Note: Mr. Jansen was born in Ithaca and spent his working career on the Lehjigh Valley. For many years he was a watchman at McMaster, Adaline and Talcott streets in Owego. He died April 12, 1981 at the age of 84. He wrote these articles especially for the Green Block, Central New York Chapter, National Railway Historical Society].
The Green Block, May, 1977, Page 8
A Real Winter With Lots of Snow
[By Carl "Pop" Jansen, resident of the Riverview Manor Nursing Home, Owego, N.Y. at the time].
This winter started early with lots of snow falling. The first snow fall began the day before Thanksgiving, in the year 1922. Twenty eight inches were measured on Thanksgiving morning.
My first call for snow plow duty came about 8:30 am. We were out until 4:30 am the next morning. I had a nice Thanksgiving dinner at 6 o'clock Friday evening. After which I hit the hay, as we were in need of rest. Snow falls of large amounts continued throughout the Christmas and New Year holidays. We were out several times with "Old Betsy,” as we named our snowplow.
The big blizzard of the winter came the 10th of January and kept up until the morning of the 16th. Large amounts of snow stalled both passenger and freight trains. A passenger train out of Elmira got in a deep cut in the hills of Swartwood Hill. Two freighters, run by veteran engineers, Timothy Wood and Charles Raftes, made it through snow in the cut as high as the headlight in the lead engine, after being stalled twice.
They left Elmira at 8:10 am, got to East Ithaca at 3:20 pm, received orders not to go to VanEtten. The snow plow with three engines got from Cortland to Elmira and back. We had been out all night clearing snow, so the passenger train could return to Elmira. We got to East Ithaca and started for Cortland in a work car with about 20 men with shovels, to help dig out stalled engines and their trains. We got some wood and some needed rest. Orders came to go to Freeville with the two locomotives and snow plow. We left the other engines at Cortland roundhouse for repair. We were to get two heavier locomotives from Sayre. These engines were used for passenger and fast freight trains.
The train racked up each time, so as to get up speed about a half mile or more and came into the snow barrier with a mighty thud! This made banks on each side of the tracks as high as a two story house. With a fast run and all the power they had we got through it. For a short time we were under it.
It took us 16 hours to get to Auburn. It took a crew of men with the snow plow, a weeks time to open the route to North Fair Haven. There were no trains for five days on the Sayre to Auburn track for four days on the Cortland branch. Snow lasted until the end of April and first part of May. It is not to wonder why old railroad men like to tell of their experiences when they are old!
Green Block, August, 1977, Page 6
On the Snowplow Detail
By Carl Jansen
A few things that have happened while I was on the snow plow detail, as most things do, happened very quickly and unexpectantly, with no previous warning or indication of what is about to take place.
Toward the latter part of February, as well as I can remember, there was a warm period of several days with rain and a lot of water from the melted snow. It had been a real cold and blustery winter up to this time. This sudden thaw and break-up did a lot of flooding on the railroads, highways and farmlands.
On one spot of the Lehigh Valley railroad tracks that ran between Elmira and Cortland above East Ithaca there was a deep ravine with a very large wooden bridge across it. [Brooktondale]. This ravine carried a considerable amount of water during times of flooding. At the upper end of the ravine was a forest, so stumps, branches, trees, and debris were also carried along.
When the old timber bridge had to be replaced, a large grate was built to collect debris and prevent it from going down the ravine. Well, it was collected all right. The grate became so clogged that the ravine filled up with water and soon covered the tracks. The thaw then ended, we had another cold snap and so everything turned to ice.
The call came in to take the snow plow and two locomotives to Cortland and farther north. There was a heavy snowfall with blizzard conditions. We got through the Van Etten interlocking tower just ahead of a passenger train. The snow was piling up from the winds.
I was talking to my seat mate, when we noticed ice frozen solid across the tracks. Suddenly, “Old Betsy" gave a big leap and went down the ravine. It stopped just short of a farmer's barn. The cows had just been milked and were leaving the barn. When the farmer asked how we were we said, "Fine,
just dropped in to help with the chores."
