Nostalgia & History > Remembering UP's Brooklyn sub meltdown 8 years ago

Back 8-10 years ago (and possibly beyond), UP had a voracious meltdown in the Willamette Valley. Trying to take a talgo from Eugene to Portland could be an all day endeavor. At times every siding in the entire valley had trains, dead, alive, or otherwise. It was rare for a crew to make it through the district on their HoS.

My personal experience was on Amtrak 504 on a weekday from Eugene to Portland. It started out bad right from the get go. The train was 20 minutes late arriving from the yard to the platform. After we departed, we only made it to the first siding, Swain. There we backed in on top of a dead freight and waited 25 minutes for a southbounder. When the freight was by, we departed north only to get a couple miles up to the next siding, Alford. There the dispatcher had us hold for two more southbounders, the second one arriving 40 minutes after we arrived. We depart, only to hear on the radio that there's congestion ahead of us. Turns out the dispatcher let a northbound drag out of Shedd siding ahead of us. Why did she do that? Come to find out, a local had backed in the south end on top of them to clear for us, and they had work to do near Shedd and were running close to their HoS. So 35 mph or less we go past Hallawell siding, which has a dead train in it. We follow the drag all the way through Albany, speeds as slow as 20 mph. We get to Millersburg and it's filled with cars, which was usual practice. As we approach Marion now 3+ hours down, we get told to duck in the siding for another southbounder, but the catch is we'll be ducking in behind the drag ahead of us. Marion was a 10 mph siding, so the drag takes forever going in. We duck in behind, and wait, and wait. Where's the southbounder? He was just passing Gervais as we were getting into position. There's atleast two siding between us and them, why not move us up. Well BOTH had dead trains in them, Renard, and then Labish had a train with no power parked in it. So we wait some more and finally it goes past us. Shouldn't we sea-saw out and get ahead of the drag? Nope! The drag was almost dead and the corridor manager wanted them to die at Hito. So we follow them through the 10 mph siding and all the way to Hito. Passing Gervais theres a stored bare table train. We arrive Hito over 4 1/2 hrs down, the drag pulls in and we finally get a clear. That lasts one block, then there's a flashing yellow. Well, ahead of us is a daylight patch job of the OC switcher, easing in on top of stored cars at Coalca. So, we hold in the middle of Canby near the Molalla branch wye for them to get clear and our block to clear. It does finally and we proceed on two greens only to hit a flashing yellow near Oregon City. Well at Clackamas there's a dead northbound freight on the main, so we have to run through the siding. Atleast it wasn't 10 mph. We get to Clackamas and see that Amtrak 11 has backed in on top of the dead freight. They were held at the Depot prior to departing Portland for over an hour. We run on a yellow to Willsburg Jct, where another nb train is now dead, and we get instructions to line our way through track two in Brooklyn Yard. The double track project Oregon had payed for at Willsburg was under construction, and there were slow orders in the area. We get going slowly on the Brooklyn Yard lead, have to line ourselves thru the yard because the switch job had conveniently went to beans prior to our arrival. Once back on the main it was smooth sailing into Union Station. Arrival was 6'1" late. Late enough that they bussed the passengers to Seattle and held the train at Lake Yard til the evenings 509 run, which was only a few hours away. What a trip.

Fast forward to 2012, things move so well in the valley now compared to just 8 years ago that it almost seems like another Era, but it really wasn't that long ago that the UP Brooklyn sub was having a meltdown for the ages. This type of scene played out day after day for several years if not longer. Several things have helped this; less traffic, DPU trains, UP investment in their infrastructure. Sidings are now more then 10 mph throughout the valley. Decent dispatching and corridor managers that are better qualified (not saying they're great, but better nonetheless).

Anyone on this board have any experiences of the meltdown they wish to share?



Edited 10 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/12 17:06 by Western_Star.

It was a system wide melt down. And although the UP has and continues to put a lot of money into their infrastructure, the biggest factor in the smooth running operations of today is the considerable drop in carloads of today as compared to 2004. When business picks up again to those higher levels like it was at in 2004, then get ready to watch the system slow down again, although maybe not quite to the previously seen levels of congestion.

This was the era of 'Buffy the Trainslayer' dispatching.

Another legend we heard about was the Hinkle YM grabbing the hump backlog and sending it out on the Hinkle to Roseville manifest. Once the Roseville YM figured it out they ran the power around it and sent it back the next day. Of course for all we knew it could have been Roseville that started it but I do remember seeing the same train going back and forth every couple of days.

"Buffy" was indeed our dispatcher that day. I'm glad somebody remembers how bad things got with her at the controls.

