Railroaders' Nostalgia > Prank of the Day

Recently I pulled a funny prank on a co-worker, and it's worth sharing. I had just finished unloading a "scoot" grain train at the new Highline facility in Four Lakes, WA. What should have been just a 6~7 hour day turned into a 12 hour day due to various issues with the new facility. So I went to nearby Airway Heights to grab some food and drink from the KFC there. Going down McFarlane road I spotted the MRL 290 sitting at a place we usually park it, but the cab doors were open and a co-worker's car was parked beside it. This co-worker who is a railfan likes to make like he knows a lot about locomotives, but is actually a very inexperienced recently promoted engineer. Anyways, a few minutes later on the way back from KFC I decided to stop and see what was up. Just as I get out of the car, the locomotive roars to life. I figured that this co-worker had been asked to fire up the engine so it was ready to go for a job later that night.
By the time I reached the cab the co-worker was still back along the far side of the locomotive away from the road, and had no idea I was there, perfect opportunity for a prank. With the locomotive having been running for a few minutes by this point, I press the fuel cut-off button in the cab which causes the locomotive to die. I hear some grumbling as he checks various things trying to find out why the locomotive inexplicably died. Within a couple minutes he fires the engine back up and stands there watching it. After a couple more minutes of it running I press the fuel cut-off button again and the engine begins to die. The co-worker then tries to keep it going by pushing in the lay-shaft lever. But eventually it's losing battle as the fuel in the engine is running out. That's when I put the icing on the cake of this prank. I place the EC switch into "run" and let the alarm bell ring for 30 seconds before placing it back into "start/isolate". The co-worker comes racing into the cab to figure out what the hell is going on. When he enters the cab I ask "Problems?"  He starts to explain all the trouble he's been having until he puts 2 and 2 together why I'm laughing so hard. That's when he realized he's been had!

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

Paybacks are he;;

Mike Root
Madras, OR

Pranks are great as long as no one gets hurt or it doesn't cost the company more than about a quarter.  We had a new guy working with us and we wired a switch on a test frame to sound an alarm bell.  It was about 30 feet from where the new guy was.  A couple times a day we would sound the bell.  One of the guys in on the prank would flip a switch and the bell would quit ringing (as another person really turned it off.)   This went on for nearly a week.  The new guy learned that if the bell came on he could silence it by hitting that switch.  After several days of it he noticed that every time it rang, there was someone at that same test frame.  As he went to the restroom he walked behind that frame and noticed a strange wire connected to an unlabeled switch.  He figured out what it was and that he had been had.  He rewired it for us and the next time we hit the switch, it blew a fuse.  Oh well, we had fun for a week.  He turned out to partake in some pranks himself after that.

John

Good one Ted. You could have taken it a lot further but your restraint is probably what made it work so well.

Pranks and humor are a way of life on the RR. It can be a monotonous job at times so a little levity goes a long way. Here's a little humor someone at our yard office executed awhile back that always made me chuckle.

 

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When I'd get a new fireman with the GE C44AC's (in their various configurations) with the desktop control stands I used to mess with the fireman. I'd let him run the train and I'd sit in the seat in the middle of the cab. As we'd go down the track I'd casually place my left foot on the edge of the conductor's desk, which would put it in very close proximity of the conductor's horn button. Then when the fireman would blow for a crossing in the middle of nowhere (I wouldn't do it where the public would have to endure it) I'd discretely place the heal of my boot on the horn button and hold it as the fireman made the last "long" blow for the crossing. Of course he'd let go of the horn button but the horn would keep blaring. The reactions ranged from mildly amusing to downright hysterical as the fireman would bang, twist, pull not only the horn button but often the control stand itself. My problem was that I could hardly keep a straight face while watching the fireman try to figure out the problem. Unfortunately this was something you could only pull once on a new fireman as after that they'd be on to it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/28/16 19:30 by Railbaron.

Railbaron Wrote:
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.... I'd discretely place the heal of my boot on the horn
> button and hold it as the fireman made the last
> "long" blow for the crossing......

I do that every time I train a new engineer on a BNSF unit that has the horn on the conductors desk. It's always a riot when the green engineer reaches a state of near panic as the horn won't shut off.

Ted Curphey
Ontario, OR

I was firing for an old head engineer by the name of Ed Platz back in the early 70s.  Ed was known by several nick names black stack, cracker ass, big dummy , lemon drop and many more..  One day we picked up some units at Oxnard and he were coupling the m.u. hoses and the cable.  I looked up at the newly installed dummy receptacle that was labeled dummy.  I told Ed  this engine has your name on it !  He got a big laugh out of it. 

      We used to play other pranks on each other.  When I would run he would take a nap...  one day he was napping and I took the train consist that was a total of five  copies complete with carbon paper.  I wadded up the paper and put it under his seat.  I then lit it on fire.  The carbon and paper ignited quickly and the flames were lapping under the seat..  he woke up and he jumped up started screaming and hit his head on the roof of the cab...  it was hilarious !  Another trip he was napping and i lit a couple of firecrackers and threw them under his seat...  Our division was small and everyone knew each other which made for a tight knit group.  He unfortunately passed away before he could draw his pension.. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/16 08:06 by SanJoaquinEngr.

It seems as though their's alway a wise guy in every croud!

One prank that I pulled a few times worked well when you had a high nose geep, one without any view across the front of the cab.
It worked equally well regardless if you were running or firing. As you approached a road crossing or maybe just a pedestrian waiting for your
train to pass I would become agitated and look frantic, sometimes even rising from my seat and yell, 'Hey, did that guy make it across?'. Of course,
there was no guy trying to do any such thing but the hogger or fireman didn't know that. And when nobody came across within their field of view 
they could only assume that we had nailed someone. I finally gave up on this bit of devilment when my brakeman leaped forward and had his hand
on the emergency handle before I could yell for him to not pull the valve. 

Charlie



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/16 13:50 by cewherry.

cewherry Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One prank that I pulled a few times worked well
> when you had a high nose geep, one without any
> view across the front of the cab.
> It worked equally well regardless if you were
> running or firing. As you approached a road
> crossing or maybe just a pedestrian waiting for
> your
> train to pass I would become agitated and look
> frantic, sometimes even rising from my seat and
> yell, 'Hey, did that guy make it across?'. Of
> course,
> there was no guy trying to do any such thing but
> the hogger or fireman didn't know that. And when
> nobody came across within their field of view 
> they could only assume that we had nailed someone.
> I finally gave up on this bit of devilment when my
> brakeman leaped forward and had his hand
> on the emergency handle before I could yell for
> him to not pull the valve. 
>
> Charlie


Yeah, that one crosses the line.

Over on the Willamette Valley Railway, we interchanged with the UP and had both UP and WVR new type of switch locks.  One day, I was assisting the conductor with his switching.  I happened to have a UP lock in my vehicle.  After the conductor lined the switch and locked the switch to make the pull, I removed the WVR lock and put the UP lock on the switch.  The conductor tried to unlock the switch and could not open the lock.  I walked over and unlocked the lock with my UP key.  This went on for several minutes until I told that I switched locks when he didn't know it.

Mike Root
Madras, OR

We always placed a jumper wire between the new guys turn signal and horn on their car or truck.
The first turn was amazing, the horn honking with the turn signal .... all was well until one of the
newbies pulled out of the lot and ended up behind a motorcycle club!  The club was NOT amused
when they all made the first left turn.....

I pulled a few pranks that would raise eyebrows. Railroaders are evil.

But, actually one of the funniest pranks I ever saw was innocent-enough, one of those "you have to know the guy" things. Our BLofE Division secretary/treasurer Greg Welker, my all time favorite rail, was (actually, still is) a notorious cheapskate and portender of doom (He became Mr. Positivity after he retired - retirement'll do that to a guy). In fact we called him Doctor Doom, and his trademark phrase was, "We're all f*cked!" One day a bunch of us were sitting around the San Francisco change room in between commute runs when our chief prankster, the late Pat West, knowing that Welker was arriving soon, super-glued a penney to the floor in front of his locker. Welker soon came in all-in-a-rush to go home and dashed through the change area into the locker room in a veritable kerfuffel with hardly an acknowlegement to us. Suddenly all of his movement ceased... and then... "F*ck!".

