Misadventures? Any derailments that put you in a really tight spot? There's a picture in Rob Leachmann's Northwest Passage that shows a silouette of an F-unit, and the caption states that the brakeman pulled the switch too early, and derailed the locomotive.
any rail that tells you (s)he never flopped a switch or had something go on the ground is telling you a lie! I never had any highly serious "groundings" , just a couple of incidents of putting a truck on the ground. The worst one was when I was a student conductor and qualifying on the Rockford(IL) branch,no longer owned by the BNSF. We put several on the ground and one of them was an old gon that was pretty tore up and run thru the fence at Behr Metals in Rockford. Closed the branch for a week! I flopped a couple of switches various times,but didn't damage or ground any thing. I did write a story about peeling the side sheeting off an open auto rack. That was my last "incident". I then worked mostly suburban service and then went into engine service. One thing that used to give me agita when working East Yard at Eola was during the winter and we would have to pull and/or spot the lumber yard adjacent to East Yard. This was done by 2nd and 3rd shift. There was poor drainage in that lumber yard and the snow melt and slush would freeze and cause a derail hazard. If conditions looked really bad inside the yard, we would run the loco VERY slowly on the stubs,there were two of them, to break up the heavy ice. If the ice was too thick, it would derail the empty lumber flats. Those things aren't very stable to begin with. That job was normally the last move the YM would give us so we didn't want anything to happen to mess up our quit! Charlie
Forgot to tell you(mebbe I did earlier,CRS!) We had a small flyer posted on the bulletin board in the break room at Eola. It was copied from the internet. It showed a HUGE derailment with cars,contents, wheels,sideframes,bolsters etc scattered all over the place. It showed a railroader walking away from the camera,picking his way thru the wreckage and he was holding his radio to his ear. The caption on the flyer read... "That'll do West Yard, take it your way"! ROFL Charlie
Did I say 30 cars? I meant three cars.... If the ice was that bad at that spur, wouldn't it lift engines off the rails? I remember reading in Bollinger/Bauer's Moffat Road book about conditions on The Hill, Rollins Pass, in winter. The Denver & Salt Lake outfitted a steam loco with air powered chicsels, built extremely sturdy to chisel out ice. It described ice so thick it would shatter the 3" ice chisels. If the flanger and rotary couldn't clear the line and flangeways, it would have to be picked out by the gandy dancers. Granted, it wasn't 60-below and 70-MPH winds in Eola, but the ice wouldbe tough to deal with regardless. Did it ever get so bad the loco couldn't break it up? Did the loco ever get stuck in the ice, spinning the wheels? Not on the ground, but over the rails...
It could derail the locos but they have a lot more weight on axles than the lumber flats. There were a couple of times we didn't go in there due to it being way over the head of the rail. Real locomotives don't work the way they do in the movie "Polar Express" LOL As far as wheel slippage goes, the biggest enemy of tractive effort is not rain,snow or ice, it is wet leaves on the rails. In the fall the "Racetrack" got a lot of that! You'll put flat spots on the drivers in a heartbeat. When the brakes are set, and there are wet leaves on the rail, it will grab the drivers and they will slide, giving a nice set of "square wheels". Charlie
Hi Charlie,Been awhile!Now we dont have underground here,but is there rivalry between guys that run "proper trains"(can here some yelling in background)and engineers on subway stuff. Cheers Stu. Im making hasty retreat under me chair with pot on head before subway guys start throwing stuff!:tb-cool:
well... many rapid transit lines, elevated/subway are actually full sized passenger railroads that run above or below streets. The train dynamics are similar, braking may or may not be different. Curves have radii and elevation. There are grades and switches. Some may even carry freight. The CTA here in Chicago used to switch out a couple of coal yards up on the north side of the city, until coal stopped being the main home heating fuel source. The coal yards were switched during the overnight hours so as to not interfere with the regular service. If one is struck by a subway/elevated train, one will be just as maimed or dead as if they were struck by a "regular" train. If you ever want a great example of rapid transit railroading as it was in the past, look for a foamer video about the New York els and subways. Those lines were built to some pretty high standards and they ran local and express trains and even used separate station facilities for the express trains so they wouldn't be delayed by the locals. Also get a copy of the movie "The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3". Walter Mathau is a NYC transit detective and there are some good shots of the operations center. Charlie
Yea damn good movie that.So as you said they use to shift coal to yards etc,I presume that, aleast, Chicago subway is or was connected to a major railroad?If so,is that the norm? I suppose now days subways are operating 24hrs aday. Cheers Stu.
==================================================================== There was an interchange with the Milwaukee Road at Buena(Irving Park Road on the North/South route). There was also a physical connection with the North Shore Line interurban. they would operate over the elevated portion and around the Loop. Those big steel interuban cars were too big for the clearances in the subway. Not all of the rapid transit lines operate 24 hrs a day. Only the Blue Line and Red Line provide 24hr service. They are the only two lines that operate thru a subway. The rest are either elevated or ground level or a combination of both.
