Tales From The Cab !

I really enjoyed this one. Now I know some of you will really chew me out, but what the heck, I will enjoy sharing it anyway!

There are 3 hunters in the woods, they're all telling each other what they're are going to shoot. The first one says he's going to get a buck. So he goes out and comes back with a buck.

The other 2 hunters ask how he did it and he says, ''I see tracks I follow tracks I get buck''.

So the second hunter says "I'm gonna get a doe." So he goes out and comes back with a doe.

Then the 3rd hunter asks him how he did it. The 2nd hunter says, ''I see tracks I follow tracks I get doe''.

So the 3rd hunter says, ''I'm just gonna shoot at anything I see''. So he goes out and comes back half a day later all beaten bruised bloody and totally trashed. And the other two hunters ask what happened and he says, ''I see tracks I follow tracks, I get hit by train!''

 

Now I fell off of my wife's lap over that one!!!! Lord Love a Duck, that one was fun-n-n-y! Thanks Benny I needed that one! Right now I couldn't remember my name much less try to top that!

 

I never been hunting, but That was a good one,

 

there was an engineer I worked under as brakeman for a few times(early 80's) by the name of Art Winter, he was a ruff and tumble older guy (5 years or so over me) and really didn't keep his language very well "cleaned" he was the one to call if you wanted a job done swiftly and roughly. although he was a real bi--h he was a good guy ina few ways. I wonder if he's still around?

[ 17 April 2001: Message edited by: T.K.Marletter ]

 

Yeah, old Art an I had a run in awhile back. He has not been around here on the TrainBoard for awhile though. The last I heard he was surfing various other chat rooms where there aare not any kids to offend. He sent me some photos of the wrecks he cleaned up when he was with Chessie. He had some pretty grizzley tales, but I don't think the kids on here could stand the reality of some of them. Did you know him when he got hurt in the runnaway?

 

Yes watash I knew him then, I was acting engineer that day on a train comng in the opposite direction. The dispatcher told me to get over on the siding ahead of me I got in and about 20 minutes later here came a GP40, 2 GP30's, and an SD35. just screaming down the hill. I really don't remeber a whole lot more than that. not sure if it had a train or not., just remeber the conductor radioing air pressure, and then I said,"hey go look out on the porch and see what's coming." then ZOOM!! there came Art down the hill.

 

I pulled the pin twenty years ago, and a lot of things have changed since then. The 80's were the last years to work with full crews, firemen, and cabooses. I've heard that TT&O dispatching has changed, and locomotives don't have class lights. Out on the dark territory where I used to run, who lines up behind when a train leaves a siding? (it ain't the person in the crummy). Are all trains two person crews? The locals I rode between OKC and Quanah, TX had enough switching to wear out a full crew with radios.
Even though the brakeman's and switchman's extra board was a grueling lifestyle, it was also a "social gathering" that you could enjoy, and look forward to each call. There was always a good deal of excitement in me every time I signed the 'A' book for another run. Even when you caught a job with the most beligerant knothead conductor, you survived because there would be one or two other people to suffer with you and share the misery. Is all of this gone?
One of the most captivating things that we did in the yard or on the road was switching by hand and lantern signals. We carried radios about 60% of the time on the road, and all the snakes had one, but we didn't like to use them for lots of reasons. My fondest memories of those days (actually, it was nights most of the time) remembering the "conversations" we carried on as we did our work. This may sound crazy but switching at night with snow on the ground was my #1 favorite job; the engineer would always slow the pace just a bit so we could get on and off safely, the snow acted lke a muffler to absorb the gawdawful squeals and noises the wheels made, the moon made the whole snow covered earth sparkle, and our lanterns allowed us to talk to each other in the quiet night. It was a beautiful thing. I never heard an engineer complain about having to hang his head out the window to take signals (even he was "outside" with us). He would have a coat with a hood and that was enough.
The first time the QA&P borrowed me from the OKC board, I knocked the engineer off his seatbox. The QAP crew was spoiled to radios. I can remember making the first coupling of the first job there, because I was passing signals and the engineer was probably staring at the radio. I was able to jump off before the crash, but the engineer received a full wake-up call. And after that I used the radio to accomodate their habits, but I had to let them know that I knew how to work if the radio blew up.

 

Gee Trainbooks, has it been that long? Seems like a short time ago to me. I know what you mean about the lantern signals at night, we didn't have radios.

There were plenty of BANG couplings, and even a few pull-a-ways when the pin fell back in just as the engine started up dragging the car out from under us.

I never did get very good at walking the catwalk on top of the box cars, now there aren't any to walk on! How do you get up there to set the brakes now days?

I remember one old conductor's comment about railroads doing away with a caboose on their trains. He said, "What are they going to do, put a saddle on the last coupler for me?" We all laughed, then someone told him not to worry, the coupler was strong enough to hold him up! (The conductor weighed around 300!)

 

Told ya I'd get around to it, Watash.
Just another day...You sit around waiting all afternoon, first out on the extra list, you know you're going to go but you're not sure when. Finally decide to try to sleep for a while about 7 o'clock but your eyes don't click shut till around 8. The phone rings at 9 and somehow you know it's the crew caller before you even pick it up. "11pm extra freight, two man crew, probably deadhead home on arrival, have a safe trip." Caught short again, oh well.
First order of business is make a LARGE pot of coffee, drink half of it and fill the thermos with the rest. Say goodnight to sleepy wife and kids, throw the grip in the trunk and get headed for the office by 10.
Meet the conductor at the yardmaster's office and shoot the breeze while our paperwork grinds out of the printer and the yard job gets in the clear so we can work. Catch a van out to the power and start making up the train, which turns out to be 150 cars with a couple of Dash 9s to drag the whole mess. It takes about 3 hours to get it all doubled up, air tested and the marker hung but finally the parade is moving and we've got the whole road to ourselves in the wee hours of the morning. It's heavy for the 2 units so it's #8 throttle or lots of dynamic most of the way, waking up all the little towns and rattling windows as we try to make track speed. We're still drinking coffee and complaining to each other trying to fight off the urge to sleep since we're into those pre-dawn hours when most human bodies just want to shut down. Then comes the news from the dispatcher, "There's no room at the yard for you so you're going to hold for a while until they clear some tracks." Wonderful. So at around daybreak, we ease to a stop about 20 miles out and settle in to wait. Now it's a real fight to stay awake. Without the signals and the train to keep your attention, it's almost impossible. Finally a stroll out in the cold and the last dregs of the thermos get me through the 3 hour hold until at last we get the ok to come on in. One last good pull and then it's all downhill to the terminal, the end is in sight, but (there's always one of those) when we get to the yard, there still isn't any room so we have to hold once again. This time though, we've got crossings and the main blocked (I hate to say I told ya so, but...) so we're a little bit hotter to get moving and the delay is only 2 hours. At last an opening appears and permission comes to pull in and park the monster. There's no question of doing anything else as we run out of time just as we stop. The yard crew hops on and takes over while we heave the bags in the van to head for home. 12 hours on the button. Now for a 2 hour ride with a driver who isn't the best but isn't the worst either so dozing is at least possible for a while. Back to our terminal to mark off, an hour drive home and trip #68 goes in the book. A pretty long haul but not too bad, all things considered. There've been a lot longer ones. About 18 hours after the phone rang, I hit the home door and that's about it for a few hours sleep. Ten hours until I'm rested doesn't seem like very far away.

 

hey, I haven't been in here for a while,. Iwent to the hospital last uesday night thinking I was having a heart attack. Turned out I pulled a few muscles carrying 20, 100 pound bags of quikrete for the new train building (HO scale) one at a time. LOL

 

You needed a TV on board Rule281!
P.S.
(I'll call Rule281 and T.K. at 06:00 for a 13,000 ton coal haul over the Continental Divide with two Mac90's and a sw1500 with EOT. Its a No smoking, No coffee, No baggie run.) hee hee

(That's one way to make friends and influence people!)

 

Jeezed Tim...it's only a hobby!

[ 03 May 2001: Message edited by: Lefty ]

 

Everyone is hepped up about safety now days, but it wasn't always like that. In the shops and roundhouse there some High-Jinks among the fellows. As "Gophers", the newly hired kids, we were the butts of most of the jokes!

There was a mallet came in for heavy repairs to the frame. As you know the front engine is pivoted to swing around curves. The pivot is a huge ball with a pin through it that allows the movement for twist, swing right and left, and up and down, yet has almost no slack foreward or rearward. The slide plate under the front of the boiler gets rain, dirt, and leaves on it which wipes the grease off and allows rust to set in. That makes excessive wear. The same thing happens to the ball pivot. They stacked railroad ties under the boiler to jack it up off the front engine, and we had to go under and re-pack the ballpin and slide plate. The grease was as tough as tar and extremely sticky. We had to heat the bucket and swab globs of the stuff into grooves made to hold it. When we finished, and came back out, no one told us to get out of the way, so we just stood there watching as the big crane lifted the boiler and all the ties were removed. When the crane lowered the boiler back down onto the front engine, it started to bubble a bit. All of a subben that sticky grease squirted out in all directions as the weight pushed all the air out of the grooves and the grease filled every nook and granny it could get into! The excess plastered us right across the chest about a half inch deep. All the old hands were laughing their fool heads off at us! Yes we should have had more sence, but we learned.

The three of us "gophers" got together and tried to figure out a way to get back at them, it was expected, of course. We had heard of all the ways this was usually done, but we needed something they wouldn't expect, or be prepared for.

Finally we decided how we were going to do it. we each got a good gob of packing and soaked it in axle grease, then wiped each driver half way around. Then we went a couple of feet behind each one and wiped the rails.

