STALKING BUSINESS CAR 2 on the C & O

       For one thing that was the time the C&O began to receive some of their earliest diesel-electric locomotives. Also that was the year the first of all those Pullman Company passenger cars began coming through following the initial "Chessie" rolling stock deliveries from Budd Company but which were destined to fade rapidly in visibility on the C&O when the "Chessie" train failed to materialize. As most everyone knows the Pullman Company cars became the backbone of the C&O fleet. These units were equipped with the "latest" electrical equipment which included an "amplidyne-booster-inverter" to "manufacture" 120 volt AC power from the DC battery supply in order to handle electric outlets and fluorescent lighting etc.

       As a field service engineer for the General Electric Company operating out of Charleston W Va one of my responsibilites was to follow up on those "under-car" electrical equipments primarily by visiting the Electrical Department in the Huntington Shop. Electrical shop foreman and assistant were Dale Johnson and Cliff Collins They had built a test panel to run diagnostic checks on the DC MG set (5M150GMG) and its DC voltage regulator as well as another setup to run checks on the AC amplidyne-booster-inverter and its voltage regulator. The AC regulators were of the (then) new static amplistst (or in Westinghouse terms Mag-amp) variety and I spent a good bit of time trying to familiarize the C&O shop electricians with that equipment. One little gentleman in particular - a Mr Brown - was very good at it. He was a unique picture of a "master" electrician with a "quilted crown" shop cap that was almost too small for his head, a pair of small diameter wire rim glasses down on his nose, and a canvas shop apron - much like a butcher's apron with a bib - to protect his clothes.

        Another gentleman I soon became acquainted with was Clarence Bland who was by then the C&O's System Passenger car electrical expert - and an expert he was too. He had come up through the ranks out of Ashland Ky where he was maintenance electrician on through passenger cars - which often required that he climb aboard a train and ride it through until he found the trouble and got it corrected before unloading at the next convenient point to catch an opposite direction train back to his base at Ashland. Clarence and I attended a week long "school" for such people in Erie Pennsylvania (GE Works). There were men from the B&O, the D&RGW, the NYC, and the Pennsylvania plus about three of us GE field guys. Clarence was the only one from the C&O. He was IT for them!

        Clarence used to tell some tall tales of his exploits in and around Ashland. One reason he got where he was on the C&O was his ability to take a message from a conductor from - say - Maysville Ky as to trouble on a certain car in an eastbound train and he'd have it diagnosed and have change-out parts at the ready when the train rolled into Ashland for its brief stop there. He got really good at it because he knew the equipment so intimately and his name eventually spread around among the brass so its no wonder he was promoted to the System job.

        Like I said, Clarence was a story teller "par excellente". One delightful tale I vividly recall him telling was about "STALKING BUSINESS CAR 2"!! Seems Business Car 2 was the private preserve of the vice president of all operations on the C&O (whose name slips my memory) but this official was a no- nonsense individual who made things run to his satisfaction just by his "overbearing" nature.

        One summer this official decided that he and some of his cronies would take his business car up the Hot Springs Va branch for a week of "roughing" it. Of course they would have all the amenities of life on an official car - cook - butler - valet - personal secretary etc. Furthermore he decreed that he wanted to see NO other C&O personnel like train crews, track gangs or anything else. There wasn't much traffic up that branch anyway but nevertheless what ever there might have otherwise been was annulled for the duration!

        Being summer time it was essential that the car maintain its cooling capacity as well as its AC receptacles for plug in electric shavers and the like. Well, obviously if the car doesn't move there's no way the belt drive from the trucks to the generator pulley can keep the battery charged. And just as obviously there'd be no place to plug in the 230 volt three phase power plug to some tree so the motor generator motor set could run to keep the battery charged.

        So what to do?? Clarence and his buddy in the Huntington Shop Ernie Hulbert who was supervisor over battery maintenance for the system concluded they'd have to add a propane driven generator to keep the batteries up. But how the heck could a propane engine be fueled with enough propane to keep it going for the week that the "old man" and his friends were "camping out" realizing of course that he had decreed he wanted to see NO other C&O personnel anywhere within their sight all week long. Nothing to do but bring Car 2 into the shop and add the propane engine set and then somehow figure out how to do their deed without being seen by the "old man".

        Ah! The joys of being able to just relax - fish along the nearby streams, play cards, enjoy the sumptuous meals and beverages typical of business car life and not be disturbed by "civilization".

        The propane engine maintenance was Clarence's and Ernie's problem. But solve it they did. They had to "STALK" Car 2 so as to be sure the official party was certain to be out of the car and fishing somewhere a good distance from the track. Then they'd sneak up to the car being ever so careful to avoid being seen (except for the car's own crew of servants) and refuel the engine with enough fuel to last for maybe another day and then beat a hasty retreat. So that's the extent to which the peons used to have to go to be sure the big shots had their uninterrupted fun - and it involved -as Clarence called it:

       "STALKING CAR 2"!!!

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