Clean out tracks

[NW Mailing List]

Thanks Jim and Ken!

On Tue, Dec 4, 2018 at 11:52 AM NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> Jim
>
> Just to add to Mr. Blackstock excellent write up. The are west of Shaffers
> was referred to, at least by my father a Radford Division conductor, as the
> “Clean-out hole”.
>
>  Now, my father was a child of the depression, and always wanted to
> repair, fix or use something over rather than buy something new. Now, I am
> not faulting him on that. So, with that in mind, at least once,  I recall
> him taking me down there one time to pick up some good plywood he had
> spotted them tossing out, so he asked, they said help yourself, and we went
> back in the truck to load up. I honestly don’t remember what we used the
> stuff for, but I remember walking around and like Jim said there was trash
> and nails everywhere, did not remember seeing any rats. But it was
> cardboard, paper, wood, scattered all over, and maybe 3-5 tracks full of
> boxcars.
>
> I suspect there are not many if any photos of the area, not because it was
> unappealing to rail fans, but it was deep on company property. The area is
> now all filled in, nicely covered with grass, and fenced off, hard to tell
> what might be buried under there.
>
> Ken Miller
>
> On Dec 4, 2018, at 9:43 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
> wrote:
>
> Jim
>
> The clean out tracks at Shaffers Crossing was just west of the engine
> terminal on the South side.  The old stock pen was in the same area.
>
> Re excessive super elevation.  Not sure on this.  Could be that the area
> between the tracks were worn down by removal of some dirt every time they
> ran machines to clean up the debris.  On the other hand it could have been
> by design to keep those rats from jumping in the open box cars.
>
> I was only at the clean out tracks three times.  One time to show me as a
> new employee where they were, one time to check on the location of a car
> and another to check out some interesting junk to see if it had potential
> use.  When you were at the location you had to watch every step.  There
> were plenty of nails and rats to avoid at all cost.  I never did see a rail
> fan with a camera taking any photos in this area.
>
> As for me, I would rather walk through the stock pens than the clean out
> tracks.
>
> Several years after my clean out experience when I was in the Traffic
> Dept. we put in charges for cleaning out cars.  This was a tariff charge
> that required all empty cars be cleaned by the customer before releasing
> the car to the carrier as an empty.  The only exception was dunnage used to
> block and brace the load being returned to the original shipping origin.
> This eliminated the need to operate the massive clean out tracks.
>
> Jim Blackstock
> On 11/28/2018 12:57 PM, NW Mailing List wrote:
>
> On another list there has been a discussion about clean out tracks and the
> cleaning of cars; some photos show the clean out tracks to have excessive
> super elevation that assisted in the removing of dunnage and the cleaning
> of the car, i.e. steam cleaning.
>
> Does anyone have insight in how N&W handled cleaning of box cars, etc?
> Were the clean out tracks super elevated?  Any photos?
>
> Thanks.
>
> Jim Brewer
> Glenwood, MD
>
> ________________________________________NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
> To change your subscription go tohttp://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives athttp://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
>
> ________________________________________
> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
> To change your subscription go to
> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
>
>
> ________________________________________
> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
> To change your subscription go to
> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20181204/55d33031/attachment-0001.html>