The snow plow was all that came down. The locomotives were still up on the tracks. It was about two weeks before they got "Old Betsy" back on the tracks. They had two wrecking cranes and two long cables to pull the old lady back up on the track, with very little damage.
Green Block, October, 1977, Page 5
Accident at South Bay
By Carl Jansen
In the August issue I talked about a wreck we had plowing snow between Elmira and Cortland. This month I'd like to relay a story about a similar accident that occurred at South Bay near Oneida Lake.
This accident was caused by a similar condition at South Bay at the head of Oneida Lake. This time it happened at about 2 a.m. when we were out clearing the remains of a two day storm. We were clearing snow that had been drifted in quite deep in places from the strong gale winds of the last two days. We left Canastota and were on our way to Camden and then to the northern end of the line. At South Bay a crew of men were cutting ice from Oneida Lake and were using teams of horses with old time bob sleds for hauling.
There was a grade crossing near the South Bay station. The ice cutters had been hauling ice -across this crossing all the day before and the melted ice had dripped on the crossing and froze. When we got to the crossing, not knowing the condition of it at the time, the front pair of wheels of the four wheeled truck hit the icy rails and left the track very suddenly. The whole snowplow took a leap and went off the track and down a short, but steep incline before I could pull the cord to have the engineer stop.
The plow slid sideways and hit the double outhouses at the South Bay station. Then we hit the corner of the temporary depot (an old passenger coach), shoving it off the foundation nearly four feet. The agent was kept in the station all night to report the progress of the work train and snowplow. The agent being a young student learning to be a stationmaster and telegrapher was a bit sleepy and was seated at the telegraph desk when the station was hit. Suddenly he ran out of the station in somewhat of a hurry
not knowing what hit him.
The foreman of the extra gang in the operator's seat in the high cab was given a hard jolt. After the very sudden stop, some of the crew from the work cars behind the two engines came running, and asked us if we were injured. Luckily we were just badly shaken up. The old timer (foreman of the extra gang) told the men that we were just sittin’ pretty. The front locomotive was off the rails and turned a bit sideways with the front truck wheels and drivers off. As luck would have it the hose connections to its tender were still all right, so we did not have to think about being without water for the boiler or coal to keep the fire going.
That lady called good luck was with us, as the accident did not sever the connections of the telegraph and telephone wires to the depot. Some of the fellows got the agent and operator back in the station and he wired our dispatcher in Cortland; reported the way things were; and had them send a wrecking crew to get the locomotive back on the tracks. They did not have any trains till the early afternoon of the next day.
Please excuse the joke, but this was the first time any of us had seen a snowplow wanting to use an outhouse. Little things happen all the time, but these two accidents while plowing, I can just never forget.
Green Block, November, 1977, Page 10
Memories of the Railroad
By Carl (Pop) Jansen
There have been a great number of things that have happened because of extreme cold or sudden changes of temperature; but the two occasions I can remember the best are time while I was working on the railroad.
I was a track.walker for our section of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, (Section No 32) of the Elmira, Cortland & Northern branch. I arrived one morning a little earlier than usual and realized that it was
an awfully cold morning. It was clear and frosty and particles glistened on everything.
Our section house was located in the middle of our section, about four miles from each end. The passenger and freight station was nearby and after that came a big steel bridge located high over a creek. The spray from the creek had caused the‘ties to be thick with frost particles as well as the rails of the bridge. A mile farther up the line was Besemers Station, where there was located a water tower and an ash pile from the locomotive ash pans.
From the bridge to Besemers I found a broken rail. It was on a cross tie and would not be a problem if negotiated at reduced speed. I would let the agent at Besemers know, so he could telegraph it to Cortland and also notify our section foreman.
It seemed to be getting colder as I arrived at Besemers. There I found that the water tower overflow drain pipe had frozen solid and this caused the tank to overflow onto the tracks. The main track and the loading switch by it as well as two other switches were covered. The switch points, guard rails, switch stands and rods were covered with ice from four to eight inches thick. I found the station agent at his home, nearby the station, and had him call the dispatcher at Cortland. The dispatcher called the section foreman and others to help clear the tracks and switches of the mess of ice. I glanced at the thermometer at the station window and it read 35 below zero.
