Fireball... Gotta tell you a story about my final exam at N.A.R.S. I had pretty much maxed my written exams and we were down to the final simulators. I didn't have much of a problem with coal trains, or dead freight, but for some reason those intermodals were my nemesis. I was down to my final qualifying sim.trip and it was an intermodal. The instructor gave us the lowdown on what to expect and gave us a heads up about a slow order we should expect after dragging up a hill. Well sir... I got that train up the hill as best I could trying to minimize draft forces and got that sucker on level track and notched up on the throttle when suddenly I remember that slow order, man I did everything I could to slow that train down,dunno if it's still the same, but 10mph or more over the speed limit in a slow order is an FRA violation, I even went to "Handle off" position to get some extra draw down on the air, I had the dynamics pinned to the firewall! Well you can guess what happened, I had gone too far with the air so the train stopped. But,fortunately for me, when I passed the MP for the slow order, I wuz just under 9mph over the limit so I didn't get an FRA!!!!! Whew!!!!!! I just did make the cut-off percentage for passing the simulators!! I hated them simulators anyway, all they are are computer games! I was due for one just before I retired, the DSL told me that he would try to give me a check-ride instead of a sim-run but I never did come back to work. Charlie
LMAO! I remember that 10mph slow order hey gave me a junk train ( IDK why thats all we ran on the front range so I was used to it) I got in trouble for not watching the scenery on the screen.I would just watch that screen with the buff draft forces and the little map.I got a 98 on it cause I flipped the handle too fast ( oh well).I HATE them too cause I "fly by the seat of my pants" Always have,from trucks to heavy equipment,I can tell whats going on behind me from the seat.Well whan you dont get that feeling it sucks! Loved Quincy runs,Creston was rare one. You had to have at least 3 years to hold that extra board.But the times I did go I loved it. I think my favorite run was to LaCrosse.Very scenic,REALLY scenic in the summer time if you get my drift. Speaking of foamers one of our guys here said" Id like em better if there were a few that looked like Jessica Alba and were like groupies!" I cant argue that
I was just lurking "The Ready Track" forum and I took a quick look at the "Unstoppable" thread. It brought to mind an incident that happened with me while working a 1st shift job in East Yard at Eola Il a number of years ago. I hadn't thought about it in all these years until the thread stirred my memory bank. I had the hogger pull a string of cars west on the Industrial lead. The Industrial lead was what used to be MT3 from Eola to the old Aurora city depot(which BTW was the official station designation venue for "Aurora"). In these later years it was a long stub track which was used for switching moves at the west end of East Yard mostly just to double up cuts on yard tracks 1, 2 and 3. The hogger(with 2 GP38s) pulled the cut, which was pretty much a mixed bag of cars, with about a 6 or 8 car cut of tank cars. The tanks we got at Eola were pretty much docile stuff, mostly residual empties, or tanks of corn syrup or glycerine or beef tallow(nasty smelling stuff!!!!)and a few potash tanks to go to the Dial soap plant with the glycerine and tallow. Every once in a while we would get diesel fuel tanks from our company transloading facility in Rochelle to be sent out west to other loco terminals. We seldom had really hazardous stuff. At any rate, the hogger pulled the cars to clear the switch I needed, I was by myself, the foreman had gone inside for beans. After lining the switch, I walked the track to make the joint and instructed the hogger to shove the cut to me. The hogger acknowledged me and I heard the 2 locos rev up. After a few seconds, the hogger tells me that he cant move the string of cars, the cars had air in them as I was building a train. He keeps trying and tells me he cant budge the train. I walk back to the cut to see if there was a handbrake or two I missed, there wasn't, I tell him to release the brakes and try again. He tells me that the brakes ARE released but I can plainly see that they aren't. I tell the hogger to hold the train and I will walk the cut to see if something is on the ground. Well I start walking along the north side of the cut of cars, between the industrial lead and MT2 mostly cuz there is less vegetation and I have more room to eyeball the train and the hogger can see me as I move nearer to him, Now this is on just a very slight curve, ever so slight! As I reach the Farnsworth Ave overpass I discover a closed angle cock on my side on a tank car. Where this particular coupling is located is just in line with a footpath down the hill from Farnsworth Ave to the tracks. Since it was summertime, there was a lot of covering vegetation. Someone had got down there while the train was stopped and closed the angle cock. It was out of my line of sight and also out of the hoggers line of sight. This was not an angle cock that was partially closed, it was all the way closed!!! I thought that maybe I hadn't noticed the brakes having been set when the cut was pulled, but with that long of a cut, it would have been just as impossible to pull as it was to shove. Anyway it would have made a hell of a racket and there would have been smoke and sparks from draggin the wheels. Besides, as I mentioned, the angle cock was in an area that had access to the street. Any way, I opened the angle cock, made our joint and finished the work. I mentioned the incident to the Y.M. but nothing else was ever said about it. I think it was a "railroad brat" playing a prank or someone who had knowledge of how train brakes work. Charlie
Charlie: Good story on the angle cock. I used to love to stand alongside the tracks as the train went by. As I get older I like to stand off a little in case something comes off of that thing! When I was a child in Selma, NC, my daddy would take me to the station to watch the Atlantic Coast Line Champion go by at 60-70 miles an hour. That station platform is on ground level and the furthest you can get from the track is about 30 feet. My daddy used to make me stand behind the roof supporting pole and that was only 15 feet from the track. It is the same today except there is a five foot decorative fence at the 15 foot line and you cannot cross unless you trespass. I have another question in another post. Just wondered your opinion of this. I think it is best to stay away from active tracks. No place to play, of course.
