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(erielack) Hooping up orders



Bill Shapotkin

As an aside, in the Chicago area we still have one
tower (Rondout on 
the CP  
(ex-CMStP&P) which "hoops" orders to frt crews on a
regular basis. Some  
of 
the crews, unaccustomed to this procedure,
occasionally miss catching  
the 
orders and have to stop their train and walk back to
retrieve them. Are  
there any 
places out east still doing this?
 
Bill Shapotkin

My control operators/bridge tenders at Bridge 37,
Bellingham Subdivision, Everett, Washington still hoop
up Track Condidation Messages to northward trains when
required. I still have a couple of brand new train
order hoops hidden and locked up in case their order
hoops ever break. 
The older guys have no trouble getting the TCM on the
fly. The new hires most of the time stand on the
engine steps and wait for the engine to almost stop
before they will try to sang them. 
I still remember when I was an Assistant Trainmaster
at La Junta, Colorado we where having a safety
marathon. One of the Amarillo Division Safety
Committee members was a former Rock Island Golden Gate
conductor that worked out of Dalhart, Texas on the
Rock. I was pumping him for Rock Island stories and he
was sitting in the lunch room holding court telling
them. We had a conductor there who had been on the
railroad about 3 years. When the two of us where
telling stories of hooping up orders he accused the
two of us of making this up. That it was unsafe to be
standing right next to a moving train and holding a
stick for the crew to catch. He claimed no one in
their right mind would ever do such a thing. 
It so happened that the current issue of Trains
Magazine had a photo of an operator hooping up orders.
I had to bring it to work and show it to this new hire
before he would believe that we where not making up
stories to fool him with. 
Bob Stafford


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