Railroaders' Nostalgia > Not enough white-hats!

In September of 1981 Uncle John Santa Fe found himself in one of those infamous ‘don’t-try-this-at-home’ situations. A westbound manifest (308? 348? 326?) was inbound in Emporia, KS headed for the westbound yard for some cut & fill work. But then the lead motor decided to split the switch between the westbound freight yard lead and depot track #4. The result was not pretty. Since the train was westbound with the rear end hanging back east of NR Jct, every street crossing in the entire city was blocked. The narrow underpasses at State & Congress Streets were open, as was the slightly less narrow underpass at Mechanic Street. The only other alternatives were the Prairie Street underpass about 16 blocks west of downtown or the Weaver Street crossing on the extreme east side of town. I don’t remember hearing how long it took for the next westbound to arrive. That train would have had to stop, cut off and come to the rescue. I believe it stopped out on the country probably just clear of the Wiggam crossovers, cut off and moseyed west to pull the stricken train body back east clearing up all the city crossings.

But it just so happens, Uncle John DID try this at home! This nasty little snafu happened right out in front of the Santa Fe/Amtrak passenger station, which doubled as the Eastern Division HQ in those days. And it was dang lucky there was a good supply of white hard-hat wearing management types in the area. By my count there were over a dozen white hats at the sight in these 2 images. Although a couple of them were probably counted twice, I have no doubt there were other white hats that escaped my camera’s field of exposure. And it goes without saying that all white hats present had a specific hand in accelerating the cleanup work in an efficient manner. It’s no wonder only 5 or 6 non-white hats (by my count) were present to do the actual work. So my hat’s off (pun intended) to all the white hat heroes who so unfailingly aided in the speedy resolution of this untoward incident!

Are you ready for the disclaimer? Of course 98% of my 2nd paragraph was merely fun-poking satire. But part of the paragraph that was 100% true. That’s the part where I said: “it happened right out in front of the…” In my career I was on hand to witness close to a dozen incidents similar to this one. It always amused me to see so many white hits (read: brass, management or officials, take your pick) gather at some catastrophe like this minor derailment. And at these events the population of white hats seemingly out-numbed the yellow hats 2-1, sometimes even 3-1. (For yellow hats read: employee labor, or the crews doing the actual physical work). For the yellow hat guys down in the labor trenches it was always a great source of sarcastic hilarity; yes, and even bitter derision at times. To be fair, it makes perfect sense to me that someone on the mid-level management rung be present at these incidents to make company decisions, if such decisions arose. But to see such a virtual army division of upper brass show up always caused me to snicker, albeit in a quiet manner.

There is another part of my second paragraph that I personally know to be true. It’s the part where I stated: “I have no doubt there were other white hats that escaped my camera’s field…” I had just got back home to Emporia from some extended personal time off when I happened onto this scene. I had been in Milwaukee, Wisconsin attending the wedding of good friend & fellow 80s KS Gangster (the late) Mark Simonson. I grabbed my camera and set about shooting a few slides, and was immediately approached by the local special agent whose name I really wish I could remember. I had only snapped a couple of pictures when I felt his elbow gently nudge me. That special agent, who was very friendly toward Santa Fe employee/railfans told me: “Here kid, wear this!” With a beaming smile he handed me a hard hat. It was a WHITE hard hat with that famous Santa Fe circle-cross in blue. With a wink in his eye he also told me to return it when I was done, then quickly walked away. I put that white hard hat on and snapped pictures like I owned the joint!

Of course, over 35 years later I still have that white hard hat…

1. AT&SF 8036 is trying to burrow underground between depot platform tracks & the westbound freight yard lead. There are at least 6 white hard hats in this image.

2. AT&SF 8081 & 8075 were trailing the 8036. The rest of the train refused to play the game, staying fully upright and on the rail. It was rescued from behind, getting pulled backwards out of town to clear several street crossings. There are at least a dozen white hard hats in this image. Both images together have 5, maybe 6 non-white hard hats present…
(2 photos taken September 23, 1981 in Emporia, KS)

Thanks for the hat!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/16 16:36 by santafe199.

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I remember when that happened. I went home town, and noticed the engine know the photo as I swung into the parking lot. I thought it was odd nobody was around, not a soul. I never did hear what happened. A few years later I had the same thing happen at Sand Creek, with the same results, and I'm here to tell you it's not a good feeling when your 8000 is almost on its side.

Posted from Android

Lance, I don't see any Santa Fe mechnical or M of W employees in either of the pictures (except for supervisors staying out of the way of the Hulcher crew).  The red hats are Hulcher employees along with at least one (probably more) Hulcher supervisors wearing white hats.  After Hulcher gets everything re-railed one would probably see lots of yellow hats buzzing around.
     Mark

KskidinTx Wrote: > ... I don't see any Santa Fe mechanical or M of W employees...

Sorry, I used 'yellow hat' as a NON-white hat metaphor...
(I probably should have made the distinction, but I was chuckling at the ridiculous scene of white hats outnumbering the (insert choice) hats by better than 2-1...

;^)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/11/16 19:56 by santafe199.

Since it happened in fromt of the station the management types couldn't resist going out to watch.  We'd all probably do the same thing ;>).

Great story and pics.

CHAOS (Chief Has Arrived On Scene) is the Fire Service acroym used to describe the gaggle of white hats aka Chiefs on a fireground!  It is nice to see that other organizations have similar findings!  [In all fairness and in the interest of full disclosure, one the white hats would be mine!  In our department captains and above wear white helmets!]