Caboose Brake Charlie: I read in one of my old steam train story books (Railroading in South Texas - Southern Pacific) about a conductor who used to "help" with the train or "adjust speed" by using the caboose brake. Ever heard of a caboose brake? Does it apply or release brake pressurize from the rear to the front? Does the engine apply the brake pressure from the front to the rear? BTW, the author said he did not use the brake to control speed from the caboose as he felt that was the engineers job. He did use it to try to keep the slack correct as he or the brakeman would be the ones repairing the busted knuckle. Thanks for the help. I always enjoy your stories.
In the few cabooses(cabeese?)I ever worked in(on the BN they are called "waycars")the brake valve still existed but was never used to my knowledge. It's primary use would have been in shoving moves whereby the conductor could brake the train to a stop without having to contact the engineer. This method was also used in backing passenger trains to their bumper in stub end terminals. That valve is known as the "tailhose" . They are still in use on the commuter cars for backing moves. The BNSF tail hoses also had a shrill whistle which could be sounded with the proper whistle signal prior to shoving back into the yard or terminal. I would also usually perform a short,quick running air test with the tailhose valve once the shove began. Every so often a hogger would ask what was going on "back there", but if they had a modicum of intelligence,they should have known quite well what was happening. Charlie
Actually when I worked out of G'burg I was on the Conductors East Pool Extra board, but with the BNSF, ANY extra board is pretty much the "You'll work what we want you to" Board. so it seems that at least half the time I was working jobs other than to the east. I had a reverse lodging arrangement set up with the crew desk whenever I would work to Chicago. I would stay at my own home and be ordered from there. So technically I was qualified all the way from Chicago to Creston Ia as well as Chicago to La Crosse WI. I made good money working out of Galesburg but that's because I was getting out on my rest. We eventually got about 30 guys from Chicago to work down there and I think some of them stayed. Crew management was happy as ^#%$ to have enough people on the boards to cover assignments. I even looked at property while I was there, I could have owned a small castle in Galesburg for half the price my house in Chicago was worth at the time. Property values were really depressed at that time as was the economy of Galesburg. Had my family problems not developed, I wouldn't have minded staying down there a bit longer. Charlie
Thanks again for the stories, Charlie! Can you explain a bit about what the "boards" are and how you bid for jobs and so on?
