| I am going to delay describing the other jobs I had at the railroad during my career and kind of give you a little more detail as to how the railroad operated while I was there. One of my viewers made a request recently to explain a little more about what a typical day at the railroad might be like and what exactly we did there. So, here goes... The railroad consisted, and still does, of different operating crafts that handled different aspects of railroading. The clerical part of the railroad (that's where I worked) of course handled most of the paperwork - that is, checking the trains as they came into the yard, lining up the waybills, making up a list for the yardmasters to use when they humped the train. I know this might sound weird to some but that is what it was called. Because as trains came into the yard - most of them came into the Receiving Yard - they would pull the train into a certain track as instructed by the Yardmaster. Usually, a clerk or carryall driver would have to go get the crew off of the inbound train and transport them back to Yard A or the diesel shop. It has been a while, but I believe the receiving yard had 10 tracks...some of the present day or former railroaders can correct me if this is wrong. Different inbound trains would pull into the different tracks. Usually, the hostlers (these were guys that would later become engineers) would take the engines off the train and take them back to the diesel shop for servicing or to put on an outbound train. The clerks in the office were responsible for getting the waybills from the conductor of the inbound train and lining them up just like the train as it pulled into the yard. You sometimes would have what we called "no bills". This meant that particular car had no bill telling us where it should go and would be marked to a special track in order to give the clerks time to get the billing information to move it out as soon as possible. When it was time to hump one of the trains in the receiving yard, a set of hump engines would go up and get on the end of the train and start shoving the cut toward the yard office. Some cars in the train that contained LP Gas or Explosives or some cars that were "Big Loads" - that is, too big to go over the hump - would have to be set out onto another track instead of being humped into the bowl. All this was handled by the Yardmasters, switchmen, conductors or engineers on the engines that were pushing the cut of cars. Of course, this meant a lot of radio communications between the different employees - plus hand signals from members of the team. Needless to say, this all took a lot of expertise in what you were doing and making sure you did your job safely as safety was a key issue on the railroad. While I was in Hamlet, we still used IBM cards to match up with the waybills. That way, we could put the lined up IBM cards through the computer to print out a list. This list is what the yardmaster used when he started to hump the train. He relied on the accuracy of that list to get the right cars into the right track in the "bowl". As the train was shoved over the hump, each car would go to a certain track in the bowl, according to their destinations. I believe there were around 60 of these tracks there to catch all the cars as they were coming over the hump. Clerks had to know most of these tracks and what cars went into which track. It has been around 20 years since I worked there but I can still remember some of the track assignments: 43 Charleston, 41 Florence, 68 Henderson, 28 Fayetteville, 36 Bad Order Track, 21 Andrews, 50 Bostic, 55 Hopewell, 56 Charlotte-Southern, 58 Atlanta L&N, 37 Petersburg, etc. Between the retarder operator, the hump conductor and the yardmaster, the cars were sent to the correct track. The retarder operator controlled the "retarders". That phrase describes the brake-like parts on the track that would slow down or "retard" the movement of the cars. Once a cut had been humped into the bowl, the yardmaster would send the list back to the scale clerk. Now, the scale clerk also had a bowl - it was a round rack that spun around and it had slots for all the tracks in the actual bowl that the cars were humped to. As the cars were humped, the yardmaster would mark what track each car went to. Then, as the scale clerk got the list back, he would put each waybill into the slot where the yardmaster had it noted on the list. All this occurred at Yard A. Getting the trains ready for departure mostly occurred at Yard B but sometimes Yard A would do this also. As the yardmaster got instructions as to what train they needed to build, he would instruct the yard engines at Yard B as to what cuts to pull out of the bowl and what track to put it in the Departure Yard. Most of the time on each shift there would be around 4 or 5 switch engines with crews doing this job. Like I have mentioned in one of my previous parts of Working on the Railroad - My Story, the clerk at yard B would have to pay close attention to the yardmaster conversations in order to ascertain which crew and what track they were going to get. Because as the cars were pulled by, the clerk had to write down all the car numbers. The perfect solution was to get this cut called in to the scale clerk before the cut that just went by was shoved into the departure yard. The yardmaster would always be a little upset if after the cut was shoved into the departure yard, he found there was a car that didn't belong there. If that was the case, it would cost one of his crews time and delay in going in and cutting that car out. One of the primary objectives of getting the outbound train built was to get it ready on time - and having to go in and cut cars out would always cause a delay. Of course, sometimes this would happen anyway when the car inspectors would inspect the train after it was built and find a car that was unsafe to travel. Then, the yardmaster would have to cut it out of the train. Once the check clerk at yard B was finished with checking the cut, he would call it in to the scale clerk. It was the scale clerk's job to get the correct track and line the waybills up in order as they were called in by the check clerk. After so many cuts had been pulled out and sent to the departure yard for a certain train and all called in to the scale clerk, he/she would run an outbound train list and give the list and all the waybills to the conductor of the outbound train. When the train left the yard for its destination, the 1050 clerk would transmit the IBM cards that the scale clerk had lined up to their destination over the computer. This is basically what happened when a train arrived and another one was built to leave Hamlet Yard. This is done 24/7, 365 days a year. I am sure a lot of the above is still done today except there are no clerical employees there anymore. All the cars now have a barcode on the side and it is read electronically in Jacksonville, Fl - where most of the clerical work is now done. Hopefully this gives you a little idea as to what went on during a typical day - although, this is by no means a complete picture of all that takes place as trains arrive and leave. There are many more people and jobs that are required to make it happen. As I continue my series, more will be written of these other employees and life on the railroad. So, another chapter written of Working on the Railroad - My Story - and another memory of how it was growing up in Rockingham, North Carolina - a small textile town in the South in the '50s, '60s,'70s and '80s. |
| Working on the Railroad - My Story - Chapter 5 written by Joel Bailey March 8, 2009 |
| So, as the Train of Life keeps chugging along, another page written of my Memories of.... Rockingham Remembered. |
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