Storytime with Charlie

I cant speak as to how its done in Australia, but I know in this country,on of the ways AMTRAK crews will collect tickets is on the platform. The conductor and brakemen will only open so many vestibules and have the passengers queue-up to pass by them where they will then be advised where to sit and be issued a "hat check" to place on their seat.
On the long hauls, out of Chicago, they will wait until they have picked up at all the metro area stops and then do a ticket sweep. After that, it is pretty much a cake-walk.

Charlie

 

Another thing I can add to this is, and based on personal experience, for folks boarding at a major terminal ie. Chicago Union Station, tickets are collected at boarding. First class passengers have their accomodations indicated on the ticket stubs and the car attendant will assist you once you reach your designated car and see that you locate your bedroom or compartment. Assigned seat trains will have your row and seat number designated. I rode the Broadway Limited several years ago to Elkhart IN and it was open seating. The train was sold out. The brakeperson seated me in a handicapped seating area since she knew I was a short-haul. That was a nice ride!

Charlie

 

There is a discussion about train orders on the "New York Central System" board in the
"Fallen Flags" forum.
It is mostly concerning the identity of a certain point and just where was it.
This brings to mind a tutorial for all budding railfans and railroaders and that would be on
track authority.
The G.C.O.R. glossary defines "Main Track" as a track between terminals and through yards which may not be occupied without authority or protection. Quite simply, you ain't gonna put your train on a main track unless you have a piece of paper ie,train order,track warrant, clearance card etc or CTC indication or spoken,repeated and acknowledged conversation between your crew and a control operator.(read dispatcher). There are other things which may preclude your operation on a main track such as a valid air test,or qualified train consist, but our topic is track authority.
Let us just use track warrants for this tutorial since train orders are virtually non-existent. Your track warrant may give authority between designated stations, mind you, it doesn't need to be an actual building, a "station" may be only a sign,or between indicated control points, which can be stations or mileposts or a place designated as "Control Point(CP)___". Authority can be given between signals, or between mileposts
or almost anywhere there is an actual identifiable point. Authority may be issued for a combination of those points. IMPORTANT....Authority and Permission are NOT the same thing as regards main track useage. Authority means your train "owns" the piece of railroad over which it has authority, Permission is what the dispatcher is likely to deny if you ask permission to stop your train within your authority in order to pick some daisies.
Oftentimes while one is operating on one's authorized section of track, the dispatcher or control operator,will radio your train and ask you what your location is. You will reply to him or her that your train is clear of(_____________location)usually a mile post or control point. Normally you will determine that the rear of your train has cleared a milepost at least 2 miles behind the rear of your train, some guys go as much as 5 miles.
What is happening is that the dispatcher(or control op.) is "rolling up your authority"behind you in order to give continued track authority to a train following yours.
This is NOT an unusual situation on a busy railroad ie.BNSF or UPRR,NS or CSX. It is absolutely imperative that you be fully aware of where your train is so that you and your train are protected by your track authority. It is MANDATORY knowledge when operating in "dark" territory since there are NO signals to convey track occupancy,unlike ABS or CTC. Track warrants AND authority MUST be copied,repeated and acknowleged accurately or it is liable to end in a tragedy. Failure to accurately comply has led to loss of life already,you dont want it to happen again. Failure to be aware of and heed CTC signals led to severe loss of life in California several years back.
In closing, operate your train only within the limits of your track authority. If something appears to be "out of line" with your authority, question it and rectify it BEFORE you enter into the main track. It is better that you have a TM holler at you cuz you took a little more time than (s)he would like than to have that TM call your spouse and tell them that you wont be coming home.

Charlie

 

Here's a rather simple question... but maybe it'll spur a story...

Let's say you have a simple spur with a cut of loaded cars on it, and your train has a cut of empties to be swapped out for the loaded ones.

How exactly do you do it?

