Automatic Journal Box Oilers - Shaffers Crossing Photos 1961-1962

Sat Dec 28 11:34:30 EST 2024

His Excellency Mr. Yanos von Garner, Grand Satrap of Newport and Freiherr of Giles County, Virginia, asketh as follows:

>>>>  This statement in your response to Jim C. made me wonder if you have any
recollections about the Automatic Journal Box Oilers (one on each track)
located at the summit of the Shaffers Crossing hump. These replaced the
manual filling of journal boxes with oil.  <<<<<

Answer:  Negatory.  I never saw an automatic car oiler.  Surely such a thing must have been the invention of Mr. Gordon Hamilton, Mechanical Engineer of the N&W Motive Power Department, resulting from some very terrible nightmare.  And such a contraption probably resulted in significant cost over-runs, the firing of the consultant who designed it, and the Comp'ny's  sheepish return to the earlier practices and methods !

But as a consolation prize, I am attaching a photo which I took in either 1961 or 1962, looking westwardly from what was called the "Hump Shanty" at the apex of the Hump.  In actuality, this structure was a small office, perhaps 14' X 18' or so, on the north side of the North Hump Lead (track over the Hump.) It was the office of the Shaffers Crossing Yardmaster and was used by the Conductor of the crew humping cars on the North Hump Lead. On the far side (i.e. the south side) of the two Hump Leads was a much smaller structure, which served as a shelter and "office" for the Conductor of whichever Hump Crew was shoving cars on the South Hump Lead.  Sometime I will give you a little write-up on how the Hump operated, but let's save that for later.

The photo was shot through a window, and the window frame and sash are visible.  The structure visible in the distance at far right is is the north side car oiler's shanty, and there was a corresponding structure on the south side.  Both were fabricated from sheet steel, as I recall.

In the photo, note that the cars being humped are moving over two sets of crossovers.  The farthest set of crossovers provide for movement between the north portion of the Receiving Yard (tracks 1-10) and the south portion of the Receiving Yard (tracks 11-20.)  The crossovers closest to the camera provide for crossing over from one Hump Lead to the other, as, for instance, in the case where a train yarded in the north portion of the Receiving Yard had to be humped over the South Hump Lead.  Note that these switches still have oil switch lamps on them.

One of the car oiler men is visible in the photo, ready to squirt oil into the next journal box rolling past.  The journal box lids were opened by the Car Inspectors performing the inbound inspection on inbound trains yarded in the Receiving Yard.  Each Car Inspector carried a "packing hook" bent from steel rod.  One end was bent into an oblong handle, and the business end was bent at a right angle into a "hook."  Total length was perhaps 20".  The Car Inspector used this tool to pull the journal box lid open, then he inserted the hook portion back into the journal box and slid it along both sides of the axle, feeling for scorings and irregularities on the axle.  If the axle were smooth, it passed inspection, but if the Inspector felt scaring or roughness, that indicated a problem at the bearing/axle interface and the car was shopped and went to the Shop Track for remedial work. 

The Car Inspector in the Receiving Yard left the box lids in raised position.  This meant that the car oiler on the Hump had only two things to do:  Use the oiling gun in his right hand to squirt oil into each journal as it passed, and use his left hand to slam the journal box lid closed.  They always worked with a rag or piece of cotton waste in their left hand. The areas where the car oilers stood were dug out perhaps 2.5 feet below grade, so that the journals passed the car oilers at about waist height.  When trains were being humped and each car was equipped with friction bearings, these fellows worked at a furious pace.  Any lids the car oilers failed to close were closed by the Car Inspectors (at Park Street) who coupled the air hoses and brake tested outbound trains in the Forwarding Yard. The entire area of the oiling pits was coated with oil, and the car oilers wore heavy rubber gloves which reached almost to the elbow.  The oil was pumped underground from the Oil House, whi
 ch stood west of the 24th St undergrade tunnels.  From the satellite imagery, it appears that the Oil House still stands at these coordinates:  37.279344, -79.977456

