Life On The Rails !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kenneth and Tracie Josephson]

Jim Holland wrote:

> Greetings!
>
>         Great story  --  and fascinating story-teller!  I am certainly game for
> more!  You paint a very vivid picture!
>
> Bob Schmidt wrote:
>
> > That's right, Ken. You didn't have your charms in order. As a matter of
> > fact, neither did I, and didn't need "no stinking passes" either.
>
> > I lived on the edge by trespassing, jumping onto and out of private
> > property to squeeze off shots, and running like hell when the yard Super
> > came hustling toward me swinging his fist in the air and yelling
> > obsenities.

Picturing this gave me a much needed laugh. If you did get a pass from the PAT
office, you could still be denied access...the yard people could cite car movements
(getting ready for rush hour, etc.)

Since we all know about thieves and weirdoes within our hobby, the yard super's
reaction in Bob's story is understandable. For example, during the last several
weeks of operation, some North Shore Line motormen carried wrenches with them. It
seems that on multiple car trains, fans would steal the Westinghouse air whistles
from the middle cars. When trains were shortened at Waukegan or South Upton
Junction, the crews would find the whistles missing from what were middle cars in
the longer train. The men had to quickly unscrew a whistle from elsewhere to
install on the head end.

One motorman got into a physical altercation (and won) with a fan who tried to
steal his grip containing his reverse key and brake handle at a CTA "El" station.

Paul Fischer of Milwaukee once stole an entire interurban car!!!!!!!!!! After
Milwaukee's "Speedrail" line ceased operation in 1951, the power was kept on to
discourage people from stealing the copper overhead. (The trustee was seaching for
a buyer.) Paul and some other young fans got a car going from the Eighth Street
yard. They abandoned the car on the main line at the 27th Street station almost
three miles away!

My personal experience has been to ask....quite often the surprised (and amused)
transit employees were more than willing to help.

I am also sure the upper management's reaction to a ten year old kid falling off a
piece of equipment stored in a yard would result in some sort of discilpline to the
yard crew if they had been proven to be "looking the other way."

I can tie the Milwaukee information into this list....during a review of
Speedrail's (lack of) safety policies, a Pittsburgh Railways manager was hired to
share his knowledge of radio phone useage as well as his expertise in Nachod signal
systems. Ken J.