"Boards" get their name because that is how they actually were constructed and some smaller RR's still use that technology,ie. the BRC here in Chicago. The board is actually a block of wood with a name on it and is placed in a pigeonhole in a rotating fashion. Basically a board is just a listing of conductors or yardmen or brakemen or engineers and indicates their position in the line to be called to duty. When you are ordered to duty your name is taken out of the available list. When you tie up your job your name is placed at the end of the list of available people and you will become available when your legally authorized rest period is over. If you lay off, your name is placed at the end of the list for a designated period of time,usually 24 hours. If you are "bumped" from a job or an extra board, you are normally unavailable for 48 hours(at least on the BNSF). If you don't place your name on a list or a job, crew desk can force assign you to a board or a job. They can do that also to protect vacancies on other boards as dictated by union contract or agreement. I got caught on that once and was held off the board for a week because I refused to be force assigned to a certain location. I was never disciplined for it since it was discovered that the force assignment would have been in violation of agreement on the other hand I never recovered those lost earnings. I learned later that a conductor had been held off the board at the same time for the same job for the same reason. She was still fighting that decision when I retired! Job openings are posted after a line or job or pool turn is vacated for a specified length of time. The assignment is advertised and one bids on it based on seniority. If you have the seniority, you get the job! However that doesn't guarantee you will hold the job forever. A more senior employee may get bumped or place themselves on a board and they most likely will bump you from your job. Some carriers have agreements that once an employee's seniority awards them a job and the bid is closed,they hold it for a specified length of time and cannot be bumped during that period.(METRA has that arrangement). The trick is to start bidding jobs as soon and as often as one can. Sure it may be a crappy job,but it most likely has regular hours and rest days and once you hold a regular assignment you are not subject to call as you are on an extra board. A lot of guys like to work the extra board since it gives them a variety of jobs, many of which are good paying jobs. In fact at Eola, the engineers extra board is a highly desirable board and has a fairly high seniority list. When I was a trainman working METRA commuter trains, I held day job that was the 3rd or 4th highest payer. A lot of guys told me that they couldn't believe I could hold the job with my relatively low seniority. Truth was that the job was a real worker, but I didn't mind being busy,it made the day go quickly AND it worked every other Saturday which meant that I had ALL the major holidays off since holiday coverage is a Sunday schedule and worked by the lines that cover Sunday operations. When I worked in the yard I was able to hold 2nd shift in East Yard at Eola. It had Monday & Tuesdays off and the hours were 3PM-11PM and normally we got an hour or hour 1/2 early quit. I could be home by a decent hour and get a good nights sleep! There is much more I could ramble on about this,but I will wait for another time. Charlie
Was just wondering if at any stage has someone ever backed carriages too fast,too far and snotted bumpers? If it did happen,who would be to blame,engineer or conducter(if hes the looker out the back) Chees Stu.
It happens every now & then. The person manning the tailhose would get the blame. At Chicago Union Station, the operation is mostly Push/Pull. The Metra commuter trains all have the locomotives on the outbound end. Many AMTRAK trains have a "cabbage car" (cab/baggage)on the inbound end. Whoever does it, can expect some time off. Charlie
Hey, Charlie! Can you clarify a little bit what the different tracks are called? What's the difference between a siding, spur, stub, branch, or what have you? In particular, there's a spot nearby where there's a warehouse next to a single track main. They've just installed a switch and a single track alongside the warehouse to spot cars on for the new tenant. It's not very long (maybe 3 cars capacity) and doesn't go anywhere else, and it's single-ended, and it's nowhere near a yard. What would you call it? Second instance... a track goes off from the yard... maybe 3 miles total length. 3-4 maybe half dozen industries tops strewn along its length. Spur or Branch? Or what? Third instance... a business has 3 tracks leading to different parts of the plant, all branching off - like a small yard, only not - the same switch from the "main". One track, say, has a spot for a corn syrup car, a second track leads to hopper unloading spots, and the third is a hopper loading area... how would you typically refer to these tracks, both collectively or individually? And hopefully answering the question will bring to mind another story or two???
