Railroaders' Nostalgia > Mad Dog Chronicle # 174 Riding Train # 6 with the Gras

Mad Dog Chronicle # 174 Riding Train # 6 with Grasshopper

In MDC # 173 Author: 350 asked:
How about that Sacramento Division passenger engineer Eddie Epling, the famous Grasshopper! He was impossible to work with, a real eccentric hoghead with a lot of seniority. He was on 5 and 6 for over ten years and he kind of ran his own railroad between Oakland and Sparks. How about it Mike?

Here in response to his question is a Grasshopper story

R D Krebs, at the time VPO of the Southern Pacific, was entertaining a senior operating official from the Mexican Railroad, most likely it was his counterpart. Krebs ordered that the Business car Oakland be attached to the rear of Amtrak Train # 6. Krebs wanted to show this gentleman the Donner Pass crossing. Because he can speak fluent Spanish, and because he was familiar with the operation and layout of both the Sacramento and Western Divisions, Rollin Bredenberg was asked to accompany the inspection party from Oakland to Sparks. Since I was the Division Superintendent, I was to ride from Oakland to Sacramento. K A Moore, Superintendent at Sacramento, would ride from Sacramento to Sparks.

I actually boarded the train while it was still in the passenger yard. Everyone else met the train as it pulled to a stop at the 16th Street Station. After introductions, Rollin asked me who the engineer who was running # 6 that day. I told him that it was Ed Epling. I then followed Krebs and his VIP guest back on to the rear end of the Car Oakland. Meanwhile, as we had a few minutes before departure, Rollin walked up to the head end. In a few minutes he rejoined us on the rear of the train.

The train departed exactly on time. In just a few minutes we were coming to a stop at the passenger platform at Richmond, then and now a transfer point with the BART system. It seemed to me that we were at the station far too long and no one was boarding any more. A glance at my watch and a quick reference to the timetable revealed that we were waiting for time.

A word about passenger schedules is appropriate at this point. The time posted at any station shown in the timetable is the leaving time. The operating rules require that the train not start from the station prior to that time. There are various methods for stringing passenger schedules, but all of them consider that the time posted is the leaving time. The expected station dwell time as well as the running time from the last station stop where time is shown should be the amount of time shown from the last stop to the next stop under ideal conditions. This of course must take into account, the size of the train, the number of locomotives, the acceleration characteristics of the locomotives, usually governed mostly by the HPT. In addition, something must be assumed about the skill of the average engineer. The allowed track speed between these two station stops is also an important factor. If everything is figured correctly, the elapsed time will then be the best possible running time plus a factor for station dwell time. Because of the number of variables, frequently schedules are strung "tight" with no slack what ever in the schedule and frequently with little or no dwell time assumed. This way you should never be waiting for time. The slack, or recovery time is all bunched between the next to last station stop and the end point.

At this point I should point out that, even though this may seem complicated, I have actually oversimplified the process. J L Larson, Amtrak's Vice President of Administration wrote a fifty some page treatise on the art of stringing passenger schedules. And, in a way, Larson is involved in this story, too. Amtrak desired to change some of the existing contract conditions (of the then current Second Amended Agreement). SP, too, wanted some new provisions. Negotiations between Amtrak and SP had commenced under R M Jochner. He had retired and SP's next NRPC Operations Officer, W F (Willard) Keeny had picked up the baton and was now leading the negotiations from the SP side. Larson was the lead negotiator on the Amtrak side. One of Amtrak's big issues was a desire to incent the host railroads to provide better on time performance at intermediate points. To be specific, they wanted to go to what is known as check point incentives.

SP did not like this idea and in an effort to diffuse the issue, Keeny had asked me to help him restring the schedules of train 5 and 6 so that they would be on time at as many intermediate points as possible. Since it is much easier to be on time at the beginning of a long trip, we had concentrated on restringing Train Number 6. We had, after careful consideration, decided to leave the stringing of the schedule as it was, to increase the likelihood that the train would be on time at the intermediate points. We had done a careful job of it utilizing dispatcher trainsheets and the advice of our RFof E. in reaching this decision. Obviously, there must have been some impetus to take time out of the schedule between Oakland and Sacramento, which we ultimately decided against.

At this point, I must again note that one must guard against imperfect recollections of the way things used to be. My first draft, before I consulted the relevant timetables, was written as if we had, in fact, loosened the stringing of train number 6. What we actually did was to leave the schedule as it had been. In Timetable number 16 of 4/27/80 number 6 leaves Oakland 16th St. at 12:25 pm and leaves Sacramento at 2:17 pm, 1 hr and 52 minutes of elapsed time. Intermediate times are shown at Richmond, 12:38, Martinez, 1:09, Suisun, 1:31 and Davis, 1:58. In time table 17 of 10/28/80, train number 6 leaves Oakland 16th St at 1:05 pm and leaves Sacramento at 2:55 pm. 1 hr an 50 minutes of elapsed time. The intermediate stations and times stayed in the same relationship. Richmond: 1:18, 13 minutes. Martinez: 1:49, 31 minutes, Suisun: 2:11, 22 minutes, Davis: 2:38, 27 minutes. The Times shown in time table number 18, 19, 29, and 21 are all the same. However with timetable number 22 of 4/25/82 the times shown are Oakland 16th St: 1:05, Richmond: 1:17, Martinez: !:47, Suisun: 2:08, Davis: 2:36, Sacramento: 2:55. It should be obvious that we have tightened up the internal stringing of the schedule of train number 6, even though the departure times from both Oakland and Sacramento have not changed a bit. The tightning of the intermediate station times in timetable 22 are a direct result of this particular trip.

