Railroaders' Nostalgia > One Night On The Work Train

Today will be more of a story from the perspective of working one of those Caltrain work train jobs that used the former SP equipment on the former SP ROW. These jobs I am pretty sure were bulletined as work trains, though we did far more switching, set outs and pick ups, along with running transfer trains to and from the UP. So I tend to think management did it that was so the old guys would stay off, not sure, paid 12hrs a night 5 days a week, was a great job to be holding as a trainman, and later as engineer on hold-down assignements when the regular engineer was off.The night before my crew of conductor John Campbell, myself as engineer and brakeman Howard Samarin built up our train in South San Francisco the night before after going up and down the line retrieving cars for the outbound train for interchange to the UP at Newhall Yard. So we set up our train on the #2 side of the SSF Yard, caboose to the rear and built off it, lots of 60' and 89' flats, gondolas, ballast cars and a bunch of those special CRDX ballast cars, this was split between two rails.

So all we needed to do the following night was run light from 7th Street, drop Howard off at the Caboose so he could do his part of the air test, John at the headend and he lined me ontop of the first cut, cleared the main and we pumped the air.Once the southbound cleared, we obtained permission to occupy main two in which to double over to the balance of the train, we did all our obligatory air tests and started along at restricted speed, in time to beat the northbound to clear the platform and Howard would line us behind and we would report lined and locked and on the move, train was around 4,200', our power was one of the GP9s and MP15DC, good combo if things co-operated. Now I could have shoved back behind signal 90 and took a run at it on a clear, once we cleared the platform the northbound was just creeping in. So we going a long at restricted speed, here go at the next signal leading wheels, skinnner back to run 8!We were pretty much good for 50mph the whole way through, the meets couldn't have been planned any better based on the time we left. I rememember blasting through San Mateo at run8, laying on the horn, 2 longs, short and a long. Johnny looks over and says "You sure love your SP horn, you know it baby!" He even said, you run hot like Al Mento, and was calling me Al Mento Jr. We had a good meet at Hayward Park with Gary Ellison, now working the climb up the hill to Hillsdale and then into the sag into Belmont.

E.O. Gibson told me when working freight 'keep'm stretched, or keep'm bunched', his commentary helped tremendously as it was the biggest freight train I had run at speed, remember I was trained as a passenger engineer, not freight. The thing that helped me understand tonnage, stopping distances and the like was the fact I had worked on the ground prior handling all sorts of Amtrak freigth and this freight from this job.Were working down grade now, things are looking good for an early quit, we roll through Redwood City, no pickup's, and as we start to climb the hill towards Palo Alto, I get bells at the Ravenswood Crossing, I ask Johnny if he could check the trailing engine, shutters wouldn't open and it was overrheating. We dropped to 37mph, but once the rest of the train crested at the San Francis Quito Creek Bridge in Palo Alto we were able to slowly build back our speed, it was around Mountain View that we got back up to 50mph, more smooth meets, approaching around Sunnyvale I wish Engineer Bob Castalegone a good and happy retirement. We hit the 42 detector, advanced approach, approach diverging to a restricting if I remember the signal sequences properly. A little 6lb shot of air, bail the engine brakes and down to run 2-3 milking the throttle a bit till the prescribed speed was reached. We slowly glide into the yard on a prescribed track, run around and grab the caboose, cut away and it's another safe and uneventful night.

We cab hop back to San Francisco, and I think from our 7pm sign up, we were back by 11pm, time to enjoy a nice weekend after we tied up.I had asked Howard how much slack he had on the caboose ride, he said it was smooth, just a little slack out of SSF but that's it.This job was a very rewarding one, I worked it as a trainman from 2000-2001 and from 2002-2003 and as engineer from 2003 - 2005 of and on.  We did far more railroading than ever imagined, there were several other engineers who as trainmen worked the job also and when they added a south end job, and added daylights on the weekends a great many more got to work it and experience a different side of railroading, along with supporting MofW than the usual passenger gigs offered.

Said photo is not the same train I'm talking about in the post.

 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/01/16 21:33 by fjc.

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Yeah learning to run trains was like that for a lot of us. You operate within your comfort zone for awhile; get feeling pretty good about yourself, and then DOINK, you're in pretty much over your head... but then you come out OK. I can't imagine whatever BS I fed you made much difference. Sounds like you figured it out on your own.

EO

Boosted my confidence.


hogheaded Wrote:
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> Yeah learning to run trains was like that for a
> lot of us. You operate within your comfort zone
> for awhile; get feeling pretty good about
> yourself, and then DOINK, you're in pretty much
> over your head... but then you come out OK. I
> can't imagine whatever BS I fed you made much
> difference. Sounds like you figured it out on your
> own.
>
> EO

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