OURHAMLET.ORG

How many trains came through Hamlet a day in 1936?

36?

Is this a trick question? I remember one day back in 36 that the whole east coast froze over and only one train came through and he just wanted his bearings greased. I think it was in November.

Aug 13, 1936 Hamlet News Messenger says 32.

The Hamlet News Messenger's subheadline is grossly misleading... it's like counting chickens twice. "16 in and 16 out" still adds up to 16 because I doubt all passengers debarked in Hamlet and a completely new passenger train formed with different passengers. And the Rockingham and Bennettsville Railroad can't be included in that count because I don't recall ever seeing any passenger cars on that line.. only freight cars (and very few at that).

[The Rockingham RR did saw them many times when we lived on School St in E. Rockingham they came right by our house, but they didn't stop in Hamlet just passed by 2 miles south

OK

I used to squirt grease in the bearing cups at the hump yard while my dad ate his supper. May not have been the hump yard though because sometimes I would have to wait for the train to slow to be able to hit every cup with the grease wand.

The cars were greased just before going over the hump. There was 2 pits, one on each side of the track. The pits were done away with shortly after a car knocker (car inspector) David Billingsley was killed when cars were derailed and fell into the pit.

I remember that. Shook my dad up pretty good!

That's a sad story. I remember those pits from working on the yard.

The necessity for the pits was eliminated by the change from journal bearings on freight car axles, which required replenishment of the oil and rags that lubricated the bearing, to roller bearings that are almost universal today. Most railroad passenger cars began getting roller bearings in the 1930s, but the switch for freight cars was just getting under way in the late 1960s and early '70s.

Re freddie hassler's post of today: I understood just the first phrase, which was clear enough, but the rest of the post completely befuddled me. Is that a variation of the once super-secret Navajo code talker's vocabulary? Does Double Over to be rehumped mean what happens when someone drops the soap in a shower room?

Sometimes finding yourself in the middle of a railroad conversation is like waking up and discovering you're in the middle of France.

Thanks loads Bruce! Blew beer out of my nose reading that.

That was a double good response Bruce.