Railroaders' Nostalgia > One of the worst trips Yuma to West Colton

I don't recall the date but I was still a fireman and was'nt promoted until 1983 so it was before then.  I was called to work with Engineer Ed Fetting, a well respected hog head on the pool.  When we were leaving Yuma we were told to pick up several bad units being sent to L.A. for work.  Our train arrived with no problem from the East and we coupled on the B/O units behind the road power.  After leaving Yuma, it wasn't long before we started losing power.  Ed sent me back to check it out.  I tried isolating bad units and every trick I could think of but to no avail.  We crept along like turtles gradualy losing more power.  Even some of the perfectly "good" ones that had brought our train into Yuma.  We got permission from the DS to stop our train in the siding at Cactus I think to work on our power.  Ed and I both tried pulling out MU cables between units in every conceivable way we could think of and trying different combinations.  We  went dead on the law somewhere before we even reached Niland.  By that time we were down to one working unit.  They called a three unit helper to run from Indio to somewhere around Niland and get on the point of this "hospital train" in order to get it to West Colton.  They took us by Retzenberger taxi to some restaurant near Niland.and we were hungry after many hours over 12.  We ordered pancakes and they were hard as rocks.  The brakemen were throwing them around like frisbies.  I gave up and ordered a glass of milk.  One of the two kids cooking there said "we don't have any milk.  Aha! I said, then how did you make those pancakes.  He said we just used water and flower.  It was like eating fried wall paper paste.  Ed said over the years that he always remembered that trip.  Whatever it was was like a virus in those bad units we picked up and spread to our good power too.

CRS



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/16 17:29 by CR3.

Lisa Douglas must have been a chef at that restaurant.

Even Ebb wouldn't eat her cooking. He feared for his life, most of her 'hotcakes' were brick hard.

Ray, your trip reminds me of a railfan trip I took out to Niland in the fall of 1985.  It was a busy day and on the way back from Niland I paced the ASLAM with 5 units from Niland to Indio. 
"Marcy" Duran was the hoghead.  At Thermal they lost a unit to crankcase overpressure, so they were down to 4 units on a heavy train.  They made it to T. Palms and picked up a 4 unit cut in helper (Bruce Boyer engineer).  At Fingal they lost another unit on the headend; a B30-7 ran out of fuel(!), so now down to 3.  They struggled up to Cabazon at about 7 mph and lost another unit that also ran out of fuel, then stalled.  Dispatcher said they had to wait for another helper that was just cutting into an eastbound at Loma Linda.  The conductor, don't remember who it was, about went nuts.  I heard later on there was alot of finger pointing about who and why "someone" would let a westbound leave Yuma with 2 units low on fuel.  You might remember this incident...


Allen



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/16 21:46 by bradleymckay.

  That reminds me of a trip I had, coming home from Yuma one time. I don't recall the train symbol but it was a stack train. It was 8,000 tons, 8,100 feet and had eight units, all of them tired and worn out tunnel motors. The Tucson grew came in and said that there were no dynamics on any of them. There was no other power in town so they told us to just go with it, as it was, and they'd figure something out later. I had a brand new fireman and I told him, that given the circumstances, I'd run this time. We made about ten meets between Yuma and Thermal and I had to stretch that thing to within fifty feet of the signal, every time, to get in the clear. When we got to Indio, they tacked a helper set onto the point. Having no place to test the dynamics now, it wasn't until we tipped the hill at Beaumont that I discovered that, in spite of having ten units, we still had no dynamics. It was a bad cable or some other electrical glitch killing all of them. I ended up just stretching that thing all the way down the hill and, later, the fireman remarked that, had the trip been any more "old school", he would've had to shovel coal!

Nice experiences guys, I for one know that cook at the restaraunt really had a bad rap from what you guys said, that sucks!