causeing many a hurt back.

That stopped us from rerailing cars without the company ever knowing we had derailed. We also made use of any planks, boards, blocking, or ties that we could find. our most common practice was, if possible , run the cars slow slow to a switch and use the frog of the switch to rerail the car.

engines were a different story because of the weight, we would cut out the traction motor on the first up truck and run the locomotive up on the frogs. we would cut the derailed unit off if it had one traction motor to pull itself to the frog..this to keep from derailing them all account rail spreading underneath the units.

Hope they melted them all down...

Redtail67

Grumpy:

Would an "O" ring really work with the oval shape of the rubber? I have a kit of hundreds of them I just thougth they would ride correctly because of the shape of the rubber, not flat like a band.

JerryB:

Now that is an idea..i never would have thought of that! Thanks for the post.

Redtail67

Very Nice Upgrade!..it does have a few bugs but they will work them out.

Redtail67

Bob:

enjoyed the post! good humor and lots of truth to it! the jam as well as the peanut butter...oh man!.. the hours i have spent fixing and cleaning what my grandson has spilled dropped and smeared on the layout.

I have to admit as much as a pain in the u-know-what he is ...I have enjoyed every minute of it..well almost every minute.

Redatil67

Friction Bearing is how they were referred to. You are right we had to "rebrass" them alot when I first hired out. Hot Boxes were common and we were very glad that the railroads went full tilt into roller bearings.

However, many men were fired account the roller bearing did not give the warning the older journal boxes did. First smoe the fire till the oil all burned out. Then the axel started being cut and very shortly thereafter derailment.

The roller bearings were way different, if you were a lucky man, you looking right at it at thye right time. All that happened was a puff of smoke and at night some sparks were seen. The ATSF always told us at 50 to 70MPH you had about 5 minutes from the puff of smoke to stop or end up in the ditch.

From my personal knowledge that was just about it 5 minutes.

The ATSF fired the crew members closest to it and the ones on that side. In other words the engineer was responsible for any on his side as far as halfway back.

The fireman and or head brake man were responsible for both sides halfway back.

The rear brakeman and conductor for boths side half way to the head end.

The Engineer and or Conductor and sometimes others in the crew would escape being dismissed or disciplined if they were occupied with other required duties such as slowing or stopping to take siding. Copying train orders etc..

I onced turned over 45 loaded grain cars threw them all over interstate 45 burned a journal 56 back on the firemans side they fired all crew members but me as I was taking signals to take siding and was busy as heck.

If no real damage was done maybe just dropped the journal but all cars were upright they would just issue demerits.

They did not care if you could see it or not you still got it.

Redtail67

It did take a long time, cattle were not cooperating with the process. We would laugh our u know whats off with some of the problems the cowboys had with stubborn cattle.

Even if the loading went well, when we got them to Beaumont, they were watered and unloaded. Then they were loaded after so many hours and would they would be on the "High Rail" flying to KC mostly. I think they were detrained once more in most cases sometimes 3 times if they had delays.

It cost the railroads a fortune extra road crews and then extra yard crews to load and unload. They could not wait to put them in the trucks.

Redtail67

In the late 1960 time frame I was an Engineer on one of the last cattle trains run from Whites Ranch, Mile Post 37 on the the old G&I Branch of the G.C.&S.F.. This was located on the old branch to Galveston from Beaumont, Texas.

All the cars were A.T.S.F. 40 ft.

As far as cars in that time all the Southern Roads such as K.CS. , S.S.W., S.L.S.F, S.P., Katy all had stock cars in service as well as many of the Northern and Eastern Roads.

The cattle service was driven to trucks as the cost of having to rest the cattle and water them was to great and the railroads went outy of there way to get rid of them.

I can remember sitting by the tracks on spot waiting for other trains and watching for the cars of other roads. All kinds Central of Georgia, Nickle Plate, N.YC. Pennsy and on and on. The list of Roads and sizes shapes and so on were endless. Even the roads that had disappeared into history and other that had been swallowed up by Penn Central were still in service well into the 1970's. Many of the cars were the late 30s' and many more were 1940's era. The roads were represented long after they had died and the other roads took there equippment and did not bother to aggressivly repaint or renumber they just ran them into the ground getting all the service they could from them.

A person modeling in the 195-1960 time frame could use any equipment of the 1940-1950-1960 time and any road name and initials even of roads that did not exist and would not be inaccurate.

Redtail67

When taking my final examination for Locomotive Engineer...the answer to one of the questions on Train Order opreations resulted in my having a "Head On" collision about 2 miles from the switch.

The Rules Examiner asked my why I made the decision to advance to the next siding rather than clear at "Caldwell"?

I tried my best to impress this man with my knowledge of the rules and somewhere in the explanation of my actions I stated "...I assumed".

Imediately jumped up ran to the blackboard and wrote:

"ASS"   "U"  "ME"

Then stated:  "When you assume with train orders Mr. Hargrove you make an "ASS" of "U" and "ME", not to mention that you and your head end crew as well as the other trains crew are now in DEAD!

Never forgot that lesson!

Redtail67

Jim Banner:

Thanks for your reply.

After thinking about what you said I agree that it would be unfair due to the small samples taken.

Thanks again,

Redtail67

I agree on the email, its best to call.

I have had nothing but excellent service from Bachmann and I have had many a bad experience with service reps from India, Pakistan, and the Phillipines.

It was a pleasure to speak with any of the Bachmann personel, they actualy spoke english and understood it as well. They also had a knowledge of the product they serviced, instead of reading from a sheet of pre written problems and solutions.

I highly recommend their products and can not speak more highly of any company that I have had to contact for service of their products.

Redtail67

Jim Banner:

I found your post to be very informative and would love to have you follow up with another along these lines.

As a newbie and one that wants to learn from the voices of experiance, I ask if you have any charts or other information concerning reliability that you would be willing to post for our benefit?

That information based on your and your clubs actual experiance with various manufacturers and types of equipment would be very helpfull to us all.

As a matter of fact I have seen nothing posted anywhere about actual reliability of various products. I have seen many general statements such as "So and so company is better" and then a list of someones idea of how they rank.

Yet, to see how the reliability stacks up from real use on a layout would be great as well as having the ability to know just what fails (the weak part of the design) would help guide me as well as others when making a purchase.

Thanks for the great post!

Redtail67

Yes sir some really neat stuff.

Redtail67

I have several vintage ATSF posters that came out of some of the old depots. I picked them up right berfore they tore them down. I am glad I have them now.

Redtail67

Pretty Slick Video

Redtail67

Yamps Bob:

Thanks for that tip..I havfe several I never throw them away..most for old phnes and stuf 12-20 volts..good idea.