 

Your train will pull past the switch to the spur. You will unlock and line the switch for the spur, you will shove your train,with the empties into the spur, tie onto the loads, cut in the air, pump it up, pull out the cut of loads, reline the switch for the main, shove the loads down the main until they are in the clear of the spur switch, set handbrakes on the loads,cut the empties away from the loads,pull ahead to once again clear the spur switch, line the switch for the spur, shove your empties in the spur spotting them properly if required, set handbrakes and cut away the power, go back to the main,reline and relock the switch,tie onto your loads,cut in the air,release the handbrakes, provide highly visible rear end protection if necessary and go on your merry way.

Do dat answer your question?

Charlie

 

Yes, thank you!

If the empties are only the first cut in the train, do you drop the rest of the train just clear of the switch and then push it back when you move the picked-up loads, or do you (try to) leave them far enough back from the switch that when you couple the picked-up loads to them you don't have to push back any farther?

This remind you of any stories?

 

Ooh... got another question... any stories about railfans or "foamers"?

 

And I got another one too,after you answer Twindad.
I would have thought all trains wouldve been tracked by GPS?Then they would know exactly where each one was..............or not?
I know of a couple of trucking co here that do it,just means drivers cant be where they shouldnt be.

Cheers
Stu.

 

Foamer stories!? Hehehehe. I ruined a guys shot in Streator on a NSIGAL once. He was waving and gesticulating like he was going to take flight. I couldnt figure out why till he yelled at me " Get out of my shot!" Umm sir I am SUPPOSED to be here on this train, so I did a lil dance and waved a lot. He bout had a stroke!Normally I am a nice guy, but it was 110 degrees out and of course the NS motor that had air wasnt in the lead,come to think of it it wasnt in the trailing position either lol.

I did tell a guy off that was trying to tell us how to build our train ( with no idea as to why we were building it that way)Said if he wanted to run the show then get hired and bid the job. Yeah it was another hot day lol Something about me and hot days I guess.

But I do try to help the railfans that are nice with questions and stuff.I will wave to any who wave at me ( if I am paying attention)Or if I am stopped and somene has their kids with and we wont be mocing for a bit Ill go down and talk to them.One time in a land that was "Golden" and had "barley soda" we let a mom and her 2 kids up on the power.Yes she was very pretty,but we did it for the kids. Honest.Ok so mom was an incentive as well but anyway.....

In Matteson Illinois the CN is placing a "tower" for foamers to take pictures and watch trains go by.I feel like a star though. My pic has been taken more in my RR carrer than in my life I think!

 

Usually leave it just in the clear of the switch then shove as necessary. We used to do this a lot in the Oregon IL area. There were a couple of "sand plants" there that would sometimes require extensive switching. One of the plants mined the sand and would wash and grade it and send it out to customers. The other sand plant would take cars of already graded sand,sometimes it would be loads from the adjacent sand mine, and they would treat the sand with various resins and glues which would then be used in metal casting processes. The sand mine had a small yard which was switched per their instructions. Certain customers would take only certain types of hopper cars, so their switching needs were very demanding. The new Oregon siding is 11,000 ft long and would normally be used for the switching operations, provided there were no trains in the siding. Sometimes joint authority could be issued for the siding if the occupying trains were short enough. The sand plants were at the west end of the Oregon siding anyway! We used to do similar switching on the Mt. Morris branch, we would be the only train on the branch anyway.
There was a small yard at Flagg Center, on the former Rockford branch. That is where I switched cars by color. Folks laugh when I tell them I switched cars by color, but it's TRUE!

Charlie

 

most of the stories I can repeat about foamers I have already written earlier in the thread.

I don't recall ever having a bad experience with railfans. The ones we encountered on the "Racetrack" and at Eola were pretty much regulars, and pretty much just hung around to watch train action. Not a lot of photography going on. The west end of Eola had a lot of action what with commuter trains coming and going most of the day and switch jobs 24/7 at Eola. There were also trains making set-outs and pick-ups at Eola and there were several industry switch jobs throughout the day and night. The only time when there would be large gaps in the action would be during the "wee" hours and the railfans were normally gone home by then. The regulars were extra eyes and ears and the special agents knew it and in several cases relied on their information to pursue miscreants. The west end of East Yard at Eola had a parking area away from the road, nobody was bothered, nobody was in the way of anything. Sometimes fans would come up and chat with us switch crews, just to exchange pleasantries and say hello.


