Road Diaries

I like what Dave is doing in the CN forum, so I'll do one here in the CP as well. On the 25th I was ordered for train 514-23 at 0745 in London. This train starts out in Chicago, Blue Island Yard, and ends up in Toronto's Agincourt Yard. We had the 5701, 5940, and 5492 for power, and we were told we would be lifting two units at Woodstock. Out of London we were 6921' long and 9852 for our tonnage. Which for us is long and heavy for us. We lifted the 5591 and the 1618 at Woodstock. The 1618 had gone on the ground Friday night, the crew was trying to do a quick move but... Anyway we were told we had to do 30 MPH all the way to Toronto Yard due to the damage on the underside of the 1618. After we were done there, the radio's went down. So we sat at Coakley siding for about a half an hour waiting for the RTC to get in contact with us. We then had a straight shot to Tornto Yard. We were off duty at 1530. That night I was ordered for Train 507-25 at 2230. It starts out in Toronto Yard, and is all CSX traffic terminating in Rougemere Yard in Detroit. We had two SOO's for power, the 6051 and the 6040. We had a five car lift out at Lambton yard. After we were 5110' long and 6486 for tonnage. We had met about 7 or 8 trains along the way, quite busy for a Sunday night.
Anyway we made it to London and were off duty at 0535.

 

I'm reading this diary as well... I think this is a great idea....keep posting...even through the quiet times on trainsboard...

 

Driver8; What do you mean by "five car liftout" and "lift out two units?"

 

I think Driver8 and I can do a joint diary for last Wednesday. He was working, I was killing time watching him work. He was the conductor in GP9u 1618 when CP 742's power derailed in St Thomas, and they were doing the rerailing of the GP38-2 and cab car.....scanning the pics as we speak LOL.

Jon

 

By lift and set off. I mean not all trains are solid blocks, where all cars from the origin go to the destination. In Sunday's case, Those units at Woodstock had to go to the shop in Toronto Yard, so we lifted them since we were going there. On the way back Lambton yard had 5 507 Cars for us, so we took them too. I've heard some railways call this block swapping. Hope this clarifies the lift/set off question for you.

 

So 'lift' means to pick up and 'set off' means to drop off. You seem to use the same terms in reference to engines or cars. I'm just trying to understand the lingo

And thanks for the stories - and go ahead and use the lingo that you would use in your normal day to day work - well at least what's sutable for a family web site and I will jump in when ever I don't know what you mean (I think anyone here should feel free to jump in and ask what a term means when we don't know - it's the only way to learn)

So those two units that had to go to the shop - were they dead in tow? I think you said one of them derailed ("gone on the ground") And if they were powered would you have used different terminology?

 

Driver8 , your ripping me off man

Anyways , thats alright . Today while switching in the yard at Port Huron I seen CP #535 with the CP 8501 in the lead , my buddy Anthony was the Engineer on #535 and he had problems with the power , that don't surprise me

 

Well I'll tell you about the trip before last now. Ordered for train 419-23, Which runs from Windsor to Vancover. We only will take this train to Lambton yard where a Toronto crew will take it north up the Mactier Sub. well ordered out of London at 0600. We had the SOO 6608 and the 3089. We were 3564' and 2965 for our tonnage leaving London. At Woodstock we had two hot Autoparts cars to lift off of the CN transfer, as well a CAMI Multilevel off of the Stock pen track. Which made us 300' longer. At Galt we lifted two Toyota Multilevels so we were 4060' and had a tonnage of 3330. We were going to meet Train 747 at Killean, they were going into the siding. So we got the switch for them. They pulled in and cleared and we were off. The east end of Killean is about mille 55 on the Galt and everything seemed OK as we left. By mile 53 the Engineer and I smelled something wasn't right, like burning plastic. He looked to the rear first and saw smoke, sure enough our engine was on fire! Well we stooped the train at mile 51 and I gave the engineer the fire extinguisher and he doused the flames. It ended up being the turbocharger, and the wiring was the burnt plastic we smelled. He sent me back to the second unit to make sure it was loading properly, and it was. So we went on our way. The only grade we had to worry about was at Hornby. We call it the Hornby dip, it's west of where the Expressway terminal is. They were offering us a 9000 out of the Expressway terminal, but we made it! Totally impressed with that little unit(2000hp GP38-2), we only went down to 14MPH! Well we made it to Obico, and after all of this the RTC still wanted us to do a lift! 10 container cars on the tail end. Well we did it, but I had to walk up 5000' to the engines. Then it was a short trip to Lambton where we handed off the train to a Toronto crew. Then we cabbed it to the other end of town, we were off duty at 1500. We had 503-23 coming back, An uneventfull trip in comparison. We had the 6063 and 5669 for power. We were 4762' long and our tonnage was 5574. 503 is a mostly a container train but usually has limestone slurry tanks up front fron Smith Falls. The train origionates in Montreal Hochelega and goes to Chicago's Schiller Park.

[ 28 March 2001: Message edited by: Driver8 ]