Railroaders' Nostalgia > "Help me, Help me!"

Time for another story during my Amtrak days.

I was regular conductor on the afternoon yard job in the West Oakland Coach Yard, I had a good brakeman (assistant conductor in Amtrak terminology) that came from the UP, so I had total trust in him.  Though our regular engineer had been involved in a yard accident, he was off due to injuries, so we were getting engineer dojour off the xtra board.  We got this one particular engineer, who was a super nice guy, but he was very, very nervous, trusted no one and ran really slow in the yard.  The speed limit for most of the yard was 10mph, he would do 2-3mph and always wanted us to use the radio.  So on this particular night an xtra crew was also called to switch over at the old Oakland Terminal Yard near CP Magnolia, there was some 100 Amtrak box cars they had to sort out, plus spot the warehouse with empties, and bring loads back, a real mess.  I digress.  Our duties every night was to turn #5's power with the baggage and dorm car, we were doing just that at this point in the evening, it involved coming off the east end of 5 trk, proceeding up the 40 lead onto the main line, continue to CP King, and shoving back onto the 50 lead, than branching off into South Oakland to wye our short train and power.  

I climb up on the engine with our xtra board engineer, I was particularly tired that night for some reason, I would handle any switches ahead of me and my brakeman was on the rear to handle the shove into South Oakland and upon return to the mainline.  The P42's ride really nice for the most part, once I ensure my brakeman is on board and ready to rock I tell the engineer "lets highball".  He pulls out and is creeping along at 5mph, onto the 40 lead we go, same thing 5mph, I'm thinking common lets go, I think I even said at one point "you can go a little faster".  I don't remember falling asleep, but I did, he was just going so slow it was like slow motion, I woke up near the overpass at Magnolia.  I was thinking to myself, really?  So were creeping along, now were on the main, even though we have a short distance to go, he could pick it up some.  I fell asleep again, this time were passing the Howard Terminal, I'm thinking again to myself "good god this is insanity".  And once again I fall asleep and wake up, this time were passing the PG&E gas facility, finally were at CP King!

So now it's in my brakeman's hands, he gives the signal and car count, our engineer repeats it and now he's going 2-3mph.  I give up and go back to sleep, I know I am not supposed to sleep on the job, but what else was there to do, otherwise I'd be pulling my hair out or say something to him I would regret, so I kept my mouth shut.  I'm not really in a deep sleep, and I hear on the radio "help me, help me!", it was my brakeman in agony because our engineer was going so slow, he told me later he was literally laying down controlling the move because he got tired of standing up, can't say as I don't blame him there.  So just for the heck of it, I roll over to 5555 the channel we used when switching at OTR, and those guys are ready to kill each other, the conductor is lost in space, the brakeman is confused becasue of the conductors instruction and the engineer is yelling at both on the radio, I was laughing my butt off.  I rolled back over to the UP road channel and said to my brakeman "hey you should roll over to the OTR and listen to these guys, some funny stuff", so he said okay I'll be right back.  He was gone for a couple of minutes, he comes back on and says to me right on the road channel "man you ain't kidding, that's some funny sh*t going on over there".

We finally make it around the wye and back, but it took nearly 2hrs, something that should take 45-60 minutes if things are going smooth, which that night things were dead and there was no traffic so the DS had us stacked back.  I recall at one point he even called asking what was going on, I said "I'll call you on the land line later", he got a kick out of things too, he was pretty easy going of a dispatcher and luckily didn't leave us over there to rot as some have.

Just another night on Amtrak, lots of memories of good times, I could never fault someone for taking the safe course though if there's any moral to the story.

Agonizing. I've had to do a lot of coach switching in our yard, and in our shop, and it is agonizing with a slow-running engineer. It's harrowing with a fast one though with all the shop doors, derails, blue flags, wheel skids and chocks, etc., especially at night or in bad weather. Pick your poison, I guess. ;-)

He's lucky he wasn't hanging on the side of a boxcar!  We had a switchman on the point of a long slow shove like that who finally said on the radio "My arms are so looong!"
G

After SP's merger with the UP, the old WP yard and wye became the "south yard" as I recall. Around 2000 or 2001 that wye was the location of several derailments. If my old recollection is correct, not all locomotives were allowed on the wye and the word was put out that they could only enter one side and not the other. Although I was curious, I never checked it out but probably only a track guy could spot the problem. 

That's about the time we started using it, UP still had the yard there so we had to dodge inbound and outbound freights, that's another story, lol.

But your right, we had to enter from the Schnitzer side and come out the side where the autos were unloaded.  The switches were functional variables <g>.

Westbound Wrote:
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> After SP's merger with the UP, the old WP yard and
> wye became the "south yard" as I recall. Around
> 2000 or 2001 that wye was the location of several
> derailments. If my old recollection is correct,
> not all locomotives were allowed on the wye and
> the word was put out that they could only enter
> one side and not the other. Although I was
> curious, I never checked it out but probably only
> a track guy could spot the problem. 

Yeah Frank, every yard seemed to have its grandma, as well as its speed demons. I prefered the former, as I think most of us would. Self-inflicted head-pounding isn't as serious as a boxcar bouncing off of one's cranium, eh? Nevertheless...

You've got a talent with the pen, old buddy!

EO

I used to work with Al Mento in the yard on occasion, you best get on right then in there or he wasn't stopping!

hogheaded Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yeah Frank, every yard seemed to have its grandma,
> as well as its speed demons. I prefered the
> former, as I think most of us would.
> Self-inflicted head-pounding isn't as serious as a
> boxcar bouncing off of one's cranium, eh?
> Nevertheless...
>
> You've got a talent with the pen, old buddy!
>
> EO