Railroaders' Nostalgia > Hobart Tower Horrors

Back in the late 1990s, I was working a Metrolink commuter train coming up from Orange County into Los Angeles. My engineer was W.P. "Billy Paul" Rogers, an "old head" Santa Fe man, now retired and happily living in the northeastern U.S. On this particular day, we had an interesting situation at Hobart Tower. At the time, Hobart Tower was still staffed by a towerman and he was having a very bad day. Hobart Tower is where the BNSF San Bernardino Subdivision intersects with the Union Pacific's San Pedro Branch. It's situated at milepost 144.5 on the BNSF line and milepost 3.1 on the UP line.

The towerman had total gridlock in his "plant" (i.e., within the boundaries of what his tower controlled). Trains were everywhere. To untangle the mess, he had to temporarily stash us on a transfer track in the southeast quadrant of his interlocking plant. In addition to other movements, this is a track that's primarily used by BNSF transfer trains moving to and from the Los Angeles Junction Railway. Technically, we weren't qualified to operate over this track, since we'd never run on it before. If we wanted to have been a real "fly-in-the-ointment", I suppose we could have demanded to have a pilot guide us over this unfamiliar piece of railroad. We decided to be "team players", however, partly because we had a trainload of influential people who were anxious to get to work. We only had to use about eight hundred feet of the transfer track, and we just crept onto it at restricted speed. Fortunately, it had recently been spruced up with concrete ties and welded rail. I guess as long as they go at restricted speed and have authority from a control operator or dispatcher, a crew is qualified over any stretch of track!

The passengers on the train, who were regular commuters and rode the train practically every weekday, immediately knew something weird was going on, especially when we slowly crossed over the very busy 26th Street and had a long line of rush-hour traffic tied up. I got on the P.A. and jokingly said, "Uh, I think we're lost. Does anyone know how to get to Union Station?" After some laughter, I told them the real reason why we were doing what we were doing.

After the gridlock was untangled, we made a reverse movement off this transfer track back onto the BNSF mainline and then proceeded west on our merry way to Union Station. I remember the towerman thanked us on the radio for our cooperation. It made for an interesting entry in the delay report.



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/13 16:26 by CA_Sou_MA_Agent.

Great story. You obviously handled it with great skill and diplomacy. For reference, here's a couple shots of Hobart Tower as she appears today, unmanned but still standing tall. I shot these off the back of Tioga Pass on a southbound Surfliner a few weeks ago on December 30, 2012.

I remember how hairy things could get at Hobart back then. I don't know how many times I went dead-on-the-law waiting to get around the wye at Hobart on power we had just brought in on an inbound UP train. Sometimes a relatively smooth trip from Yermo could all go to hell in the 11th hour as we tried to wye our power and put it away. The operators did there best there, but it could get crazy busy sometimes and, obviously, inbound power was a low priority. I remember the daylight operator back then was a gal named Tilly. You could hear in her voice over the radio when things were getting ugly in the tower. *LOL*

I don't know if you knew Eugene Crowner but he has some great stories posted on his site. "On Duty at the Railroad", here...

http://www.railroadmemoirsbycrowner.com/

Cheers!

Mike

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i think I could come up with some imaginative options over LAJ and nearby connections that cudda got you up to LAUPT rather than reversing back onto ATSF, but you wuddn't have been 'qualified' for those either... tnx for the tale.

Steve Donaldson
Pacific Grove, CA

trainjunkie Wrote:
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> Great story. You obviously handled it with great
> skill and diplomacy. For reference, here's a
> couple shots of Hobart Tower as she appears today,
> unmanned but still standing tall. . .

Great photos. In addition to Tilly, I used to work with a guy named Ed Zeiss and a guy named Roddy, who had a thick Australian accent.

I've seen those UP locomotives sitting there for several weeks. I've heard they're brand new and UP is taking delivery on them. Maybe they just don't need them right now with the depressed traffic levels.

Which railroad controls this junction?

Thank you.

CSXT_8437 Wrote:
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> Which railroad controls this junction?
>
> Thank you.

Since it is now longer staffed on site, it's controlled by the BNSF dispatcher in San Bernardino.

Union Pacific had the former control of Hobart.

Eugene Crowner is lurking somewhere on Trainorders here.

--Jim Baker

JimBaker Wrote:
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> Union Pacific had the former control of Hobart.
>
> Eugene Crowner is lurking somewhere on Trainorders
> here.
>
> --Jim Baker

He is "Shafty".

I did a few weeks of "Light Duty" at Hobart Tower after I had sprained my ankle in the "old Mira Loma Yard" the one that had trees,both dead and alive,along with the worlds largest amount of squirrel holes,and assorted trash and broken railroad car parts.I worked the afternoon shift with Pat Warren and Tilly Wolfe was her relief operator (off days).Tilly's husband Ed was the signal maintainer in the area and his office was on the level under the top floor.Ed would often hang around Hobart Tower after his shift was over waiting for the go home traffic to die down so it would be lighter for him on his way home.I would go with him to pick up lunch for the 3 of us.He used to clean the contacts for the tower levers.The access door was sealed with a wire that was crimped into a lead disc that was a bit larger than an aspirin,the same ones that they used to seal up electric meters.The device that he used to crimp the lead seal would imprint LA&SL into the lead. Pretty cool.