Charlie

 

Thanks, Charlie and Fireball!

Please keep the stories coming as you think of them... even just the "this is how we would do X or Y", even if it doesn't *seem* to be interesting or adventuresome. It's still good stuff...

 

Thank you for your gracious compliment. I will try to answer your questions as best I can.
I wish Wayne(Watash)was still with us. He added an historic dimension to railroading that is rapidly diminishing!

Charlie

 

Yeah, no kidding. Watash was one of a dying breed for sure, and a good storyteller. You two made a good team.

 

One of my favorite "foamer" stories is about the railfan who was watching us putting a train together with two Dash-9 road locos. I was working day shift West Yard at Eola as the helper. It was during the Christmas holiday season. The regular guy was on vacation and I just happened to have the most seniority of the available people so I was able to hold the job for several weeks. We were putting together an extremely high-priority "road-railer" premium service train. We would do our regular industry switching and at an appointed time our strict orders were to stop whatever we were doing and to begin putting together this road-railer train. The train was assembled in what was at that time an auto-transloading facility. It is long closed now and the tracks removed.
The job that normally worked that area was called the "Nabisco Job" from the breakfast cereal plant we switched as part of the work. There was a maximum duty fork lift on site to place the wheel bogies on the track and spot the trailers on them. The contractor who handled that job had their own "foreman" to oversee the work. My foreman would be in charge of the actual movement of the train as it was assembled and he was in the company of the trainmaster who had the ultimate authority. This was a brand new premium service at the time. On-time delivery was guaranteed or the shipment was FREE! To parphrase the famous line from an equally famous movie "Failure was NOT an option". The road locomotives had been hostled to the assembly site by an earlier shift and they were fueled and ready to roll. Our crew would assemble the train, move it from the staging area to Eola where we would be relieved on the main by the waiting road crew. The train had already been air tested as part of the assembly. For the road crew it was a "step-on, step-off" job! Easy Money! As for us, the switch crew, it meant an early quit. My part was to be with the engineer and unlock & line the necessary switches. When we turned the train over to the road crew, my foreman had already bid us a fond "Adieu" and I would tie the job up on the computer and go home myself. This was a real candy job!!!
Back to my "foamer"...
It seems that one of the two Dash-9s was a Santa Fe job in "Warbonnet" colors. The foamer was watching us from the parking lot of a trackside private industry. There was no fence or barrier between us so he approached us, hailed me, I slid open the cab window and he asked me if there was any way we could put the Santa Fe unit in the lead. Dunno why, perhaps he wanted a picture. I consulted with the hogger and we couldn't come up with any way to do it since the wye track was being used for the assembly of the road-railer. We had to decline his request. Later on as the hogger and I got to thinking about it, we realized that we should have asked the foamer how much it was worth to him. If the price was right, say maybe $150, we might have found a way to do it. ROFL!! $50 bucks each for a few minutes extra work would have been a nice Christmas bonus!!! I really liked working that job for the 3 or 4 weeks I was on it, but I was never again able to hold such a prize job.

Charlie

 

LOL! Reading through that I was all set for the "foamer" to launch into a "you're doing it wrong..." thing. I wasn't expecting that request!

I presume on a job like that, high priority, high risk of cost on failure, the whole team had been thoroughly prepped, trained and briefed so it would go like clockwork?

I don't know that I would have the nerve to ask the crew to drop what they were doing and pose for a picture... a "Hello! Nice day!" maybe... maybe even a "mind if I take a few pictures?" or a "Whatcha doin?", but to ask them to drop everything and rearrange the consist for me? Naah...

