Railroaders' Nostalgia > You Can't Make This Up, or Only On A Railroad

D D Burke has just been mentioned by several posters,  and his whole saga over the years is beyond belief, AND makes a good story!

I had heard of him while I was an LA yardmaster, but never had anything to do with him until becoming an ATM at City of Industry in 1973.

The first incident was a Westbound coming down the Extension (CTC Siding)  to set out cars from the head end.  Just as the four new U30-Cs passed the yard office in full dynamic brake, the slack ran out violently and the train broke in two about ten cars behind the engine.  When it all stopped, there was about a 20 car gap between the two pieces, so it was obvious that the brake application came from the rear.  We asked the engineer what happened and he said "I don't know, but its the first time I ever broke in two in dynamic brake!"  We went to the caboose and here was "Dangerous Dan the Burke Valve Man"  who had tried to slow the train down by making a service reduction with the Conductor's valve.  He made too much of a set, and the slack runout on the 90 cars caused the break in two.

Burke would turn off the refrigerator and the marker light as soon as he got on a caboose in an effort to keep the radio working.

Not in chronological order, the true story of the flare pistol and the brush fire was his idea to call in his rear brakeman from flagging a mile behind in dark territory.

He did indeed have what we called a "Clearance Card"  from a psychiatric facility saying he was sane, he probably was sane, but he sure was goofy!  Whever he was around, it was a joke among the rest of us to ask somebody for their Clearance  card!

The "messing around with units" comment came to an end when the engineer on a work train wasn't going fast enough to suit him while they were walking alongside the cars dumping ballast.  They had three Geeps, and he cut the trucks out on the rear two!  The engineer was one of the union officers, and he knew just who to turn him in to, and he didn't stop!  This finally got him fired, and he was off for about six months.  Apparently his family owned considerable SP stock, or at least that is what we all surmised, because he had done a lot of things before and nothing happened.

This time he got back without his Conductors seniority, so he had to work as a brakeman.

He went on a local that did a lot of industry switching, and got the bright idea of putting bowling ball sized rocks in the toepath to mark where the switch stands were on the other side of the cars so he could get off in just the right spot.  Needless to say, the rest of the crews didn't like the idea of big rocks in the toepath, and when he wouldn't stop doing it, all of the rest of the train and engine crews actually took up a petition to get him fired again.  They got over 200 signatures, but I don't remember him getting fired this time.

It got so hot in the LA Basin that he bid in a job on the Coast Pool.  At San Luis Obispo the away from home terminal, we suddenly started having continuity problems with the air on his outbound consists.  The working foreman who was the only mechanical dept. employe there had been at SLO for years, and never had any problems until Burke showed up.  Then he would claim to be the hero for finding the closed angle cock between the engines.  The next time he was due to get a train out of the yard with power out of the house, two of us checked the power and verified that everything was correct.   Sure enough, they couldn't get air through the train, so we went over and got him from part way up the train and took him back to the head end where we found the trainline closed between the third and fourth units.  When we told him that two of us had just checked the units because of his prevous problems, he wouldn't acknowledge anything.  This time he was told that it had to stop, or he would get fired for sabotage, and he listened!

Its been 31 years, so I have probably forgotten something...
G

What a piece of work.There were jerks on the UP but this one takes the cake for sure.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/11/16 21:21 by Fredo.

Nice story George..  There are any more DD stories..   DD was the conductor on an eastbound one day.  His rear brakeman was a man by the name of Alex Baca.  The train was stopped and DD told Alex to replace the drive belt that ran the caboose generator.  DD never called the engineer to tell him do not move until I tell to do so..  Alex was replacing the belt when the train started to move and his fingers were cut and partially crushed by the movement..   This was long before the SP veral blue flag rule,, 

DD also carried a black book...  he wrote down anything that was degoratory towards him.. wrote down every signal in CTC territory.  He was a real gem to work with..NOT! 

