That was a good one After seeing so many trains, you'd think I'd be able to think of a tale or two, but none come to mind. I'll keep thinkin' -Drew
Ok this story makes me feel stupid like I goofed up but what the heck , I think of you all as friends . I was on a train that had to stop and set out cars at a place called Durand , Michigan . It is a big time railfan place . It was a warm summer evening , still light outside and we had to stop at Oak Street and make our cut of about 12 cars to set out in the yard . The Conductor makes the cut , applies some hand brakes to the train left out on the main , especially since the portion of train left out on the main is on a good size grade . We set our 12 cars out and pick up about 20 , we make the joint back to our train and since the cars we picked up did not have air on them , we had to perform a initial terminal air test , make sure all brakes apply and release on the cars that we picked up . My feed valve was set at 80 pounds and when I got up to about 78 pounds of air on the tail end , I told my Conductor that I had enough air to air test the 20 cars that we picked up . So I take a full service brake and the tail end shows 58-59 pounds , and the Conductor tells me that all 20 cars have set up , he then tells me to release the brake and I do . Brake pressure is restored on the tail end to 83 pounds , and the cars all released . So I start to pull the train down the hill and the tail end shows moving , everything looks cool . We are cruising thru Durand about 45 miles per hour and the Train Dispatcher calls us on the radio and informs us that our rear 8 cars are following us down the hill thru Durand A railfan called the railroad with a frantic phone call and the railroad informed us . So the Dispatcher says you guys are clear of the plant and signals at East Durand but he can see that the rear 8 cars are moving behind us , so I take 15 pounds worth of brake , nothing happens , so I think fast and put the rear 8 cars into EMERGENCY with the toggle switch on my RDU , which throws the rear end marker into EMERGENCY and the cars stop . Anyways as it turned out the last car I had ahold of was a loaded dangerous tank car and the rear 8 cars were going up to speeds of nearly 40 miles per hour . Here's what happened according to our guesses and talking to raiload police . In Durand there are ALOT of railfans who have scanners who listen to us , these railfans were bad boys and wanted to play a trick on us . While we did the air test they were listening , after our air test they turned the bottled the air on our rear 8 cars and I still showed air pressure on the tail end and when we started to pull the tail end showed moving . Little did I know they were moving on there own following us down the hill [ 16 March 2001: Message edited by: Davecn5623 ]
Hey all! I work at the loco shops in Cumberland,once a bastion of the B&O, now a CSX facility. I am a electrician and keep them ol wheels fixed up the best I can. Sometimes its a challenge getting parts and talking supervision into letting me fix them right. But if it was easy it would not be so much fun!....hey you guys keep breakin 'em and I will keep fixin 'em....Be safe! Mike
Welcome to the TrainBoard family 74 Volts! I'll bet you're glad you aren't tightening boiler stays in the boiler works!HA! Are you the one that put the traction motor in backwards, and the engine couldn't figure out which way to go? (That was a standard joke when diesels first started coming out! Before diesels, there was a cartoon that showed a mallet that the shop had put the front engine set in backwards, and when they went to go, it stretched the boiler out about 40 feet in the middle! ) [ 21 March 2001: Message edited by: watash ]
You know, there are so many tales that every railroader can tell, it's hard to pick one out. Put a bunch of us together in a room and the lies will never end. One that pops into my head took place when I was still pretty new at this and was riding a train late one night to get qualified on a new route. The regular crew was all there and two conductor trainees as well so we had a pretty full house. I knew the engineer well and he trusted me so he was meditating peacfully while I did the work at a small yard switching out a bunch of empty covered hoppers. The conductor decided to let one of the trainees make a few moves just to get some practice so he told him to bring the train back and couple to the cars in #1. The engines were about a quarter mile from the hitch, hanging on to a lot of cars, so I wasn't surprised when I heard him call "OK back about 15 for a coupling". I just nicely got rolling, thinking I had lots of room when the conductor started screaming for me to stop. Just as his first words came out, the train hit the drag of parked empties with a boom that woke the dead for miles. The engineer fell flat on the floor, I bounced off the back window and the train went in emergency. When I recovered and looked out, there was dust and rust in a mushroom cloud hanging over half the town. The yard was right in the middle of a trailer park and lights were coming on, dogs barking, car alarms going off, general mayhem. The conductor was in hysterics and could hardly talk, all he could say was, "Now THAT'S a good hitch". He finally pulled himself together and told me what had happened. The new guy gave me the car count while his back was turned and I was really only about 5 cars from the hitch. When he saw what he'd done, he froze with his hand on the mic button, his eyes like saucers and his brain in panic mode. By the time anyone could say anything, it was too late and the crash was only a second away. The poor trainee was horrified but after the manditory razzing and laughter, he felt a little better and finished out the night with no further excitement. Fortunately, the only disasters were that the engineer was grouchy now and had to re-arrange himself, about half the county was awake a bit early to get ready for work and ten tons of rust got knocked off the cars. The trainee is now a conductor himself and one of the best guys around to work with but every time I catch a job with him, I can't resist reminding him to watch his car counts.
Rule 281, your tale got me thinking ( ) How can y'all use "car counts" for guiding closure? Today's cars run from the baby beercan tanks to auto-racks and double-stacks? That could be a difference of about 50 feet per car, which can add up quickly, especially when you were told you had "15" cars to go. Hank
Thanks Rule 281, that explains why sometimes I see the "Big Bang", and other times a very quiet "Coach Kiss" .... Hank
The passenger hook ups were the most carefully directed ones, I was told. They had us stand on the fireman's side and watch the brakeman, or conductor, 'guide' the engineer back. Whoever was guiding, was always on the engineer side and was the only one. It was a precaution that there were no mistakes. It was a cardinal rule that if passengers were aboard, "Thou shalt not tip over a passenger's water glass"! Because of the difference in weight, the engine was supposed to be backed in using the Johnson bar with little if any live steam, just riding the expansion. The breakman was supposed to throw his arms out wide just before the engine got to 20 feet closing, then slowly start dropping his arms to show the engineer how fast he was closing up. His arms were dropped all the way at about 5 feet. That was supposed to allow time for the engineer to shut her down which would just about bring her to a dead whoah at touching. Sometimes it was so smooth the car's coupler hardly moved, only the latch pin dropped. The engineer also had to hold the engine in place while the brakeman stepped between the cars, over one rail, reached in under the couplers and grabbed the air hose of the car (which was always on his left) with his left hand, and the engine's hose in his right and "wrung" the hose couplings together, then stepped back into safety. It was, is, those few seconds that the breakman's life is in the hands of the engineer. It impressed us, how would you like to be a breakman? I ran shivers down my spine the first time I watched it, and the first time I had to do it! Think about it.
Just some information regarding those guys stitching up the hoses...the rules are very specific about how and when anyone can go between cars to make up hoses, work handbrakes etc. Before you go in, you have to request protection from the engineer which includes applying the engine brakes, centering the reverser, dropping the generator field switch and applying the train brakes. The engineer has to confirm that the protection is in place and must not release until the person who requested protection verbally and positively clears. It's a very serious rules offense to make a move while a crewman is fouling, not to mention you could easily kill someone. Going in between equipment without getting that protection is incredibly risky, as quite a few trespassers have found out when stuff moved unexpectedly while they were in there. But...that's another subject.
Those same rules applied in the roundhouse also. When an engine was coming in off the turntable, no one was allowed within 10 feet on either side of his track, no one was in the pit, and no one was allowed to walk in front of the engine once he started moving in. There was one man who made the motions to direct the hostler (an in-house engineer) to start up, to keep coming, slow down, speed up, wait, hold still, and when to stop. This man was called different things on various roads, but at ElReno he was the Head Hostler, usually who drew that job for that engine, but other times when more than one engine was coming in or going out, it could be the House Warden, or even the House Master himself. Other fellows could be designated for the job at times, but I never saw a young man do it, they all had grey hair. If the engine was "dead" (no steam), it was pushed by a switch engine coupled to the tender. The House Master would have designated which stall was to be readied to receive this engine, and assigned a spot to lay a heavy anchor chain 90 degrees to the rail on the engineer's side that was the absolute stopping point he wanted that engine to line up. The engineer of the pusher, or hostler could see that chain, as well as keep his eye on the man directing him in. Once in place this chain was draped around the front driver infront and back to act as a coasting chock. Once in and chocked, the engine was signed off and turned over to a Crew Chief who would then assign the work to be done. Occasionally an engine was backed into the roundhouse for repairs to the tender, which was unusual. One such case was when a parked engine had been hit from behind and destroyed the rear tender sill and water tank. The rear truck had been sheared off at the king pin (a big pin the truck swiveled on). Because it was a long time job to fix the tender, the job called for the engine to be slipped off the tow bar, and pulled out and connected to another tender. As it turned out, the chock chain was not set under the engine, but around one wheel of the tender. This was done, and while the engine was being disconnected (all the pipes and hoses), the pushing switcher was run off to perform other tasks until called back to move the engine. Lunch time came, and when the whistle blew, everyone went outside to eat. Just about the time lunch was over, there was a huge scrapeing Thud!! Everyone ran around to the front to see what had made the noise. The dead engine had very slowly rolled out across the yard and tipped over into the turntable pit, the table having been rotated to another track! If the table had been aligned, that engine might have gone all the way out onto the yard spur with no way of stopping it. We all caught hell over that, and of course the guy assigned to the chocking job was fired. My last day there was when they brought a big steam wrecker in and rolled it onto a track close to the fallen engine and we set ties criss cross under the side jacks all morning so the crane could reach over sideways and pick up the engine without tipping over. They hooked chains to another engine on the next stall and pulled the engine back onto the yard track while the crane held up the front end. It bent the pilot and boiler brace stays and broke the pilot truck frame, but not much else. The old steamers could take a pretty good beating and still run. My summer was over, but I wanted to stay and watch the wrecker in the worst way. I had to go back to school, so missed the rest of the clean up. The big cranes just fascinated me no end! I told dad that next summer I wanted to bring a camera. He just laughed and said I would probably have forgotten to use it in the excitement! That would have been some movie to see that engine creep out and tip up in the pit!
I have been waiting to find out how this one came out before posting it here. This is from a friend who lives close to where this happened. Operation Life Saver is in full swing, yet a couple of teenagers went riding with another couple and got nailed at a crossing close to a creek. The car ended up partly in the water. My friend heard the crash and realized a train had hit something. He was there as the kids were being cut out of what was left of the car. Now I can report that all the occupants will live, and of course no one was hurt on the train. The train crew probably hates to do that much damage to teens, or anyone else, but people just don't seem to get the point that they are not going to win. Teach your kids that the train will not wait for them, so respect it!
When my family took the Via around this time last year to a point just outside of Vancouver (we just went for a short trip to ride via), we watched as the Via unloaded other passengers. The train was unusually long. There was another track beside it and we could see a freight barreling along at a high rate of knots. On the Via side, I watched as a truck driver was getting impatient for the via to pull out. He decided to cross and I was certain we were going to see him killed as he couldn't know another train was coming. He was lucky and got off. But one doctor wasn't so lucky. When I went to college in the 60's in Elmhurst Illinois, I used to ride the Chicago Northwestern into down town Chicago. On one occassion we had left the station for about a minute when there was a loud crash, cracking the window beside, and scaring the hell out of me. When I got off, I recognized a doctor in the smashed up vehicle. He knew me and stared at me for about a minute before he died. The commuter train would have been by the crossing in about 40 seconds, but he was in too much of a hurry and couldn't wait. He lost.
It is a shame Rsn48, but they always lose! Back right after the war (WWII) it used to be fun to race along beside the trains out west of Wichita, Kansas. The road would go along the tracks on the north side for a mile or so, then cross and go along on the southside for a mile or so and back and forth, while the track was straight for miles. A few miles out of Wichita, the track starts down a slight grade maybe 1/4% for several miles then up grade gradually until the Colorado state line. One day some kids in a hot rod were racing a train even with the engine until the cross-over then the hot rod would "gun it" speeding up enough to beat the engine to the cgossing and stay up with him on the other side. Those crossings were about a 60 degree angle! One time a hot rodder blew his right front tire just as he was turning to go over the tracks, and his rim caught the inside of the far rail and guided his car down the track ahead of the train which was up in the 90's by then. The engine caught the car and carried it nearly two miles before the font of the car caught on the steel bannister of a small bridge and started rolling. By the time the passenger train got stopped, the car was in a rolled up ball and had rolled off into a field. There was not enough of the driver to worry with, so the whole car was buried just off the right of way. There used to be a small cross with a little fence around the grave site and a plaque that told the story. The road, and the tracks have since been re-routed so it may or may not be there any more. The passenger who was riding with him was thrown out of the car and cut half in two on a barbed wire fence his body slid down at an estimated speed in excess of 80 miles an hour. He was gathered up and buried at Harper, Kansas. Since there was no town or farms in the area, the train went on into the town of Pratt, Kansas and called in on the accident, then proceeded to Colorado. The top speed the passenger trains would run in those days was between 90 and 100 miles an hour out on the western plains, and the hot rodders still tried to out run them, and some made it for awhile.
Some people just dont get it. Yesterday my son and I were driving along the CP tracks by the Granaries at the Vancouver Port. The crossing gate came down, while a switcher came through. There was a fellow at the crossing with a vest, making sure everything was okay. A guy in a truck still drove around the gate, past the guy yelling at him, over to the other side, while the switcher was barrelling down on him. Kind of wish he had got hit, a culling of the herd.
A few years back, I watched King STUPID+++ from my 5th floor office overlooking the CSX/IC (now KCS) interchange tracks. An IC GP-10 was deadheading at 3-5 mph to the CSX siding for a pickup. Gates came down across the 6-lane main street. An 18-wheeler with a 45' grain dump body stopped at the gate, clearly saw the bright Orange/White engine, then backed up to clear the gate and started to go around. Yup, the engine hit the dump hopper smack in the middle and v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y rolled it on its side. The engine stopped as the hopper went over, so no damage was done to either equipment, and probably not even to the truck driver's pride ..... he was too stupid to have any Oh yeh, it took the City street crew over four hours to clean up 15-20 Tons of Soybeans spread across all three northbound lanes .... My Tax Dollars At Work Hank
I heard a new term for such stupidity from Jim Schoenfeld, narrating an NHL game last night. I think it's pretty good, not even vulgar. "Skull Cramp." LOL
