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John and Cedric
have both asked for some stories from my
Railroading days. 'Though I'm like most Rails,
I love to tell long tales, and I'm quite full
of BS in my own right. I'm also a little
uncomfortable re-telling stories in such a
public forum. I know the carriers do not have
too keen a sense of humor. But be that as it
may, here's a story for you I like to call
Negative Reinforcement
In the early
1980's, I owned a regular assignment on the
eastern end of my seniority district that ran
across southern Minnesota. It was a nice
little night job that had an extra engine turn
in the rotation versus the two ground crews
who worked every day. So I worked two 12 hour
days (one out and one back), then had 24 hours
off before coming back to work at 0130 on the
fourth night.
We were
really no more than a glorified way-freight,
handling tonnage to an intermediate terminal
and connecting with a southbound transfer run
to Mason City, Iowa. We setout most of our
train, swapped power, switched the yard, &
spotted some industries before continuing
eastward towards our away-from-home terminal,
doing as much way-freight work as possible
with out dying. The next night we reversed the
process. The track speed was fair (30mph), the
terrain challenging ( 5-1% grades and 1-1.9%
hill ), and power was adequate. We had all
second-hand equipment in the forms of ex-BN
SD45's and Southern SD24's that had their
turbochargers and dynamic brakes removed and
reclassified as SD18's. These units worked
quite well together - the SD45's performing
best between 20-30mph and the SD18's working
best under 15mph, which covered all our needs.
An added bonus was that some of the SD45's
still had operating dynamic brakes.
So one frosty January night, we are ordered
about 0100 at our away-from-home terminal. As
we are discussing our train orders and the
work to be done en route, at the yard
office, we see we have a chance for a quit
(tie-up early before we go on overtime),
because we have a straight shot to our home
terminal. An early quit is quite rare for us
but does sometimes happen if everything goes
just right. We face that possibility tonight,
but for our train size. We are over tonnage
for the 1.9% hill which is rated at 2
horsepower per ton. Standard Operating
Practice is to try the hill and, if we stall,
double to the first siding on top of the grade
(we don't reduce tonnage). We don't really
want to screw around on the hill because we
all want this early quit. So we agree to let
the power decide for us.
As we leave
the river bottom, we encounter a small 1%
grade, which is 3 miles long. If power does
really well on this hill, I may decide to
tackle the hill to save time. If not, we stop
at Stockton, the last town near the base of
the hill to cut and double to the top. My call
either way. I sure wish the SD45 wasn't in the
lead but nestled back against the train, where
it wouldn't slip as much. Well, to make this
part of my story shorter, the SD45 slipped
like crazy, and I had problems making 16 mph
on the smaller & shorter of the two hills. We
have to double.
I drop the head man off at Main Street and
pull the prearranged cut pass him. Now SOP
from this point is for the head Brakeman to
make the cut and then find a safe place to
ride, preferably inside a cover hopper end
well. This gets him out of the wind (remember
it's January and about 10 above) and gives him
a nice stable place to ride the 7 miles up the
hill.
My head
brakeman finds a nice hopper end to ride. So
he signals me to take off, and I pour the
coals to her as fast as possible but not so
fast as to knock him off the car. Before too
long I'm doing the speed limit in my run for
the hill. I enter a long sweeping right hand
curve at the base of the hill and then out
under a highway overpass on the other end of
the curve. As I come out the other side of the
overpass, I see an obstruction about an 1/2 of
a mile dead ahead of me. It's a 1500+ lb bull
that's grazing just on the right of way
nearest to my side. Damn! There goes our early
quit!!
I can't stop
without hitting him, and If I spike the air, I
could knock my brakeman off his perch or maybe
tear something apart, and then we end up
tripling the hill! So I lay on the whistle and
bell, even flash my headlights to get this
damn bull to move just a few feet from the
tracks.
Well, he
acts as if he doesn't have a care in the
world, but he does seem to be moving. Oh SH*T,
he's crossing the tracks for the other side.
This is going to be a mess. The bull is
definitely moving, but I'm getting closer,
too. Will he clear? I'm thinking out loud to
myself: "Keep going, you sob, or you'll be on
the menu at McDonald's next week."
I stand up
to see what's happening, but the nose of the
engine is in the way. I can't see. I feel more
than hear a slight thump over the noise from
all the engines, the bell & the whistle. Did
we hit him or just graze him?
Can't stop
now, I'm starting to lose momentum. The lead
SD45 is slipping, but the SD18s are coming
into their own. I got other things to occupy
myself for the next 30 minutes. So I call the
head brakeman to watch for any sign of the
bull as we continue up the hill. The brakeman
sees nothing, but it's dark, and I'm sure he
was more concerned with hanging on and keeping
warm than looking for any damn' animal.
After
stopping at the siding switch, the brakeman
unlocks and cleans the switch so we can put
away this half of our train in the siding, and
I inspect the head end power. There are no
signs of a collision with the bull, but the
fireman's side of the front snow plow, the
knuckle & drawbar, the air hose & angle cock
are all covered with what appears to be fine
hair that was sticking straight out in the
moonlight. We set out the cars and change ends
to return to our train.
On the
return trip down the hill the trainman and I
are looking for a possible wounded animal in
the ditch. We found nothing! As the train
charges up, I call CX tower and report a
possible livestock hit. Tower said that the
Track Jockey would look for the animal on his
morning patrol, and we can fill out any paper
work at our home terminal. The rest of the
trip is uneventful, and we did get our early
tie-up. There was no paper work to be filled
out for the claim's agent when we tied up. But
we would most likely hear more about the
incident should the owner claimed we killed
his prize bull.
On my next trip east, I had a new head
brakeman who was covering off the extra board.
As we start down the 1.9% grade, I'm telling
him about my last trip and our hitting the
bull just outside of Stockton. So he come over
to my side as we slow and start to search the
ditch for any signs of the bull.
No bull, but
wait! What's that grazing in the field? It's
the damn bull! I had a hold of the whistle for
the next crossing and for some odd reason, I
don't know why, I blew two short toots. That
damn' bull's head came up like a shot, and he
took off running full bore across the field
for the gate to the stock pen. It was the
funniest sight to see that huge animal, who
two nights ago had no desire to move very fast
at all, moving like it was running in the
Kentucky Derby. Do you suppose that, after
that, the farmer wondered what was wrong with
his bull every time a freight train came thru
town?
How's that for Reinforcement??? Well Pavlov
had his dog, and I had my bull, and McDonald's
did without." |
