Hi,

How many museums show this type of recreation? It may not be rolling stock or track, but it is railroading history.

Doug vV


http://ngdiscussion.net/phorum/read.php?1,321913,321913#msg-321913

I don't think AMTRAK is considered a mueeum but in 1982 while waiting on the Wilmington, DE platform for a NYC train, I was surprised to see orders being hooped up to the engineer.

In April of 1971, right before Amtrak, I rode the San Joaquin Daylight from Berkeley down to Mojave. It was a Saturday.

As soon as I got off the train, the operator, Jim Newsom, handed me a hoop and said "give it to him". There was an SP going west through there and he showed me where to put my feet and I managed to get it done OK, including a set for the rear end. I spent the next 6 or so hours with him and then caught the Santa Fe Chief back to Richmond. What a friendly individual.

I've had the chance to see train orders hooped up on CSX when the road still had manned towers, including at least two mechanical interlockings, between Brunswick and Cumberland, Md. This might have been in the 1990s (I'm working from memory, so feel free to correct if needed), and of course I would imagine some of us recall Allen Brougham at Miller Tower in Cherry Run, W.Va. The video clip below is from an old tape originally published by Revelation Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXcysKA4scU

The Monticello Railroad Museum staged hooping up orders a few years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB6dAmxPz0U

More recently, the Fort Wayne Historical Society crew got a set of orders on a test trip from New Haven, Ind. to Leipsic, Oh. This was a surprise to the crew on the 765, as a local fellow with rail ties gave a train order that read "Have a nice trip back to Cascade."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8t684AFEV8c

Finally, I have to say thank you to the Texas State Railroad people for running what looks like a well maintained and operated heritage railroad, at least based on the longer video of the special trip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf8gBq_jGVI

A question: When was hooping up train orders last done in revenue service in the US? (I'm assuming the practice is now extinct.)

I remember in these parts there was a big to-do in 2006 when the LIRR finally closed (and then demolished) PD Tower in Patchogue, NY, a manual interlocking where the operator was still occasionally hooping up orders until the very end (and there was even an article about it in Trains magazine if I recall correctly). Are there any examples later than 2006?

-Philip Marshall

They do it fairly frequently at the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth Ga. You have a better chance of seeing it done during the weekdays in summer when a lot of the younger membership is out volunteering. The conductor rides in the caboose with the public, and will let them know ahead of time so they get the chance to watch and understand what is happening.

That same operator still hoops in Babylon, certain trains.

A few years ago, my late aunt was approaching 97 years old. She grew up in Butte, MT, and attended school in the east. Her mind was pretty well shot, but once I asked her, "You rode the train to get to your school, didn't you?" Her reply, "Oh, yes, it was a wonderful ride. And you know what? Sometimes the conductor would open the door when we were going really fast and a person on the ground would hand up a secret message to him!"

Even when it was common, hooping up orders made a big impression on a young lady. That was one of the few things her Alzheimer's-ridden mind remembered.

Back in the 1970's, I got a chance to get orders hooped up to me at LIRR's PD tower while going for a ride in the cab ride with a friend engineer on the winter Patchogue- Montauk train. One of those experiences that a young railroader never forgets.

I do have a hoop and would love to share the hoop experience with some of our volunteer train crews. Easy to replicate.

We've demonstrated hooping orders fairly often at the Railway Museum of Eastern Ontario.

Brings pleasant memories of hooping orders to the head and tail end of fast moving CNR freight trains late at night, many times through the late 70s and very early 80s, courtesy of an operator friend. Not too many railfans today get that chance.

Steve Hunter

I remember warrants and special instructions being handed up on the run at slow speeds. I'd climb down the ladder and grab them as we rolled by. Didn't use a hoop or fork at the speeds we would be moving at.