Now to resume with my little story. We left Richmond on time and after a brief, 30 minute ride were at Martinez, a station stop where we frequently overstayed our scheduled dwell time. This time we were again all ready to go and were, again, sitting there waiting for the leaving time. Krebs began to be visibly antsy.

Finally, leaving time and we were off to Suisun-Fairfield. where, once again we were hung waiting for time. At this point Krebs totally lost it. First he berated me for a totally unacceptable timetable. Next, he insisted that I locate W F Keeny on the radio telephone and he then proceeded to adjust both Keeny's and my attitude relative to the proper stringing of passenger train schedules. It did not help matters that we also waited for time at Davis, of course. When we arrived at Sacramento I left the trip with a sense of great relief. Keeny and I conferred on the phone on a land line from the depot at Sacramento, where I told him of the days events.

I should say, at this point, that Rollin did not say one word about passenger train operations while we travelled between Oakland and Sacramento. Only after the trip was over did Rollin B. reveal to me that he had strongly suggested to Grasshopper that Krebs wanted to give his guest a very fast ride and suggested that grasshopper run very hot between intermediate points when he had talked to Epling while we waited in the Station at 16th street.. Grasshopper was very suggestible! Typical of Rollin, too.

Need I relate the obvious, Epling had run at several miles an hour over the posted speed between stations plus he had poared on the coal leaving and stood the train on it's ear arriving at each station and by dong so had shaved several minutes or at least many seconds off of the normal running time between stations. No regular hoghead would normally run that way. Grasshopper did that day. Thank you very much, RDB.

1/29/06 mdo

Back to my original points--he who owns the railroad makes the rules. Krebs tacked his cars onto #6 which was running on his tracks and he didn't like the way the train was being "passenger friendly" by the Amtrak contract etc. because it did't suit his purpose etc.
One of your best Chronicles, MDO, most enlightening------------
C.

I am reminded of a line from the movie Cool Hand Luke:

"Oh Cap'n, Cap'n, if'n you was any better to me, I, I don't think I could stand it!"

>No regular hoghead would normally run that way.

How about 85 mph across the marshes with #11 in 1974 and 50 mph through the Big Hole and across Stanford Flat in the early 80s? This was, after all, Back in Them Days, before the Gunpow wreck and Ricky Gates.

Hopefully, RDB will come on board and add to this little story..

With all respect, the scheduling of 5 and 6 had much to be desired. It even showed time at intermediate points that were not stops. I remember between Alburn and Colfax was real bad. The trick with all the regulars including Ed was to leave Martinez about 15 minutes late and you would be on time by Colfax obeying the speed and not having to constantly check time. Ed was a great guy and full of stories and tricks for those who worked with him, especially extra people. Ed was a cancer survivor and had no stomach and was constantly munching all day long, as he couldn't eat a full meal.

Presumably the Oakland had a speedometer (that worked?) in its Observation Lounge? Did nobody look at it? I assume it also had a radio, and that someone could have communicated with the engineer if they saw he was going a mite fast?

Mike,
Thanks for the story. In CTC & DT it wasn't too bad because very few times were listed. In ABS, like the Coast, every station had a time and that was hard to pad. Most of the time the padding was at a main station stop like Salinas, SLO & SBA.

The one which caught a lot of people was the time at Texum for No. 14. You could really make up time between Mt. Hebron & Dorris and Worden to Texum. (Thought it seemed a little fast one morning and clocked a mile. It came out to 91 MPH. The speedo was stuck on 78.) Even though it was CTC, They had a time at Texum so the switch engines could work the main that was ABS, against the listed time. I got caught showing up at the depot 8 minutes early one morning, went by Texum 6 minutes ahead of the posted. Notlong after that, that and most times were all removed from the TT.

Nudge

calzephyr48 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Presumably the Oakland had a speedometer (that
> worked?) in its Observation Lounge? Did nobody
> look at it? I assume it also had a radio, and
> that someone could have communicated with the
> engineer if they saw he was going a mite fast?


Yes, It had a speedometer and it worked. Unfortunately, I was sitting on the wrong side of the car to see it.

A better question would be where was my Road Foreman? For some reason, much to my regret I had not instructed one to ride. I never made that mistake again.

mdo

So true, if you want to slow a schedule down, put the RFE on board...

Tried explaining that to a VPO once when he wanted the BSMFF to make better time across the Sunset Region, couldn't convince him.

SOB

Then we can assume that Krebs wasn't paying much attention to the speed recorder in the Oakland, otherwise he woiuld have fried you for the overspeed from Grasshopper.

So Mike...

When do you get to the Super Bowl train and the Olympics?

J.

Question for MDO:

Did the speed restrictions imposed on the SDP40F locomotives in curves significantly impact passenger train scheduling between Richmond and Martinez? I rode No.11 in 1981 after the F40s and Superliners went on the train, but before the schedule was changed. It seemed like we were waiting for time at almost every stop.

Great story, btw.

- gb -