Reply To: Engineer – Fireman’s Lineup Board – Cotter, Arkansas

[Bill Pollard]

I have a sidebar question about 201-202. I worked the Newport TSE for a number of weeks in 1970 on the school boy brakeman’s extra board. A big part of the 2nd trick job was to drop everything and switch 201 when it arrived in Newport. We would use the road power to switch this train, blocking it for easier delivery to Memphis connections. I wasn’t aware that the crews worked Memphis-Cotter at that time, but I don’t recall anyone else in the cab or on the train when we did this work. Did the through crew go for beans while we did this work, or ??? What would have been the purpose of having our TSE crew handle this blocking work versus having the road crew perform that work — did MP avoid penalty pay for the road crew by this maneuver?

We were generally left alone to do our work, but switching 201 often brought out the trainmaster from his office in the depot to observe or check such things as whether “green” brakemen had a standard watch. All work in the yard was done by hand signals (or lantern signals after dark), but for 201 the TSE conductor would go to the depot to check out a radio pack set which was used to expedite switching. After 201 had departed, we turned the set back in — the thinking among crew members being that if we used it all the time, the company might try to cut a brakeman position from the crew.

This was well before the UP merger, but 201-202 frequently had UP power, often GP-9 B units. At the time, seeing the UP power was quite exotic. Little did we know that we would all too come to detest Armour yellow.

Bill Pollard