I was able to find the valve that allowed water to flow from a small dam through a pipe to the water tank inlet. I got the valve closed only after using a torch and oil soaked waste. It took three more section crews as well as our own to get the main track and switches clear. By six o'clock that evening everything was about back to normal.
This was the winter of 1919-1920. Some of the thickest ice was harvested that winter to supply commercial and private ice houses. There was not much mechanical refrigeration at this time and ice was in demand.
In the spring there were many ice jams and much flooding because of a sudden rise in temperature. Large and small streams were clogged with ice and snow in much larger quantities than usual.
Green Block, December, 1977, Page 8
Days as a Track Walker
There was another hard winter during the years of 1922 and 1923. It was extremely cold for a period of about two weeks - so cold in fact, that many steam and water pipes on locomotives stored outside froze.
I was out on my usual track walking beat, this time heading the other direction, when I came upon a flag stop station called White Church. There was a long passing siding with a railroad telephone booth for the railroad dispatchers phone. This area was a very low and swampy location, with water on both sides of the track and very little current to move ice and slush away.
The ice and slush backed up for quite a ways, and then the weather changed. On February 18 & 19, 1923 the temperature went from about 30 to 40 below. It also began to snow in the Elmira area and a large amount of snow had drifted in many places. The railroad decided to send out a snow plow with two engines. One was a single cab passenger type and the other was a two cab engine of the Mother Hubbard type. They sent the plow out to clear the line so that train #81, the morning passenger run to Cortland would have no trouble.
At White Church I had just walked up to the switch for the passing siding and I noticed that it was covered with several inches of ice above the rails. Just at that time I heard the whistle of the lead engine of the snow plow. I took the flag I always had with me and walked beyond the trouble spot and stopped the train. After explaining the situation, the men of the work crew picked the ice next to the inside of the rails, where the wheel flanges run. The progressed very slowly, but finally got all the way through the trouble spot. The passenger train was flagged and had to wait over two hours until the crew of twenty men had cleared the main line and passing siding.
I was living at home at the time and I will never forget the good hot meals mother prepared. I think I was the most healthy of my live in those days. I was our section’s assistant foreman and track walker for nearly four years. I had the patrolling of the track and the care of the switch and semaphore lights at two stations and the flag stop at White Church. All the lamps were coal oil (kerosene) and some a composition of oils called signal oil. The lights were cleaned and filled two times each week and if any were reported not lit I had to go see to it at once.
I missed just four half days in all during my four year, seven days a week job. I had to go to Ithaca to register for the Army, take a physical, get fitted for regulation shoes with insoles to correct my flat feet they said I had, and to have my teeth examined. They never took me into the service because they said I could not march with the flat feet I had. The funny part was I was patrolling 7 1/2 miles of track, sometimes I had to walk it each way every day.
Green Block, April, 1978 Page 6
Runaway Trains and Lucky Results
By Carl Jansen
It was a midsummer day in June. We were sent to Elmira to help transfer steel rods and bars from several cars to lighten the loads. There were several bridges that would not carry the heavy weight cars if they were all coupled together in the train. We left Cortland on the morning train at 9:10 a.m. and arrived at Elmira at 11:50 a.m. Lunch was eaten on the train as we would only have a short time at Elmira, leaving at 3:15 p.m.
The Lehigh Valley yard at Elmira had all the equipment necessary for the loading and unloading operation. This was the time of the First World War and the railroads were kept more than busy handling war materials as well as troop trains.
From Elmira north toward Cortland, through Elmira Heights, Horseheads and Breesport, there was a slight grade, but the grade increased as you continued on through Erin and to Park Station. This was quite a summer recreation spot at this time with a large hotel and camping area. It was the summit
Park Station was the summit, as there was a steep downgrade in each direction. The steep grade to Swartwood was about four miles in length and then there was a steep grade into Van Etten, where it crossed the mainline of the Lehigh Valley.
