Re: (erielack) Hooping up orders

[erie910 <erie910_@_fastmail.fm>]

Didn't Trains magazine have an article recently on an operator hooping 
orders up to AMTRAK engineers and conductors because they were running 
against the flow of traffic during some track work?


Ken Bush

Robert Stafford wrote:

>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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