SanJoaquinEngr Wrote:
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> Nice story George..  There are any more DD
> stories..   DD was the conductor on an eastbound
> one day.  His rear brakeman was a man by the name
> of Alex Baca.  The train was stopped and DD told
> Alex to replace the drive belt that ran the
> caboose generator.  DD never called the engineer
> to tell him do not move until I tell to do so.. 
> Alex was replacing the belt when the train started
> to move and his fingers were cut and partially
> crushed by the movement..   This was long before
> the SP veral blue flag rule,, 

And aso in that little black book, DD would write down how many cigarette butts were strewn around the inside the caboose.


V

SLOCONDR
>
> DD also carried a black book...  he wrote down
> anything that was degoratory towards him.. wrote
> down every signal in CTC territory.  He was a
> real gem to work with..NOT! 

A couple of my remembrances of D. D. Burke occurred while working the Kaiser Ore train in the 1970's.
I was descending Beaumont Hill one morning with the usual 13,425 tons. My rear helper was one
of the very best of the Colton helper engineers in the person of Bob Thornberry. Everything was set up
for an uneventful trip down the grade. At the east switch of Redlands siding the DS began toying with us, (apologies to TAW),
with the signal set to display 'Yellow'. I notified Bob and the swing helper of the signal aspect and added two pounds to the brake pipe set. When I
could see the west switch it displayed 'Green'. I knew that Bob Thornberry was the 'expert' in this situation and suspected that
he was probably not in dynamic or at least in very low dynamics at this point. I didn't want to release my air so I asked him if he
thought we could make it down to Loma Linda. Immediately Burke chimed in with his assessment of the situation.
I shot back: "Conductor Burke, I'm trying to have a conversation with my helper engineer and I'll thank you to stay off the radio!".

Later on that same trip we were delivering the train to Kaiser's ore yard. At a point about midway between the Kaiser siding office and the
delivery yard there was a derail that was supposed to be lined to the derailing position after our train passed over it. I was picking my way along
looking for the position of the various switch points leading to their yard, Kaiser never did have targets on their switches, trying to keep the train
in one piece and completely forgot about the derail behind us.
Bob called on the radio: "Hey, Charlie can you ease up a little? The conductor is trying to catch the caboose". Normally, the conductor would
call off the car lengths to re-line the derail but Burke didn't think to do this.
I asked Bob; 'You mean that he's on the ground now, running for the caboose?' "That's right". 'Give me all you've got  Bob, If he can't remember
to call out the car lengths, we'll just leave him'. "OK, says Bob". We delivered the ore and Burke came panting up the lead.
He never said a word to me. He knew he was in the wrong. A real work of art.

Charlie

 

Makes me wonder how people like him survive in the real world.

Uncle Joe,Seffner,Fl.
Retired CSX car foreman

There's a turd in EVERY punch bowl. Unfortunately, the turds where I work are in managment.

gandydancer4 Wrote:
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> There's a turd in EVERY punch bowl. Unfortunately,
> the turds where I work are in managment.

Amen brother!

Posted from Android

Just about everyone who worked the SP’s old LA Div. has one or more DD stories. I worked with him way too many times and every trip was a spin in the squirrel cage. He was famous for intimidating new brakemen into doing his paranoia undertakings.  I’m sure that Alex Baca fell into that category, Alex is a good rail, and was probably just trying to get along with the nut-job.
 
Some brakemen were setting around the bar at the Indio Hotel and all agreed the way to handle “Double Dumb” was get right back in his face and tell him no Fu_ _ ing way will I do whatever weird thing he wanted. Of course he would then pull out his famous black book and make a note. So the first time I got called with him, and of course luck would have the other brakeman senior to me and said he would work the headend, putting me in the cab with wacko. Others have mentioned his note book, what I did was pull out one of those small timebooks we all used and turned tables on him.  Anything he did, even to get up to get a drink of water or pick up the radio, I would look at my watch and act like I was writing in my “black book”.  He couldn’t take it and spent the rest of the trip setting at the conductor’s desk.
 