As we were on the train leaving Park Station on our way back home, the train was picking up speed very rapidly as we descended the downgrade into Swartwood. The engineer sounded four shorts on the locomotive's whistle and then repeated it. The conductor and trainman both knew this was the
signal to apply the hand brakes. They went through every car and "tied down the brakes”. All of the men began to realize that something was not right, but we did not know exactly what it was.
As we neared the station at Swartwood, there was no slacking of speed, but the engineer tied down the whistle and the bell also. The regular passengers began to get suspicious and asked what was wrong. The local freight from Cortland was scheduled to meet our train at Swartwood. It had just pulled into the siding when we went speeding by. We continued to go past the station and didn't stop until we were within a mile or so from the Van Etten station.
When the train finally did stop, the conductor, trainman, mail clerk, baggageman, and about half the passengers went to the engine to see what had caused the runaway. I'1l never forget that scene as long as I live. The engineer was an extra as the regular engineer was sick. He sat on the end of a tie his head in his hands, and he was white as a sheet.
The explanation was that the blind drivers that this engine had so it could negotiate the sharp radius curves had a problem. The heat from the friction of the brake-shoe on the driver tire caused the tire to expand slightly. The engineer noticed the tire on one of the blind drivers was slipping off the wheel because it had expanded. To try to keep it from falling off, the engineer did not apply the brakes fully, but kept the air brake pressure quite low to keep the friction and heat to a minimum.
The conductor told the engineer that he had done a marvelous job keeping control of the situation and avoiding a major accident. The engineer was thankful to the Lord above for saving the train.
They put up the portable telephone and called the dispatcher in Cortland. The local freight engine at Swartwood was sent to take the train on to Cortland, The locomotive from the passenger train was to travel on to Sayre shops. The engineer was still so shaken from the incident, that he couldn't take the train to Cortland, so the freight crew had to do it.
The Green Block, July, 1979, Page 10
Floods and Some Interesting Incidents that Occurred
By Carl (Pop) Jansen
In the years of 1934- 1935, floods and cloudbursts caused a considerable amount of damage. This unexpected expense put: railroads and many smaller communities in a real bad way. Businesses, homes and farms all are hurt financially when floods occur. Farmers have to deal with the loss of crops and livestock as well as the washing away of much good land and the covering of fields with rubbish, stones and mud.
It was the summer of 1934. Many places had been hard hit by the floods of 1918 and 1919. The E.C. & N. Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad crossed Fall Creek near Etna and Freeville. In 1932 the timber bridge that crossed Fall Creek had washed away when a cloudburst swelled the creek and caused damage to the bridge. Rather than replace the timber structure, it was decided that two large cast iron culverts would be placed under the railroad embankment and they would carry the creek flow under the trackage.
When the culvert pipes were installed in 1932, they arrived as a 33-ton load for a gondola. They placed the two large pipes in the embankment and filled in over top of them. No concrete head walls or stone or masonry was placed at each end of the pipes.
The two cast iron culverts worked under normal conditions for two years, but in 1934 when the rains caused the creek to overflow its banks, the culverts gave way. The force of the water was so great that it washed the two pipes out from under the main line and passing siding. The pipes were rolled to a distance of around 300 feet and were placed lengthwise on a farmer's field. The farmer's fence had been completely flattened where the pipes had rolled over it.
To get the way cleared and to get those two big fellows back where they belong was the job of the extra gang, of which I was a part. We had to remove the trash and rubbish from the pipes and figure out a way of getting the pipes back under the tracks. We had two hydraulic jacks, known as "Whiskey Jacks” because they used a fluid that was a special alcohol. We also obtained some long poles from the farmer's woods that we could use under the pipes to roll them on. When we got through we cleared the flood trash off the farmer's pasture lot fence, repaired it where the pipes had damaged it, and put it up
for him. These things were done because when we had the pipes ready to roll, the farmer brought his team of horses and hooked them to the pipes.
The horses rolled the pipes up to the railroad right-of-way so that the cables and chains of the cranes could reach them without any trouble.
