Turnouts, #15, #20

**landnrailroader** · 05-30-2026, 08:17

I thought I would let you folks know something about my nefarious activities while I worked for the Southern, 1965-1978. After late March of 1967, I was told that I was married to the R-1 car which turned out to be too literal. In 1969 my wife departed with our children and was awarded 1/2 of my gross pay each month. Pretty much normal but think about what that would mean to you, especially if you are young and just starting a serious career, which in my case lasted 36 years. So I thought I would comment on this R-1 thing. It is now at the Virginia museum in Roanoke but I don't think it is on display because NS occasionally wants it back during downtimes of their current equipment.

Hayne shop, Spartanburg, SC (now closed) maintained the passenger car & office car fleet. The R-1 started as a shell intended to become an office car. It was ballasted with lead under the floor to 275,000 lbs. in order to simulate rail loading of a full coal hopper. In one end there was a small engine room that housed a diesel-generator to make 120volts AC and to run the A/C which was electric also. No steam lines on this car. If it ran on a passenger train, it was to be the rear car. Next was small kitchen, then a bathroom that also had a small shower but like on a ship, you had to be careful. There was a tank underneath of 500 gallons and once that was used up-------. Next was a small bedroom with two pull down "Murphy" beds, one on each side. Then came the instrument room. At the precise middle of the car there was a gyroscope that ran at a speed proportional to the speed of the train and it measured elelvation in curves and was very accurate. Many times it tested within 1/4 inch of the value manually measured with a track man's level. Then at the rear end of the car there was the measuring table, essentially a big strip chart.

The truck under the generator end was not different from what might be found under an office car EXCEPT it was the only brakes on the car, both automatic & hand brake. This was because the other end had cylindrical taper wheels, rather than conical. Normally car wheels/axels are conical so that the wheel set tends to center between the rails if there is no elevation. But this would mess up vertical measurements (surfacee) and so cylindrical was required on the measuring end. On the measuring end, there was a frame connected to the end axle journal boxes (see image) which was somewhat flexible. Surface was measured by the relative motion of the center axle to the frame and this was called "surface". There was a rod at each corner of the frame connected to cranks on the bottom of the car floor and the motion of the four corners was called "twist". Then there were two spring steel "feelers" on each side of the frame, spring loaded to contact the rail at the gauge point. Two on one side coupled with swiveling of the truck measured "alignment" on that rail and on the other side was similar arrangement. Then two feelers opposite each other measured "gauge".

We also had a junction box on the measuring end of the car and by way of that we could connect a cable to a gyroscope mounted on the trailing car, usually a coal car being measured for rock-n-roll. More than 4 degrees side to side, i.e. +- 2 degrees was dangerous & so noted. Lastly the rear of the car had 2 floodlights near the track level and 2 more at the roof line. You could read a newspaper 500 feet back from there.

Now those feelers were a problem. Long turnouts like #20 have essentially a large opening at the throat of the frog, and the feeler would see this as grossly open gauge and then it would hit the point of the frog and be slammed back into gauge. All of this stuff except the super-elevation was connected by mechanical cables to the measuring table, so when we knew were coming to a facing point #20, we would step back from the table. Sometimes the feeler would ride up over the point of the frog and then the only choice was to stop and make repairs. The worst area to test was the CNO&TP 2nd district and we had choice places on that where we knew we might have a problem -- and where the nearest spur was that we could clear up on for repairs.

Later we added a early computer (Raytheon 706) to the car and this saved a lot of labor but exposed another problem. If the interior got warmer than about 90 degrees it would go into thermal overload and shut down. In 1972 as I recall I asked the shop to paint the roof white. This solved the problem, but a few days later the VP over us wanted to "Fire the lame brain s--b that painted the roof whte". I told him it was me, but take a look at the thermometer. He did, apologized to me - rare for L. S. Crane - and in a few weeks as I said earlier all the office cars had white roofs.

Jerry r1_1972.jpg

Turnouts, #15, #20

Turnouts, #15, #20

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