I had two experiences like that on 504. With one, the main tracks were blocked at Brooklyn and we went through the yard. From the south end we went into the yard and got part way through when we found that track blocked. Backed up and tried another. And a third. As I remember it was track nine we got through on. (I learned later that was excepted track. That conductor has been long retired)

A second time was an arrival into Portland at 5:00 PM. Scheduled was something like 11:30AM. Most memorable part of that was sitting by the golf course for three hours getting hit with golf balls from the driving range. The conductor (also retired several years ago) got off and picked up handfulls of golf balls and gave them to the kids. They spent the afternoon rolling them up and down the aisle. It was almost party time in the Bisto with everybody yackin'. Mid-afternoon the conductors were talking and said they were going to "die" pretty soon. That got everybody that didn't know railroad talk concerned and asking questions. The conductors explained what the terms "go dead, die, die on the law, etc." meant. Then somebody said "Wasn't there a movie about something like that?" "Somebody killed somebody?" "Yeah! Weren't they slayed?" "Oh yeah! That was Buffy, the Vampire Slayer." "Well, this is Buffy the train slayer." I'm as sure as I can be that was where the UP woman dispatcher got that title.

That dispatcher couldn't run one train on double track. I've heard that the crews in Portland were unhappy because of all the overtime they lost when she left.

I had gone to Portland that day to pick up something I had ordered at a store. When I got in the station I gave a call to see if the store was still open. It was going to be open till 6:00PM and I managed to get my order. To this day the lady at the store asks me if I came up on the train whenever she sees me.

jb

PS: When that second main that Oregon paid for was completed it immediately became Buffy's favorite parking lot.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/12 14:19 by jdb.

Not any different in Texas. Trains set in Ft Worth for as long as 4 days before they could move. And it generally took them 2 days or sometimes longer to get to Houston. Trains were parked in lots of sidings. I really was pathetic.

Great story, and "Buffy the Trainslayer" is hilarious. Was this the famous meltdown right after the UP-SP merger (~1997-1998), or a different meltdown?

The meltdown here on the Brooklyn was early 2000's up til around 2004 or so. I wasn't around the railroad for the '96 meltdown.

Thanks for sharing folks! It's great to hear others' stories from those years. Trains were strung out everywhere, it was amazing the amount of railcars that were packed in all over the valley. I only wish I had a scanner back then, as the dialogue had to of been priceless!

Regards,
WS

Buffy is probably a UP GM in Omaha by now

I have always wondered what happened to her. One day she was just gone, without a trace. Never heard another word about her. The double track at Wilsburg Jct was complete, and the meltdown was beginning to retreat around the time she vanished. When the new daytime dispatcher (Ron?) got the reins, things got dramatically better. Practically overnight the Talgo's on-time record drastically improved. You could almost set your watch to them for the first time in their then-short history.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/14/12 19:43 by Western_Star.

I recall a train on the siding in Camarillo with idling power. For three days. Then, the power was stripped off, and the train sat for another four days. Where's my shipment?
...Lorenzo

"Buffy" aka "Susan" aka "SKR" aka "Seriously Kills Railroad" retired a few years ago. There was a pic of her on the net a few years back but don't know where. It's amazing what I found out just by googling with what little info I do have. For more info on the Broklyn Sub meltdown, just search "SKR" here on TO.

OE

"She kills railroad" was another one I'd hear

Yep, seem to remember a photo on a TO thread. Not sure if the photos are still archived.

Her picture is long gone out of the UP yearbook.

Western_Star Wrote:
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> "She kills railroad" was another one I'd hear

Also knows as 'Skar' - she was a dozy!

Just did a Search on "Buffy' with 'all dates'. Pretty funny stuff but didn't catch any photos.

Not sure if it's the same dispatcher or not, but there is an SKR (Susan) that has worked afternoons as dispatcher 56 (Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, CA area) for some time now. I have been told she had previously worked different dispatcher terriories in Oregon.

TCnR Wrote:
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> This was the era of 'Buffy the Trainslayer'
> dispatching.
>
> Another legend we heard about was the Hinkle YM
> grabbing the hump backlog and sending it out on
> the Hinkle to Roseville manifest. Once the
> Roseville YM figured it out they ran the power
> around it and sent it back the next day. Of course
> for all we knew it could have been Roseville that
> started it but I do remember seeing the same train
> going back and forth every couple of days.

What nonsense. Building America??

ble692 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It was a system wide melt down. And although the
> UP has and continues to put a lot of money into
> their infrastructure, the biggest factor in the
> smooth running operations of today is the
> considerable drop in carloads of today as compared
> to 2004. When business picks up again to those
> higher levels like it was at in 2004, then get
> ready to watch the system slow down again,
> although maybe not quite to the previously seen
> levels of congestion.

So how did SP run a busy RR way back when? They had fleets of passenger trains, and plenty of freight. It makes modern management look completely incompetent.