Another incident that occurred as a result of floods is a little bit more amusing. We knew a middle-aged man who lived in the village of Newark Valley north of Owego, about 12 miles up toward Freeville. This was the junction of the two Lehigh Valley Branch lines: the E. C. & N. between Elmira and Cortland,
and the Sayre and Auburn branch in between Owego and Auburn. He lived on the end of a side street. He had quite a bit of land where he was living at the time. He had a cow, a couple of pigs, some chickens, ducks and goats.
During the time of two days, there were several hard rain showers. Near the upper part of the village of Berkshire most of the flood water flowed northeasterly to the major stream called Willow Creek. Willow Creek is the border between Tioga and Tompkins Counties in this area. We had made a low
area to channel the flood water away from the Berkshire Station. But the second night of showers got Willow Creek going on a real bender the next morning.
We were all standing at the upper end of the bridge that went over the flooded creek. Between the underside of the bridge and the water surface as a fairly large distance. All of a sudden we noticed a strange object coming down the creek toward the bridge. As it got closer we noticed that is was a chicken coop. Bill Frawley was the local farmer I talked about earlier, well, he was with us helping.
The coop went under the bridge and caught the beams on the underside of the bridge with the roof of the building. Pill let out a real yell almost like a war cry of an Indian and leaped onto the roof of the coop as it appeared on the downstream side of the bridge. The chicken coop was Bill's and there were still chickens inside and a few on the roof.
A few of us had pike poles that we were using to poke at the flood trash that could get caught at the bridge and block the creek. We tried to shove the coop with our poles. Finally after several tries we were able to direct the coop toward the creek bank. We threw a rope to Bill and he was able to tie it to a rafter that became exposed when the roof hit the bridge. We finally got Bill to shore.
Bill let us know that he had only lost two or three chickens. Several other farmers came along to help Bill. They had crates in which they put the birds and took them to market. In all there was between 70 and 80 chickens in that chicken coop. This was one of the many times that the Great One above
lent a powerful hand to help.
The Green Block, July, 1979, Page 10
Old Days on the Lehigh Valley
By Carl J. Jansen
Some of the different things that happened in the early days of railroading were very important then, but now are just railroad history.
One of the most unbelievable things happened in the year of 1920 during the month of February. I was sent to the western half of our section as there had been some freezing and thaw in which we had during the latter part of the winter. This gave our section foreman a lot of grief as it caused a lot of humps in the track.
Freezing caused the water that settled around the ties to freeze solid and that caused the rise in the rails. The tracks had to have a lot of rails each side of the hump to allow them to be shimmed up to ease the trains wheels over the hump. If it got real bad it could cause the tracks to get out of gauge by a substantial amount.
Now during the first World War traffic was unusually heavy on most all of the railroads. Even most of the branch lines might have runs of freight and special trains of war materials. There was at this time one run at night which many times was a double header. Each section of the line had some quite long grades that had to be double headed. The locomotives used were very powerful and rugged made engines. They were not too speedy but had lots of power to pull heavy tonnage trains and also to act as pushers up the steep grades.
When these night trains arrived at East Ithaca Station they made their usual stop at this station which was on the hill east of the city of Ithaca and near Cornell University. Cornell had a large heating plant for all of the university buildings and therefore a large number of cars of coal were switched each day during the winter. On this particular day in February, someone noticed that one of the cars of coal had a long piece of rail sticking out of the hopper at one end. The piece of rail had attached to it a
splice plate and bolts which were held securely as ever. There was a great problem for those who saw it as they could only think that the rail had been picked up out of the main track somewhere. None of the other cars each side of this one were damaged nor was anything wrong with them.
I was walking the track that morning as it was lamp day. The switch stand lights and the signal lamps at both Besemers and Brooktondale stations were to be filled, which was done twice a week. When I got to the east end of the loading siding, I found where the outside lead rail of the switch had the end broken off just back of the switch point. After calling the dsipatchers office for the branch at Cortland we found that there was a great lot of confusion all along the line to Cortland, as not one person thought at the time that the pieces of rail in that coal hopper could have come out of anything but the main track. It sure puzzled a lot of people and railroad men how that rail could get into that car and not cause a derailment.
The answer is obvious when you. know that the rail was not from the main line, but from a switch point rail. This was one of those things that would not likely happen but once in a lifetime.
