Well I'm back, and I have some catching up to do. It has been slow for us this week, even with the re-routes(see Jon's Service Bullietins). Last Saturday I was ordered for train 922-14 out of London to Toronto, for 1720. It origionates out of Windsor yard, and is made up from trains 510, 516 and some local traffic. The train terminates in Toronto. When I arrived at the yard office, I found out that the ATC switched me to another train, 544. The ordering times for the two crews got messed up so the engineer and I gladly accepted the train with less work! We had the SOO 6007, STLH5654, and 5658 for power. 76 cars leaving London, 5624' long and we were just over 6900 tons. We had a straight shot to Orrs Lake, the siding west of Galt. It has a crossing through it so we waited clear of it for our meet. As we can only block crossings for 5min. We met our meet, and then got a clearance, and proceeded down the hill into Galt. By this time it was 2100, we had instructions out of London to lift 5 cars out of track 1 at Galt, well when we got there we could only find 4, oh well. Galt is a maze of tracks. There is a main yard with a couple of tracks, a couple of tracks at the wye, a lower yard, and the Furgus spur which is a mile off the main. So delaying the train for 1 car isn't worth it, especially when it was an empty. We blasted off from there, got a clearance to the junction, where the CTC begins. We went straight to Toronto Yard. We had Special Dangerous cars so once we hit mile 25 on the Galt sub we can only do 35MPH, and once we hit mile 9.55 we can only do 25MPH. By the time we hit Toronto Yard and hit the Hotel, it was 0015 at our off duty time. I had a nice night in bed at the hotel, longer than thought but nice. I ended up on train 533-13 going home. Ordered for 1030, it was showing up on the line up for 0500 when we booked off. 533 is usually a straight shot container train, it runs from Montreal to Chicago's Shiller Park yd. Well we had the suprise once we saw the consist. All empties! 0 loads, 24 empties, 4635' long, 2 units - sweet! We had the 5741, and 5963 for power, the latter was isolated for feul conservation reasons. We were out of the yard by 1115, and had a straight shot home, 1 meet at Orrs Lake, and another with the roadrailer at Zorra. We were off duty at 1500.
Thanks Driver8! That sounds interesting. Keep the road diares comin', maybe in a few years, I'll be able to post some of my own
Well on the 18th at 0445 I was ordered for a combination service - relieve train 511-17 at Walkerville running track in Windsor. This was a wierd move to begin with because Windsor will usually have a yard crew take it over. Anyway got in the cab, the driver told us his doctor told him he was a ticking timebomb! He smoked, has Diabeties, and high cholesterol. He should have a massive heart attack at anytime(I'm not making this up!), so much for a nap on the way down! We arrived at our train 2 1/2hors later, In one piece! 511 was 79 cars, 5700 tons, and 5728' long. We also were left a note by the inbound crew that we had gotten scannered by the High/Wide detector about 15 cars from the tail end. So Windsor tower got the carmen out to inspect us, and make sure everything was ok. Sure enough the car in question was, but we did have a container door open. So they closed it once we pulled down to the connecting track for the tunnel. Once we got down there I observed a NS rain lifting out of CN's Van De Water yard. It had a 9252(in operation lifesaver) leading, with a 5171 trailing. Once they cleared, we got the light to go over. Went to Bay City Jct. where we sat for about an hour. I watched a NS local job run around its train. Once he cleared we got the light at West Detroit. We the pulled down to Delray, into the line of trains waiting to get through! We sat there for an hour waiting, I noticed both the NS tains I saw went by us, southbound, on the other track! We finally got the light through Delray, and into Rougemere yard. We were off duty in the hotel, back in Windsor by 1140. Thanks to our cab driver I crashed right out! Coming back I had 544-18, ordered for 2215. We had the lone unit 8579 for power, 106 cars, 6700' long, and 4266 for our tonnage. I ended up spending 4 hours in Detroit, as there wasa lot of congestion once again at Delray. We can give notice to only work 10 hours, in this case we did once we got to our side of the border. We had alot of meets, but no work. 508 a 60MPH container train was right behind us too, so we were hot! We met 503 - with the 5701 leading at Belle River. At Ringold we met 615 - with the 8523 leading, and 121 with the 9022 for power. At longwood we met 507 - he had the 5494 leading. We were off in London at 0730.
Hi Blake , I have been by Delray & West Detroit ALOT . Not since 1999 but I worked out of Detroit for a short time , kinda scary down there
Yeah, it was a culture shock for me the first time I went over there. Can you belive it was a Trains Magazine hot spot(I believe apr 95')! Not the kind of place I'd wan't to bring an expensive camera too. Or just be if I wasn't getting paid!