Bruce
Columbia MO

Back in 1980 something, there was a minor derailment in Newhall yard in San Jose. A detail of 12-15 was on site trying to rerail the cars. I was on a moving train and couldn't take an official count, but all but two or three had white hats. Certainly management personnel had to be there to supervise the operation, but it seems to me that the management to worker ratio was backward.

Posted from iPhone

Lance, seems to be about the normal ratio. The year before I retired BNSF had an "incident" near Watson yard where we went of duty where the rookie engineer started pulling on a sharp curve before the rear end released resulting in this impressive "string line" event. As you can see the ratio was six to three (one white hat is hidden behind an orange hat and the youngest member of the local management team busy shooting pictures never bothered to don his white hat). Eighteen cars on the ground or at an angle and no track damage, pretty impressive.
​JB

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Well they did made a cut, and filled it with locomotive.

Posted from Android

We had a "White Hat" that showed up at the little horse shoe on Cuesta in 69. I was a fireman on the work train and we were waiting for Biggie Crane Service to drag another pig flat over and place it on the rails. After they did that, they would collect a set of trucks, place them on the rail. Then one crane would lift one end of the car and roll a truck under the king pin and lower the car. Repeat for the other end. After this was all done, we would take the car and set it out on the siding at Chorro. Once there the car knockers would go to work on them to make them movable in a hospital train.

Well, we had a new asst. trainmaster come down from Wat.Jct., DET, to supervise the work. He didn't think we were moving fast enough between lifts and thought he could do a better job. Well, there was always the same Biggie Foreman that ran the work. Big guy that looked like he could pick up a whole truck by himself. NOBODY made a move unless he had given the okay.  Well, there was a set of trucks on the land side that needed to be moved to the ocean side for the next lift. DET stepped up and told the crane operator what to do. The operator looked at the Foreman to see what he wanted to do. I could swear he Foreman had a smile on his face when he shrugged, gave the crane operator an okay and they all sat down to watch.  Well, DET wrapped a cable around the truck frame and gave the sign to lift. 

Well, you could have made money selling tickets. He raised the truck all right but didn't take into account  it had roller bearings. From about 5 feet the wheels let go, fell to the ground and started a journey down the small canyon. Everybody was in stitches. I have a super 8 movie of the Cats dragging the wheels back up to the RofW. One was lodged in the crotch of an old oak tree and took some time to get loose. Last we saw, was the dust off of DETs car heading back towards Serrano and Highway 101.

Nudge

You posters on here only think you have seen an abundance of "White Hats".
Should have been in attendance at Antelope Yard  in Roseville on Monday April 30,1973,  after the Saturday explosions of 18 cars on of MK-82 bombs. 
No GO help on the weekend but plenty on monday, all in the proper head gear. I always referred to them as the ,"why don't we or lets do crowd", after all the workers had already been lined up and were working.

Of course they are all there to find someone else to blame like the train crew.
 

In my experience as a RFE, derailments and other such incidents were always accompanied by the usual amount of finger pointing among the officials. Operating tried to blame mechanical, mechanical likewise blamed operating and signal tried to blame both operating and mechanical. And let us not forget the Gandys; they were good at trying to blame everybody except track folks.
No wonder the RFE was looked upon by the Superintendent as the engineer's local chairman; always trying to apologize for the hoggers sins.

Charlie

Posted from iPhone



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/14/16 12:35 by cewherry.

"Engineer sins"? I don't know what you're talking about, Charlie (-:

EO

On the SP, the last department to arrive at a derailment site usually got blamed for it.
​At least if the cause wasn't obvious!

ExSPCondr Wrote:
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> On the SP, the last department to arrive at a
> derailment site usually got blamed for it.
> ​At least if the cause wasn't obvious!
Good one!

cewherry Wrote:
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> In my experience as a RFE, derailments and other
> such incidents were always accompanied by the
> usual amount of finger pointing among the
> officials. Operating tried to blame mechanical,
> mechanical likewise blamed operating and signal
> tried to blame both operating and mechanical. And
> let us not forget the Gandys; they were good at
> trying to blame everybody except track folks.
> No wonder the RFE was looked upon by the
> Superintendent as the engineer's local chairman;
> always trying to apologize for the hoggers sins.
>
> Charlie
>
> Posted from iPhone

 In my career a good number of the RFof E personell were already past Local Chairmen. 
There standard phrase at an accident was the involved hoghead was,"My very best hoghead">

That derailment happened way too close to a Division Office building with a bunch of guys wanting to get their safety boots dirty and show off for the boss.  Bet a night shot would not have so many white hats out there.  Great shots

jtwlunch Wrote: > ... Bet a night shot would not have so many white hats out there

I believe you're right. As for night shots... my timebook indicates I didn't go to work until 0630 the next morning. I really don't remember, but the fact that I have no night shots may mean they weren't working over night. The eastbound freight yard lead was clear from the get-go. So SFe may not have been in a big hurry to get it all cleaned up.

Lance
 

Most likely pre safety boot era.  I remember seeing a mechanical foreman at Barstow in the 70's wearing a pair of those sky blue pants in one of the photos above.  He had a white belt and white shoes to go with it.  Probably a white shirt and tie too.  I never failed to find the crater grease when I went in the yard, regardless of how hard I was looking for it.  Always messed my shoes up.  When safety boots became mandatory I kept them at work and for some reason rarely got into grease or oil, oh well.