Now for some of weird stuff, on another trip we making track speed going east through Pershing and he told me to climb onto the next car and start setting retainers. [This is back in the days of full roof walks]. For those who don’t know the SP, Pershing is at the top of the Beaumont Hill. Just to see how far this would go I said how many, he said only about 10 or 15.  I immediately picked up the radio and told the engineer to stop the train as Conductor Burk wants me to set some pops on the rear end. For the engineer, who had dealt with DD for years, I had lit a very short fuse. He said we were not stopping to set any pops especially on the rear end. I had called DD's bluff, but you can guess what happened next, he went to the cabs steps and climbed over to the next car and went high setting retainers all while we are probably doing 50 mph. I was tempted to have the engineer hit the jamb real heavy, but I would have had to broadcast it over the radio. I don’t know how many cars he worked, and didn’t care.  By the time we got to one of the sidings, Rimlon or Silvia at the bottom of the grade, there was a fog bank of brake shoe smoke coming from the rear end.  Now he calls the headend and says we need to stop as “we have one hanging up”.  When we came to a stop he said for me to go back and flag one mile and put down torpedoes.  I said what are you talking about, this is CTC-ABS and I only have to be on the ground to the rear of the caboose.  He said I need to be back at least 75ft, where he got this I don’t know. But he said would handle the “problem”. Which of course allowed him to knock down the pops, like I was stupid and didn’t know he had put them up creating the overheated wheels.
 
One more quick one, I was at the Crest at City of Industry and we overheard a call from one of the engineers working the yard telling a passing mainline train doing track speed, he needs to stop as there was someone on the roof of the caboose. It was DD working on the radio antenna at 60 mph.  His paranoia was at its zenith when it came to a working radio.
 
J.P.
 
 

You tend to forget about working with guys like this after you retire.What a miserable experience it was.Wondering what they were going to do next was great.All behind us(or at least some of us) now.What became of this guy?Did he make to the retirement goal line? Bill Webb 

Bill,
You got me looking, and here's what I can find out:

DD was born in mid 1924, and had a seniority date of October 1951, which would have made him 27 when he was hired.

He was still employed in August of 1980 when my master employee list was printed.  That would have made him 56 at that time, with 29 years of seniority, minus almost a year's vacation...
G

It was either the late Conductor Jack Krumwied or the late, great Conductor Tom Ormiston who told me of a guy they worked with years ago at Gemco Yard who deliberately threw a switch under a string of moving tri-levels  ---- just to see what would happen as they started derailing!

Sounds like it could have been your man DD . . .

Engineer Spencer Howard told me of the incident with the flare gun being used to provide flag protection.  He said it was on the Palmdale - Colton cutoff when it was dark territory.  I think he said the Forestry Service either sent DD the bill or threatened to for the costs incurred of putting out the fire.  

There is a name from the past !  Jack Krumwied !  We used to call him Krumwinkie on the SP.  Sorry to hear that Jack passed away !  CA_Sou_MA_Agent Wrote:
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> It was either the late Conductor Jack Krumwied or
> the late, great Conductor Tom Ormiston who told me
> of a guy they worked with years ago at Gemco Yard
> who deliberately threw a switch under a string of
> moving tri-levels  ---- just to see what would
> happen as they started derailing!
>
> Sounds like it could have been your man DD . . .
>
> Engineer Spencer Howard told me of the incident
> with the flare gun being used to provide flag
> protection.  He said it was on the Palmdale -
> Colton cutoff when it was dark territory.  I
> think he said the Forestry Service either sent DD
> the bill or threatened to for the costs incurred
> of putting out the fire.  

He never got his conductors rights back, and due to numerous incidents at City of Industry while working locals, he was further restricted to main line brakeman.  He was working a pool job on the Colton-Indio Pool when the Conductor Only agreement came into being. His feet were in very bad shape, and he was in constant pain from that.  That left him with no place to hide, so he took a buyout and promptly dropped off the face of the earth.  He never maintained contact with anyone on the railroad as far as I know.

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO