QUOTE: Originally posted by artschlosser Mislabeled thread, methinks. A locomotive pole was usually carried on the tender and was used to move a car on an adjacent track; a dangerous practice not allowed these days.
Being Crazy,keeps you from going "INSANE" !! "The light at the end of the tunnel,has been turned off due to budget cuts" NOT AFRAID A Vet., and PROUD OF IT!!
espeefoamer wrote:When I saw the title "locomotive poles",I thought this was going to be about electric locos.It should have said "locomotive polls". BTW, I voted for Southern Pacific.
Yes, during my early teen years in Michigan I watched the crew of a Grand Trunk Western local freight use the pole to push a car on an adjacent track. It was done as described above, using the "dimples" on the ends of the pilot beam. When not in use the pole was hung under the tender of the 2-8-0. I believe these were known as "pike poles" (or was that just in the logging industry?) and were later outlawed because, if they snapped, bystanders could be injured or killed.
In the image at this link http://www.railarchive.net/gtw2683ctf.jpg you can see the pole hanging below the tender, partly hidden by the crewman standing next to it. [Photo (c) Richard Leonard, taken at Bellevue, Michigan, 1953]
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