 

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We really didn't have all that many serious grades except for the west end before descending into the Mississippi River valley. The roughest one,at least to me, was eastbound coming down the Oregon hill. That was dynamics all the way. If one was in the siding, it was necessary to control the train and bring it to a stop by the west end since that was single MT on the C & I and because of it's length, the Oregon siding was a place the dispatchers could hold a couple of trains sometimes to let westbounds go by. One did not want to lose control of the train and run out the east end possibly into the face of a westbound. The roughest thing about the C & I was it's roller-coaster profile where one could have both run-in and run-out on the same train at the same time. My dear mentor's favorite phrase was "Ain't no flat track on the C & I" . And there ain't!!!!! LOL

 

LOL Charlie thats why the C&I was "modeled" for the simulators. Only time I got to run on "it" so to speak.

I have some Hill stories.Coming east out of Creston we hit Albia hill and were down to 8 mph. Well cruising along and the DS says " where are you guys?" So we answer and she says okie dokie and leaves us alone.Well 5 minutes later she asks us,"Where are you now?" Uhhhhh not quite 3 miles farther. Shes going postal now" Whats taking you so long??????" We are on Albia Hill." There are no hills there my computer screen shows flat track" I couldnt key the mic for all the cussing my engineer was doing and the laughing I was doing.No hills in Iowa Puhhhhlease! After Albia you had Ottumwa hill,down W Burlington and then the Kirkwood crawl! All kinds of fun on loads.

Everyone assumes Illinois and Iowa are flat and that all of Colorado is mountains. I worked out of Denver north on the old C&S and never hit a grade like they did on the Moffat or Spanish Peaks. But everyone just assumes I can go up and down 3 to 4% grades and did it daily.LOVED that line.

Now my favorite hill story involves a conductor that was hilarious! He was short ( like 5'3 kinda short) and I called him my leprachaun. Well we were pulling out of Ottumwa Iowa on the old MIlwaukee ( IC&E/DM&E now)and going to be assaulting Rutledge with only 2 sd 40-2's and just about 1000 tons short of their max rating. I was still getting " qualified" and the engineer called for it decided to ride in the back unit as he felt comfortable with me running and he was exhausted. He did however warn my conductor that if we didnt make the hill he was going to kick his ....welllll you know.

Things are going great and we are just beating the snot out of these two old girls.Just as we are getting to the "stall point" which was the last major curve before the top.we are down to 1.2mph and I decide to have some fun. I push my knee up against the attendant call button and yell" We lost the second unit Oh heck we are gonna stall!!!"Pandemonium reigned! He started yelling back " Lock the door or "George" is gonna kill me!!!"Oh it was hilarious as "George" thought OUr unit had died and he was coming up in a hurry to help me out. Well our conductor sees him running up and I thought I was going to see a grown man cry!Needless to say I caught flack for that stunt for months to come.

I remember all those guys up in Eola watching us by. They even caught something dragging on one of my trains and called it in.I havent seen any recently (even though it is snowy some still show up and hang)but I will always wave to them guys.

 

I remember the Albia Hill from the short time I worked out of Galesburg as a conductor. I caught the 492/493 pool once. That was a pretty good job. I worked the Quincy pool a couple of times. I liked that one too! I worked it with a hogger who had worked out of Chicago and we both had friends in common. First time I worked with Danny he tells me that he has a car at W.Quincy and invites me to go to beans with him when we get in.
I think this is a good idea! We tie up,get in his car, head for the hotel and check in. He rings up my room and we head out to a big family-style restaurant. We meet some guys in there off the Brookfield sub. The one conductor tells me that I should work out of the Brookfield sub and I'd be getting out on my rest all the time. I told him that I was doing that already working out of Galesburg!!! LOL Hell I hardly ever saw my two roommates!
I remember that hill in W.Burlington also! There were some pretty scenic rides on jobs working out of Galesburg and just all types of operations, even dark territory to Peoria.
It was good railroading experience and kept one sharp on rules and special instructions.
At one time Galesburg had a lot of industry switching until all those companies(Maytag,Gates Rubber etc)moved their operations offshore. Operations to all 4 compass directions! I considered it a great experience. I probably would have stayed longer had it not been for personal problems at home, but that's another story!

Charlie