OK ... Here's the G.C.O.R. Glossary definition of siding... "A track connected to the main track and used for meeting or passing trains. Location of sidings are shown in the timetable." Spur is usually just a short length of track with no exit normally used to load and unload goods for a customer. A branch is an indeterminate length of track which can be used to serve industries or another city near the main line or to detour to another portion of main line via an alternate route. A spur is another indeterminate length of track which may or may not be a stub end track. It is normally up to the carrier to define what is a branch and what is a spur. Famous example on the BNSF, the former branch to Mt.Morris IL originating from the main line at Oregon IL was changed to an industrial spur(there was only one industry on it, a printing firm). It had been the Mt.Morris BRANCH!. There was a System Special Instruction that prevented operation on BRANCH LINES when the ambient temperature was 90 degrees or above due to the possibility of sun kinks. After a few instances of crews refusing to move trains over the Mt.Morris branch on extremely hot summer days, the company changed the Mt.Morris BRANCH to the Mt.Morris INDUSTRIAL LEAD. Your examples, #1. Industry stub #2. Industrial lead #3. Industry tracks, the customer can call them whatever he wants. Charlie
You're welcome! Traveling down that Mt.Morris whatever it's called, took the better part of a day. The track was low speed to begin with and there was normally switching to do at the printing plant, pulling loads and spotting empties. We would normally do "beans" in Mt.Morris. We were the only train out there so we could just park it like the family car and go have a meal nearby. The real trick was getting our train back onto the main line for the trip back to Rochelle IL. That is where the job that worked the branch originated. This is on the single MT C & I and a real bottleneck at Oregon. The Mt. Morris track went off from the north side of the main(which was also the depot side)and on the south side of the MT was the Oregon yard, but to get there from the Mt. Morris side involved a couple of switching moves which we normally didn't need to do. The empties came from Rochelle and the loads were going there first before being picked up by a later manifest freight. There was ALWAYS traffic in both directions PLUS Oregon(the station sign) was at the east end of an 11,000' siding. I was a brakeman on a work train building that new siding! Anyway we would pretty much wait on the branch until the dispatcher could find us enough time to get our train to Rochelle. Once we got on the main, we would do track speed! No messing around! If you remember some of my other posts, Oregon was at the bottom of a BIG hill. On eastbounds, you worked that dynamic almost all the way to Oregon! It's quite a sound to hear those trains whining down the hill! Charlie
I know you've posted a couple of interesting stories about passengers on the commuter lines... any good ones about irate or otherwise "interesting" freight customers?
==================================================================== I never ran into any problems with freight customers. The people we normally encountered were just the regular plant workers. A couple of times we talked with the "transportation" manager or whatever the title was and that was just to ask a favor in spotting cars. Technically speaking the customer is charged for whatever switching moves are requested by them. If it's a good customer with lots of loads, we would do a respot or reposition without charging them. Most special switching moves aren't going to involve much more time,if any,than the required moves to spot the cars at their location. Most of the customers had some sort of covered box like a mailbox near their plant entry doors or loading dock doors. In that box would be the locations that the car numbers would be spotted and any other special instructions. A lot of industries were closed at the time of day we would be switching(eg lumberyards) but the entry gates were locked with a RR lock so we could let ourselves in to do our switching. I always enjoyed industry switching cuz it usually meant being out on the main line and needing to use all your learned skills and rule observances, plus it was just fun being somewhere different when the weather was nice. Charlie
What a fantastic thread. Somebody will say "Too much time on my hands", but I have to say I've read each and every post on all these 46 pages and I must say, OUTSTANDING, I was amazed, amused and educated on the life of a railroader. Not so simple to just hit the throttle and go foreword. Some very, very interesting stories, Sorry to hear the ol man passed, he had some wonderful life living stories to write a book about. Charlie keep up the good thread, and pass on some more to us. I will be following to see more. Chuck C :thumbs_up:
Ahh being able to park and go to lunch!On the Kountry line in Denver we would work a lumber yard there then go down to the local ahem watering hole and have dinner! they had theme nights and my favorite was leather and lace night....let your minds wander youngins. Over on the Golden line it was a mexican place with KILLER enchiladas! They were HUGE!Thats one reason I have to go back to Colorado is the food lol. Now on the J we have a few spots we can stop, one being a hot dog place on the South Chicago line.Nothing like a Chicago style dog on a crappy day Never had a problem with any freight customers. They loved us mainly but I do remember a few that would kinda growl if cars were late on a connecting train. Not at us mind you. Most of these places would give you hats, pens and food! Nothing like being invited to the company safety dinner while your waiting on bills. Now I have heard a story of a conductor on the Suburbans that everyone asked if I was related. I guess we are built the same and we both have goatees( yes everyone with facial hair is related lol) Seems he had a guy skipping fares. Hed always have like a 50 or 100 on the busy morning train and of course this guy had no time to make change. I guess he had had enough one day and said " pay the right fare or else" Well the guy refused and said to our conductor" what are you going to do about it?" Before the next stop he brought the guy down to the doors and said listen I am sorry about all this but you need to pay, do you have any smaller bills? the guys said Nope! As soon as the doors opened our hero grabbed his scruff and belt and forcibly removed him from the train in front of the Sup and asst sup!Needless to say he was told " Good job but next time be a little gentler"I bet he had change from that point on though. Railroaders are charecters ( look at me lol) but it makes the day go by so much quicker when you have good people that make you laugh working with you. Oh and really good resturants with ambiance