A couple of days later when they started to back the mallet out onto the turntable, we watched from a distance this time. The engine started OK and got a couple of feet when it hit the first part of the greasy rail, and kept going OK. But when the greasy part of the driver hit the greasy rail it began to slip, then the drivers broke loose and spun like crazy! The Hostler shut her down, but she must have skidded a good ten feet toward the table before she stopped.! We fell out laughing! No one had suspected, and everyone was running in all directions!
It was a good feeling to come up with something different that put one over on the old hands. The Hostler threattened us with a slow painful death of course. But he admitted it had been a helpless feeling to be sliding and nothing he could do!

The Super called us in and reamed us good and loud, but he had a twinkle in his eye! He made sure the other guys had gone back to work, then whispered that we had pulled off a good one, but to not do it again. HA!

 

Watash, that's a wonderful tale And Supers, heck - any Boss, with the ability to laugh in private with the "Gophers" were and still are a Very RARE Breed! God Bless 'em!

Thanks for the laugh, Hank

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by watash:
You needed a TV on board Rule281!
P.S.
(I'll call Rule281 and T.K. at 06:00 for a 13,000 ton coal haul over the Continental Divide with two Mac90's and a sw1500 with EOT. Its a No smoking, No coffee, No baggie run.) hee hee

(That's one way to make friends and influence people!) <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I never ran a '90 before (I was involved with testinf for EMD in late 1995 with the SD80 though, just to make some extra $$ for the heck of it. ANYWAY,, I'D love to take that run Watash, and I ain't near-darn kidding. also I don't smoke (not for 28 years), nor drink coffee so that run ain't no probolem here

 

Its those little toilet baggies that give you the problem TK! Sorta unsteady when you got both hands full trying to hit the opening, in a squat about the time she hits a 18 degree curve! We lost a shovel that way! Used to get an inch or so of pea coal to cover the shovel, then do the deed onto the coal. When finished, it was thrown into the firebox, and poof! One time The engineer had the fireman run things, and just as he finished we hit a curve. That scoop went sailing right out the fireman's side!

Say, TK, what is the term, "Watch out for those 707's down at Point-O-Rocks!" mean? Did anyone ever find out?

 

Hello all, I ran across this story telling place at School today, and I burst a gut laughing at some of these stories. Some of those are halarious.
I'm only 20 but have had the privlage of running a local on a class one railroad. My friend and I went to Wyoming to visit some family and my uncles who work for the UP got my friend and me a ride on a local. We actually had the choice of waiting on a Directors Special and getting pictures of 6936 or taking the ride. I told my friend that we could see the DD40 "anytime" compared to getting a cab ride, which is the main reason we were up there. The run was out of Green River but there was a derailment the day before, we had to be picked up in the neighboring town Rock Springs. Well we all know that "locals" are powered by Geeps or something else that's older. My friend and I were standing there waiting to be picked up when this SD60M and Dash-8 came around the corner. My friend was saying that that couldn't be the train, the power was to big to be on a local. Well it slowed down and the crew members came out to greet us. We jumped on and then did the switching in Rock Springs. I was just getting settled in my seat as my friend Yelled out "Oh S*** look what's coming!!!! On the next track running west was 6936 with the directors special. We both got a few shots off before it flew past. Well we continued our run up to the Chevron plant and it was a decent grade all the way up. We had those two units and 40 cars in run 8 all the way up. The engineer let my friend and I run all the way up and back. There was 8 miles of Branch we rode on and 16 miles of mainline. They didn't allow us to drive on the main but as soon as we cleared that switch, we got to go for it. My friend and I each got a chance at driving up and coming back. On the way up the lead unit was the SD60M and on the way back was the Dash-8. It was so much fun trying out both Run 8 and Dynamic 8. I will never forget that day in Wyoming. The crew on that train was so wonderful...reading all of your stories about how times have changed made me realize that they have, however in a town out in the boonies of Wyoming, there is a crew that is willing to put their jobs on the line for the happiness of two teens. I just want to thank them again for a wonderful memory. Thanks Guys!

 

BN9900 you just lived the thrill of your life. Back in steam days, you would have been shoveling coal all the way up and back for a chance to ride in the right hand seat for awhile, and loving every minute of it. If you ever get a chance to get in the cab of a steamer, take it! Then you will know why we loved the old steamers so much. That was the Romance of the Rails! Now when you are in your car, it will occasionally cross your mind that you had all the horsepower in the world at your finger tips! Then you will think, what that engine would do in this car! WOW!

 

Watash, your right, I do that. I got a chance to fire a steamer, and yesI did take it. It didn't move because the FRA won't allow the museum to move it with a payload due to repairs needed on the boiler, how ever it is used to steam heat the cars before they go out with the diesel. My friend had the fun job of firing that from 6 am on a friday to about 7 pm the next afternoon. Ispelled him for 6 hours onthat friday. As much as I liked that. I think I will stick to engineering diesels. However to just take a ride, or watching the steamers are a thrill.