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Driver8: Not the kind of place I'd wan't to bring an expensive camera too. Or just be if I wasn't getting paid! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>ROTFL You got that right Blake
I have an another Detroit trip to tell you guys about. I was ordered for train 747-21 at 0820 in the morning in London. It is a unit auto mulyilevel train. It consists of auto traffic from Ford, Honda and Toyota. The train starts out in Toronto and travels to Chicago's Indiana Harbour Belt's Gibson Yard. We had the 5929 and 5917 for power, and we lifted nine multies out of track seven in London. We were all done our work and ready to roll by 0930. We recieved a clearance out of London for a meet at Glencoe. The meet was train 500, it had the 8515 for power. Once he passed we then recived a clearance to Tilbury, there were meeting the CSX turn. But first we got stopped in Chatham. A CSX local job was working over the diamond there, so we were stopped for five minutes. Once they cleared , we were on our way, the turn was well in the clear for us and we rocketed along. By then the RTC had issued us a clearance all the way to Walkerville. We got the light for the tunnel as soon as we pulled down to the connecting tracks. Pretty much we were lined up to Delray, where we waited for about 25 min. for a light. We then pulled through after a couple of local jobs went through, yarded our train in Rouge yard, and rode back to the hotel. We were off duty in Windsor at 1420. For the ride home, I was ordered for train 500-19, at 0145 in the morning. It showed up in Rouge yard with a lone unit, the 5666. Seems 544, which was ahead of us had a unit die on them. So 500 gave one up. So we were told to lift one off of the pig dock. We ended up with the 5666 in the lead and 6019 trailing. We had all containers, so once we were on the other side it was 60MPH all the way home(other than Intermodal, everything goes 50MPH). We met train 515 at the running track at Walkerville, and then Train 507 at Belle River. Then we had a straight shot home! We were off duty in London at 0740.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Driver8: We had the 5741, and 5963 for power, the latter was isolated for feul conservation reasons. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Does that mean 5963 was shut off or would it have been idleing?
In this case it was idiling. AT CP we have a policy to shut Locomotives right down if the temperature is not going to drop below five degrees celsius.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by yankinoz: Does that mean 5963 was shut off or would it have been idleing?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> There is a switch on the control panel on the back wall behind the Engineer , you can turn the switch to Run or Isolate . Bascially when you turn the switch to Isolate the unit is running in idle like Blake said , it is just not responding to the throttle . Actually you can have a consist of units like this . Lead : CN 5319 Trail: CN 9447 Trail: DWP 5906 Ok , thats our consist . Say you have 40 empties , light train . You want to read the paper and relax and not listen to the engine noise ect... So you can put the CN 5319 in "Isolate" and the 9447 and the 5906 will de doing the pulling . Even though the 5319 is idling , the rear to units are responding to the throttle from the 5319 . That works because between the units there is a big jumper cable called a M.U. cable or multiple unit cable . When I have a light train and plenty of power , I will generally Isolate the lead unit , so I can ride in peace I don't need to hear all that extra noise ya know . Hope that kind of clarify's Isolate & Run [ 23 April 2001: Message edited by: DaveCN5623 ]
Well this may be my last post for a week and a bit in this topic. As on Sunday I'm on vacation for a week. I was ordered out of London for 1600 as a TCS(turnaround combination service), meaning train to Toronto, cab back. Waited in london for about 45 minites for our train to arrive. once it did it was a quick changeover between crews. We had the 1103, and 5590 for power, we had 43 trailers, and were 2500' long. Of we went, the RTC cleared us to go to Nissouri, the first siding out of town. There we met train 511. Then from there we were issued a clearance to Coakley, there we met train 925(Guelph Jct. Turn) and the other roadrailer, train 529. Then we were issued two clearances one to Blandford to meet the Ham turn, and the next to go to Killean. By the time we got to Killean, the RTC contacted us and issued us another to go all the way to Guelph Jct., where the CTC and double track begin. It was a quick jaunt to Lambton yard, and we were told to yard the train in lambton 11, power to 13. Once we were done yarding the train we went to the cab, and two hours later we were back in London. We were off duty at 2225.
Thanks for all the diaries, Driver8! Very interesting read! <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> When I have a light train and plenty of power , I will generally Isolate the lead unit , so I can ride in peace I don't need to hear all that extra noise ya know . Hope that kind of clarify's Isolate & Run<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> That is facinating Dave! I didn't realize that could be done. Ya learn somethin' new every day here!
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lefty: That is facinating Dave! I didn't realize that could be done. Ya learn somethin' new every day here!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Lefty I still learn atleast one new thing a day myself [ 01 May 2001: Message edited by: DaveCN5623 ]