Todd, I know that you have a ban on April Fools Day pranks, but Railroader's Nostalgia ought to be exempt.

EO


 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/30/16 18:09 by hogheaded.

A few years back I had a brand new conductor (first trip), and he was as nervous as a hooker in church! I had to get him to relax a little before he had a heart attack. So after he tied our power on to the train, he tried to cut the air in and it dumped. As I'm looking in the mirror I see he has the look of horror! As he comes through the back door, I started to get in his shyt really hard and his mouth just drops! I stop and said "I gotcha" then started cracking up!
Then he started laughing as well. I said I had to do something to loosen you up a bit. I told him don't get all worked up over this job because one it's just a job and two it's not worth going to the hospital for stress.

Posted from Android

Not that long ago we had a student on my yard job. This guy was really full of himself about how smart he was and how he already knew everything. It didn't take long and he had us all pissed off at him. So to knock him down a few notches I'd watch in the mirror and every time he'd start to cut the air in I'd plug it. The switchmen were in on it also so when they cut the air in nothing would happen. It didn't take long and this newbie was scared to death to cut the air in and would take what seemed like forever to do it, although the results were always the same.

The pranks go back a long time!

Just after I hired out as a switchman in early 1966, we had a student who was one of the first "equal opportunity" employees.  The only thing he knew about a railroad was that you could throw rocks at it.
His first day on the job with us we were going to couple up a track in the bowl, do a yard air test and take it over to the LA Junction Railway.  We left the head man on the engine to cut the air in after we had laced up the forty or so cars in the track, then the engine foreman, me and the student started back.  We showed him how to couple the cars that had butted knuckles when they hit, as some of the tracks were on a curve, and of course how to couple the air hoses.

When we got to the rear and closed the angle cock on the yard caboose, the foreman gave a big air sign to the head man, then we had to wait until the cars charged up so we could get a set on the brakes.

This old engine foreman turns to the kid and says "go up there and tell the engineer to turn the water on so we can wash this caboose."  (The kid has coupled all of these hoses, but nothing has happened.)  He says OK and walks up forty cars.  We can the engineer leaning out the window talking to the kid on the ground, and there is a bunch of pointing in our direction going on, finally we can see that he understands what the engineer is telling him and he starts back.  

When he gets back to us, he says, "Mr Engineer wants to know whether you wants hot  water or cold?"  I  almost choked trying to keep from laughing when the foreman had sent him up to the engine,  but when the engineer sent him back, (without being in on the joke, just some quick thinking) we both died laughing.  Needless to say, by this time the cars were charged, so we waved for a set and all of us walked up.
G

   While working for the SP, I was working between Bakersfield and Fresno in 1967, I had a wise-ass hoghead instruct a new fireman to find the ground relay reset on a Krauss-Maffei diesel hydraulic unit.

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO

Years ago I bought my first car when I got married from a neighbor down the street (I can't remember his name) who was a
brakeman on the SP&S on the Vancouver board. He shared a story with me about a conductor that was considered an A-hole
by everybody. The brakie was called for an extra one night with this jerk , so he and the other brakeman devised this little stunt
where they had someone in the office delay him on some made up report that he hadn't turned in. Well they finally let him head
for the caboose as the train started to roll. His grip was sitting alongside the tracks, and as he ran out and reached for it, all he
ended up with was the 2 handles because while they harrased him inside the office, they had dropped a knuckle in his grip!
 

Larry Dodgion
Wilsonville, OR

I worked with a guy known as "red oil" Martin, the day man at IHB Argo (IL) tower. When he was a new switchtender at Gibson, as it was getting dark and time to light the lanterns, the guy he was breaking in with told him that the oil for the red lantern wouldn't last the night, go to the Michigan (Central) roundhouse with this can and tell them you need them to fill it with red oil.

TAW

I did the same thing to the machinist at Goulding Shops, Pensacola, Fl on the L&N except I was on the ground on the firemans side.
We did a lot of pranks that were fun, but harmless. Who is not quilty of throwing water at a meet?

Steve Panzik
Chiloquin, Or