I never did Car Inspector or Car Department work, but I always found it interesting.  I recall that a Car Inspector wanted to find "free oil" in the bottom of each journal box, i.e. a supply of oil which had not yet been wicked up from the cotton waste or journal pad in the bottom of the box, to lubricate the rotating axle.  At points where cars were received at interchange (e.g. Waynesboro, Glade Spring, etc) Car Inspectors carried huge, long-spouted oil cans  (perhaps of 4 gallon capacity ?) to oil journals during their inspections.  And steel barrels full of car oil, and set up in wooden cradles, were located at intervals along the tracks where inspections were done, so that the oil cans could be replenished.  My guess is these barrels had a capacity of about 30 gallons, and each was equipped with a brass spigot.  I recall some of these drums being kept at intervals in the wide space between Tracks 10 and 11 in the Shaffers Crossing Receiving Yard (west of the tunnel underpass.)

I do not recall what "humping speed" was, but it was about two or three cars per minute.  The length of the average car was much shorter back them.  Today it is hard to find a car only 40 feet long, and no shipper wants to load any car which has a capacity of "only" 50 tons.  The 100 ton car is uniquitous in today's railroading, and the capacity would be twice that number if gauge loading and bridge factors could accommodate the increase !  (National railroad main line bridge ratings are now "286K," i.e. 286,000 pounds;  they were upped from 264K about 35 years ago.)

There were only two car oilers per shift on the Shaffers Crossing Hump.  In retrospect, I now wonder how oiling was accomplished when trains were being humped over both Hump Leads simultaneously - a phenomenon which happened frequently back in the booming days of the late 1960s.  I do not know the answer.

If you want to know exactly where the Hump car oiling activities took place, use Google Maps to check these coordinates:  37.279029, -79.976388  The two black "stripes" showing in the satellite imagery, one on the south side of each Hump Lead, are probably asphalt walkways laid down in later years for the walking safety of the Trainmen who had the monotonous car cutter jobs.  Anywhere where we had humps or ladders where Trainmen were almost constantly engaged in cutting cars, underfoot conditions were always an issue.  The men doing the work were always asking for "walking stone" to be spread atop the ballast stones, and it was an easy request to satisfy. I recall that back in the early 1980s, the railroads could buy any size of stone desired for $4 per ton at the quarries.

I have given all my photos to the N&W Archives, but will here attach several which were taken in 1961-1962 in the area of the Hump and the Car Oiling facility.  All information is in the file names, including my own negative numbers. 

In the photo of the three T-6 Class engines  pulling cars westward up the Hump, my negative #101342, there is something which caught my eye.  Look at the extreme right, just to the left of the dirt bank.  You will see two Position Light Signals, one governing eastward movement and one governing westward movement.  Those signals are on the old Eastbound Main Line, and I think they protected an electrically locked, hand-operated switch in the main track, leading to a crossover to a yard track.  Those signals were gone by the time I hired in 1964, as the Eastbound Main Track had been downgraded to a Yard Track between WB and Commerce Street, and used in classifying coal which went over the Hump.  I remember looking for the foundations one night when I was called for a very long Bristol Line 95, with Conductor Caspar J. "Musty" Hayes.  The head end was at the Radford Division Pull In and the caboose was down in the viscinity of those signals.  I found those signal foundations that night,
  and my guess is that they are still there, to this day, 60 years later !

In Roanoke, there used to be a story about an old Italian Gentlemen who had come to this country, prospered through his diligent labor, and purchased a new car, which was the apple of his eye.  He frequetly returned the vehicle to the dealer, asking for every little bump and rattle to be corrected.  Much to the frustration of the dealer, it goes without saying.  The old Gentleman would always bring in a long hand-written list of issues he wanted investigated and corrected, and at the conclusion of each list were the words, "Dat All I Know."  

And so it is with this little answer proffered in response to Mr. Garner's question...  "Dat All I Know" !

-- abram burnett
 Our Turnips are Furnished with Linear Compensators
.
.
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