Just got called to run a hospital train from PDX to SEA. Train is going to have a bad order sleeper that PDX can't fix, the old switcher 566 which has been sitting with it's stacks sealed for over a month and the engine 72 I think pulling not sure what's wrong with it but it has been pulled off the builder a week ago for something. 50 mph speed limit I bet.
Cool! 50 mph with a bad order sleeper. There is no place in the 5 boroughs of NYC that I have seen a regular train do 50 mph! You guys have all the fun out west. And yes, please take some pics! Russ
Just waking up and will send more info on this trip from Hell! Job was called for 12:30 engineer, conductor only. We spent the first hour and 1/2 switching our train out, next 3 hours trying to get a good air test so we could depart. finally out of the yard at 5:07 pm. So much for photo oppertunities. Having the priority of Naval lent helped us to have a very long trip towards SEA. We didn't quite make it. At 9:50 pm just south of Auburn yard we luckly went over a hotbox detector. Which gave us a warning of a defect detected. When we checked, found the rear left Journal on the 566 was a mass of orange glowing moulten red hot. After a BNSF carmen looked and agreed with us that it was the worst hot journal we had ever seen we were instructed to NOT move the train until further notice. They sent for a set of wheels and a crane to replace the axle on site. They had to reroute the other traffic around us on main one. #14 which was already late was the first train by us loosing probably another 30 minutes or so for running against the current. When we left they were still looking at another 2 or 3 hours for axle cooling and men and equipment to show up before they tried to fix the 566. We left at 1am with a 3 hour deadhead back to PDX ahead of us which spelled out a very long 15 hour trip.
