(erielack) Fuel costs & spillage on the EL

[WSmith5957_@_aol.com]

Reading of the fuel cost debate reminded me of a couple incidents at thde 
DL&W roundhouse at East Binghamton (Conklin) about 1961 or so......I was day 
hostler & had 3 gp7s at the fuel rack with the guns on 2 of them. When they 
were full, we'd pull ahead & fuel the 3rd. I was looking back when a man I 
recognized as one of the laborers gave me what I thought was a highball. I 
began pulling ahead when the r/house foreman came flying out of the office 
frantically signing me to stop. (did I mention that I couldn't SEE the fuel 
rack from the engr position???)  When I got stopped, the fuel hoses, still 
connected to the lead engines, were stretched out like a slingshot. 
      I got off the engines and approached the old laborer who was already 
explaining to the roundhouse foreman that "I just wave 'hello' to Smith". 
You've got to understand that the laborer 'Old Nick. the Russian' had come to 
the DL&W about the time of WW1 and been a laborer at the roundhouse ever 
since. Sitting in the roundhouse one night, he told us he'd been a soldier in 
the Czars' army and had marched from the end of the Trans-Siberian RR to 
Vladivostok in the Russo-Jap war acct. the RR was only partly finished then. 
You get the picture....command of-a da Eenglish language wasn't Nicks' long 
suit....kind of like a latter-day version of "Where-a you work-a John? On da 
Delaware, Lackawan" only this was the 60s.
       After a conversation with Nick about the dangers of waving 'bye - bye' 
to engines, the foreman & I went back in the office & the foreman said"That 
wasn't really too bad, Walt, last October, the same thing happened and we had 
a foot of diesel fuel in the turntable pit."
       The good lesson for me as a young hostler was the rule, 'A CLEAR 
UNDERSTANDING OF ALL MEMBERS OF A CREW SHALL BE HAD, PRIOR TO MAKING ANY 
MOVE' or words to that effect. I think of the many close calls I've seen by 
the disregard of this very basic rule...as well as the damage, injuries, & 
some deaths too.
Regards,
Walter E. Smith
employee #102156

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