Almost every day I visit a web-cam site attached to the police barracks in the market square of the little city where I was stationed in Germany. It is a rainy afternoon there and the leaves on the trees in the marketplace have changed color and are falling from the trees. Something I did earlier today triggered a memory of trains. The city of Herzogenaurach is or at least was the corporate home of the sports footwear companies of Adidas and Puma. They were actually the same family but split operations due to ideological differences. The town was on the end of a branch line from Nuremberg and had a very limited passenger service. When I arrived in Germany, via Trans-Caribbean Arilines from Mc Guire A.F.B. to Frankfurt-am-Main, after a couple of days of processing we went by train to Nuremberg and then by military truck to our post. I remember seeing the passenger train in town a couple of times and I understand that sometime after I left, railroad service was ended to the town. The town has grown considerably since then. In fact the post where I was stationed, a former 3rd Reich Air base and school, has become an industrial park, most of the WW 2 era buildings and hangars having been razed. I am wondering if the German Railways have ever re-opened service to that area. Also in that same general area,and not far from my post, the German gov't was building a new canal which was completed in the late 1960s! Germans still rely heavily on water transport. One other thing, the German actress Elke Sommers was from a neighboring town to Herzogenaurach! Fond memories of a time long ago in a place that had a profound effect on my life. Charlie
A very Happy Thanksgiving to all! Just keeping the thread current. If you have any questions... ask away! Charlie
The most Happy Holidays to all! I hope Santa brought you something for your hobby needs! Just keeping the thread current. As always if you have questions about prototype railroading, ask away. I dont claim to be an expert,nor knowledgeable of all railroads operations, but I can speak with some authority and answer questions as to how the BNSF operated. Charlie
Just droping in Stoped in and re-read a story "if it's new to you then it's not a rerun" C - carry on :tb-cool:
This is the time of year for remembering and the magazine "Classic Trains" is just the ticket(pun intended) for childhood memories. The Spring issue of "Classic Trains" has a short photo essay on the "U" class 4-8-4s of the Canadian National and its U.S. affiliates in this particular case, the Grand Trunk Western. I have mentioned before that I live about 150' from what used to be the main line of the GTW and is now the Hayford Industrial Lead. Just to the north of me is what used to be Elsdon Yard(named for the neighborhood). At any rate I used to see those "bad boy" Northerns when I was a little kid, especially the ones with the "combed back hair" type of air grille. Marvelous looking machines and powerful too. They could haul those heavy Standard cars on those Canada bound trains and later the streamlined cars as they came on. The GTW had some of the last(if not the last) 0-8-0 switchers built and those operated in Elsdon until 1960 or 61. They then went to work for Northwestern Steel and Wire in Sterling IL. I'll post more memories as time goes by(sorry Bogie!). Charlie
Hi Charlie,finally got back here!! Just been reading a few stories,including watashs ones,great reading. Back at xmas we went over the ditch to aussie to see our grandkids.Nothing unusual in that for the average person,but we had to travel into melbourne city to catch train to get where we were going.Now coming from a little,very little(shop,pub,garage,,,,thats it!!)place and walking into an eight track railway station and trying to work out which track had our train on it was abit of a shock for us country bumpkins:tb-sad:.But got it sorted.But while watching the trains and conducter on ours I did think to myself,and trying to picture it,that this sort of thing might be "Charlie territory" It was an amazing experience.Well for us anyway! Keep the stories coming Charlie. Cheers Stu.
==================================================================== How long of a flight(time wise)is it from New Zealand to Melbourne? How long of a train ride did you have from Melbourne? Speaking of small towns, my mother-in-law's family originated in a small coal mining town in central Illinois. Dunfermline(which is actually the name of a village in Scotland)IL, most of the residents were immigrants from Croatia(as were my wife's grandparents on both sides). This is a tiny little village with a general store and post office combined, there is still a school building,now unused. During the town's heyday,when the coal mines were still open, there were 8 bars in the little town. There aren't any now. I have always lived in a big city except for when I was in the Army. I have been in enough small towns to know how small town folks feel about the big city. It can be a difficult and frightening place to deal with. Yes I am sort of used to dealing with a multi-track railroad terminal and they are amazingly busy places! Charlie
Hi,We had to drive 3.5 hrs to get to christchurch airport(international),flight was 3hrs40 mins(headwind)flight home only 2hrs!!(massive tailwind).The train ride was an hour and a half.Didnt have to worry about looking out for our station to get off at though,ours was the last one so that was simple. The train ride was real smooth,compared to our TranzAlpine train(which comes over the southern alps from christchurch to greymouth,which is our nearest town,about 6000 population). Getting of bus and walking into melbourne airport,at the time three international flights(large ones) were checking in was a bit jaw dropping:tb-ooh:.Walked back outside,had a smoke took a deep breath and then attacked it!!! Anyway on that train we only saw the conducter only once even though there were quite afew stops,I couldnt work that out.As some of the people got in our carriiage and sat down.Maybe they new something we didnt. Cheers Stu.
