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(erielack) Rudy, Norm, Memories

Sitting here on a cold winter's afternoon, a little under the weather myself, just put a log on the fire, and reading these posts leads to reminiscing:

Norman Reddy was a character I liked.  I posted with him at Newark tower, when he held second track. It was the middle of summer,'66. After the evening rush, the second trick maintainer and the bridge tender would come in, and one of them would go down the block to the nearest bar on Broad Street, and come back with containers of beer.  One chairs were set up on the walkway along the south side of the tracks.  We were, recall, on top of the viaduct, between Broad Street Station and the river.  Where the freight yard had been, they had built a two-story motel.  Was it a holiday Inn?

Anyhow, everyone sat down in the lawn chairs facing the motel, chatting, and waited for the evening's entertainment to begin.  Being on the second floor, facing some sort of ill defined industrial railroad scene, the patrons of the motel on the second floor felt no need to close their drapes. You get the idea?  The companion sport was watching for cars pulling into the parking lot without anyone walking into the motel.  This meant they were still in the car...
on one of these evenings we were looking over the railing straight down through the giant glass that made up the fastback of the original Barracuda.  There was a couple in the barracuda, and apparently the seats either fully reclined, or whatever, but they were feet toward the dash, and head & shoulders & etc. under the glass.  After a few minutes, this did get boring, and besides, an eastbound scoot was coming due and we would have to move.  Norm gently tipped his cup of beer and released half an ounce on to the Barracuda's backlight.  I bet that guy still has a headache -- what a thump. 
Once again, for you folks that weren't there, there was tremendous pride in getting the trains over the road on time, and there was very little in the way of Mickey Mouse discipline.  I am not endorsing violating Rule G, but hopefully you get my drift.  At the time, I was underage anyway, yet another violation.

That reminds me of the legendary Harry Kirsteiner, who was signal maintainer at Summit when I held first trick there. There were so many stories of Harry when he worked down in the terminal.  Apparently, Harry made his headquarters in the Hudson House, and when there was an emergency on the plant, he would be fetched up.  I heard many variations of the same story of Harry being led out to a failing switch, with them and holding him up, and pointing down and telling him to "fix this, Harry."  Apparently, Harry was good enough that his ability counter- balanced alcoholism. Like many railroaders of that time, Harry spoke cynically about getting all he could out of the company, getting them before they got him (to put it somewhat more politely and he did), but he would genuinely bust his hump to deal with emergencies and keep things moving.

More Rule G stuff. Davey Kinner had 17 years in at the time, had moved to second trick Summit after he had made a major contribution to having third trick abolished by reporting number 10 by when it was still in Binghamton.  Anyhow, Davey would put away a six pack or so every evening, and throw the Cayenne's straight out the window.  This, of course, led to their being an enormous number of beer cans on the ground strewn across the tracks, etc..  Davey's theory was that he would tell the trainmaster that these cans were thrown by people from the adjacent street overpass.  Nevermind that all public hands were distributed within 15 feet of the tower, and none reached the wall track or hill city.  Harry and Harry, the signal maintainers, cleaned up after him in the morning, and we finally convinced him to take empties with him in a sack.

Let's see... it's Winter of 65, and Bill Sheppard has been called to work third trick at UN. It's snowing like crazy, with about 8 inches on the ground already.  Sounds like time for a railfan party to us.  We pile into Bill's Corvair, and away we go, how to Route 46 into the "country."  We stop at Paul's diner (did I get that right?)  which was adjacent to the Rainbow Lakes interlocking, and continue west.  Heading into the tower from the East End in order to avoid the hill coming in from the west, the floor pan of the Corvair is being lifted up by the snow.  Much swerving and pushing, and we are there.  Unfortunately, so is a track department gang, totally worn out and taking a rest in the warm Tower after sweeping and skunk oil burning the switches.  They are sprawled all over. Mother Sipple is going to have a heart attack Monday morning over the condition of the place.

Anyhow, we know what we are there for.  HB-9 goes West, and we set up the 8mm projector using the window shade adjacent to the GreenDell TCS machine has our screen.  There is a track worker scrunched over under the substantial front overhang of the interlocking machine.  He opens his eyes just as there is a tight, near head-on shot of an E-8 blasting past, and he bolts upright, head straight into the machine.  Everyone thought it was hilarious, of course, accept him.

Oh, back to Norm.  He was a good guy to work for and with.  I have to say, that Rudy and Fred were really crabby, humorless men to work with. George Beckwith was a fine gentleman, but I have to agree that the Lackawanna dispatchers were competent, gentlemen, and thoroughly professional, relative to the Erie guys. Bob Collins was an exception, although he remains a lifetime model for sardonic wit and a dry cynical posture.

Although I hired on five years after the merger, you were immediately identified as an Erie or DL guy based on where you lived, or where you worked. I would tell Erie guys that I grew up in Little Falls, and DL guys that I lived in Newark -- both true.  

A curious aspect of working the towers, was that people formed incredibly intense opinions and attitudes about others on the basis of minimal but critical interaction.  If your relief came just on time, a "minute man", that was a big negative.  What was positive, was to show up 15 minutes early.  You then expected your relief to do the same.  There were some guys that had not spoken civilly to each other for 10 years based on that level of interaction.

Time to go...

Len VanderJagt

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