The night the fat red rat shut down the mainline....
One of the jobs i got regularly driving out of Patterson Creek was the Burlington utility. The
utility man was/is a brakeman assigned to assist in the yarding of trains. In this case, the
yard at Burlington, WV had no yardmaster or goat<1>
assigned. And overnight 4 trains set out or
picked up at this location.
The Burlington utility was called for 1900, the same time as the southbound "pickup"<2>
train
WC13. While the WC13 crew was getting their bulletins and their train together, I would drive
the utility the 25 miles to Burlington to await the daily train from Capon, PC1. The branch to
Capon joined the main line at Burlington, and any southbound cars would be set out here for the
WC13 to pick up. While they were doing that, WC13 would be "in the hole"<3>
at Reese Mill
waiting for PC1 to clear. WC13 would then pickup the cars left by PC1 and forward them south.
In the wee hours of the morning, the process would be reversed, with PC6 arriving from the
south, dropping cars for Capon, to be picked up by CP2. Upon the departure from Burlington of
CP2, or 12 hours on duty (whichever came first) we would return to Patterson Creek to mark off.
In between trains we were free to do whatever we wanted which usually meant dinner & a nap.
The fat red rat was a covered hopper car in captive service out of Capon. It was unique on the
railroad, and according to railroad sources (off the record of course) was cobbled together
from parts of three wrecked cars from another railroad. They were written off by the insurance
company and supposed to be scrapped, but a shop foreman saw a way to keep men working in a slow
season and convinced management they'd get a car for the cost of labor. It was painted dark red
like a boxcar instead of gray like the rest of the covered hoppers. Somewhere along the line
somebody chalked "fat red rat" on its side. As a captive service car, it would come through
about once every week.
It was one of those dreary, drizzly October evenings in the mountains, with the mist
shrouding the peaks. The temperature hovered in the upper 30s, just warm enough not to snow,
but cold enough to soak right through your bones. Upon arrival at Burlington, we opened the
old station, now used by the track gang during the day, fired up the ubiquitous coffee pot &
sat down to wait for PC1. I had just taken my usual seat in the bay window once used by the
telegraph operator of the olden days when PC1 called the dispatcher.
<1>
a goat is a switcher locomotive, or in this case crew, which sorts cars in a yard. On the North End they worked at Patterson Creek, Petersburg, Capon and Riverton.
<2>
on the Alleghany, a pickup is a long distance local freight. its job is to pick up and set out cars for the shifters to place at the customers. They ran at night on the North end because that was when traffic was lightest.
<3>
in the hole is a railroaders term for a train being held in a siding, usually for opposing trains.
