Railroaders' Nostalgia > Another fuel truck story.

Back in the 50s-70s in LA the SP had a semi-trailer fuel truck with a small lube oil tank and a sand hopper that worked all three shifts fueling yard engines at all of the outlying points. The regular drivers had trouble keeping up, and some engines didn't get fueled, except the afternoon driver who always got all of his assigned engines, so nobody paid any attention to him.

We still had double track in the pavement on Alameda St, and many industries still got enough cars that we had one afternoon job and two midnight jobs working on the pavement all night.  One customer was Young's Market Company that was a liquor distributor.  They had been having thefts from their boxcars, so a railroad police officer was assigned to watch the cars on their spur.  He parked an unmarked van in a truck stop across the street and sat back to watch the boxcars of booze.

About halfway through the afternoon shift, the fuel truck pulls into the truck stop,  the driver parks it and goes into a diner for lunch.  The RR cop noted this in his log and sat back to watch his boxcars.  A few minutes later, an employee of the truck stop came out and hooked a hose onto the fuel truck, and unloaded the 7000 gallons of fuel that it held into one of the station's underground tanks.  Needless to say, the cop figures he has somebody stealing from the Railroad, but he didn't run right out and arrest the guy, instead since he had it all on film, he waited until he was releived, then went back to the station, expecting to find a report from the roundhouse about a truckload of stolen fuel!  Guess what? No report, and the driver got all the rest of his assigned engines fueled!

The next day they were ready for him, and watched him from a distance all shift.  He started out with a full truck and fueled several engines, then went back, refillled the truck, parked it in the truck stop and went to lunch.  Out comes the truck stop guy  and unloads it.  After lunch the fuel truck driver got back in the truck, drove back to the roundhouse, refilled it again, and fueled the rest of his assigned engines.

The next day they had the SP Police as well as the LAPD in unmarked cars watching the whole thing, and as soon as the truck stop employee hooked up the hose and turned on the valve, they busted him and the truck driver who tried to say he didn't know anything about it until they showed him the film of the days before.

The cumulative total readings on the old mechanical pumps showed well over 100,000 gallons more fuel dispensed than purchased from the refinery.  That plus all of the unpaid highway tax cost the truck stop owner a long time in jail.
G

 

Miss-use of the company's gas credit cards was probably the most common theft by employees on the SP but that was peanuts compared to your story. The largest theft I knew about involved a gal who got away with over $400,000 of stuff - until she was caught. She had been in the position of approving credit card (not just gasoline) purchases and had even arranged for several members of her family to have and use the cards for all manner of things. 

I remember that!. There was something about the diesel fuel having a color dye added to indicate that taxes had
either been paid or the railroad was exempt, or some such scenario. Driver was dismissed.

Charlie 

cewherry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I remember that!. There was something about the
> diesel fuel having a color dye added to indicate
> that taxes had
> either been paid or the railroad was exempt, or
> some such scenario. Driver was dismissed.
>
> Charlie

It's a red or pink dye put into exempt fuel.  I've heard they sometimes extract a little fuel out of your highway vehicle (farmers, railroads and other non-highway users), and if it shows dye you're busted for using exempt fuel.

mapboy

Knew a Pennsy Engineer who drove a Mercedes-Benz. One day I pulled into a gas station right behind him. He had a gas fueled auto and I asked that I thought he only drove a Mercedes. He said he was now retired. 

There was a hostler on the Coast that borrowed a friends MB Diesel back in the late 60s. He drove to Bayshore for his afternoon shift. When he went to beans, he drove the car over to the fuel rack and filed the guys tank. 

The car didn't even make it half way back to SJ before the motor seized. On the SP, you never knew what was in the fuel or what grade it was. They put their fuel out to bid with certain specifics. One might have a car with pure No. 2 Diesel. That was rare. The shellac content was so high it wound up destroying engines. SP figured that it was cheaper to pull the bad prime mover out and put in a rebuild than it was to buy No. 2 Diesel. Back when they got rid of steam they still had contracts for Bunker "C" oil. It had to be heated to get it to flow. Well some bright bulb in the City figured they could heat it enough to get it  to run a diesel. The old heads told me it was a mess. You had to have the diesel running and hot on regular fuel. Then when you were under a load (pulling a grade or stretch braking across the morning dew, you would go back (covered wagons) and slowly cut the Bunker "C" into the fuel lines. They said that half the time the engine would die after a few minutes, thick black smoke and would bog down the RPMs, hence lower loading. I don't know how long they tried to make it work.

As far as grades of fuel for taxes, this is what I remember:

During WWII gas was green for farm/off road use and amber for tax paid. Then it really changed for diesel in the 80s I think for both Fed & State Taxes. The Feds got involved and they really changed the colors. If it was clear, all tax paid.. Green, off road some tax paid. Lite Blue, no taxes paid at all. I can't remember what the other colors were or what they meant. There was red, etc.

I know they will "Dip": your tank at inspection stations. Big buses and motor homes don't go through the scales so some of them gamble and burn off road if they can. If you fuel in Mexico, its good fuel but you never know what the color will be. Its a crap shoot if you get stopped in the the states, just have your recipts.

I know in Oregon, if you got a fuel tax permit and also a off road fuel card for filling at card lock stations, no tax paid. You would fuel your rig with clear fuel and show the permit to the station so you would not pay the taxes. The clear fuel was when you were dipped in other states. You would  not pay the taxes. Now if you used a card-lock for off road it was green, no road tax paid. You would keep track of the miles driven in Oregon. At the end of the year you would pay the highway taxes only on miles driven on the highway within the state. It made a big difference when you put 300 gallons in your rig and only drove 40 miles to the border, that's a lot of money saved.  Both my brother-in-laws have their own logging trucks and it makes a big difference driving those roads up to landings and thru the pucker brush.


Nudge



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/17/15 10:26 by spnudge.

Diesel engines on ships use residual fuel oil (Bunker C); I don't know how they get around the shut-down issues, perhaps there aren't any as the engines are huge and the bunkers are probably kept warm at all times.  In my early days on SFE I used their fuel in my diesel pick-up until I realized it was foolish to risk a good job for a pittance (I was never caught and Santa Fe was a good place to work). They got first rate #2 diesel direct from Chevron, no garbage.

When I first hired out, there were a few guys on outlying jobs that would get some diesel from the fuel tanks for the pick up trucks. 

Here's a story that was relayed to me:

One brakeman bought a VW diesel car in the 80's. He kept bragging how good the fuel mileage was and the guys driving the trucks were getting tired of hearing about this foreign 4 banger. They devised a scheme where they would take some of the diesel and add it to the tank when he got to work and left the shanty. He was getting well over 150 miles per gallon and was bragging about. They did this for a few weeks before TAKING fuel from his tank. They said he sold the car after bitching there was something wrong with it.

Joe