Railroaders' Nostalgia > Fun Moments in History

As I step into the "Way Back Machine" and dwell on happier moments of railroading, my mind fell over a memory that not only concerned myself but another prolific and entertaining contributor to Train Orders, I shy away from using his true identity for fear of retribution, but his initials are "SteamJockey".

This little bit of humor involved his being on the receiving end of two TOTALLY innocent mishaps that occurred on the same day and were perpetrated by me.

At the time of these incidents, if memory serves me correctly, we were both Road Foremen of Engines, he headquartered in Bakersfield and myself at West Colton. I was in town after spending time on my district which at that time, ran from West Colton to Yuma, Mojave to Los Angeles and Mojave yard proper to relieve both the regular Trainmaster and RFE when they were absent. We were setting in a now defunct fast food establishment finishing our lunch and going over the trials and tribulations of our current assignments. Now the Bakersfield RFE is well known for his sense of humor which runs from the jovial to damned near sick jokes, all guaranteed to make you laugh or to make you gag. In this case he told me one and it made me laugh, just as I was taking a drink of a thick, creamy and ice cold Pineapple Milkshake, I no sooner took this sip when he finished the joke, the end result was that I laughed, choked, blew milkshake out of my nose and mouth and covered said RFE with the product full in his face, covering his mustache, eyes, forehead and most of the long hair that he wore when we were younger. To top things off, he too started laughing and trying not to inhale nor ingest what was covering his face and head. When we finally calmed down, he spent a long period of time in the bathroom attempting to get all of my drink off of his body.

When he finished his overhaul, he came back to our table and sat down and went right on telling stories, right up to one about Star Trek, at which point I took out my tri-fold wallet from my back pocket, flipped it open as you would if you were a crew member of the Enterprise using your "communicator" and managed to lose my grip on it, hit my milkshake glass and pour the remaining liquid onto his lap across the table. He appeared to be a bit stunned at that moment and was at a total loss for words, at least any that I could type into this memory, I'm pretty sure he mentioned my mother, the horse I rode in on, and the dog by my side. Then he was gone again, back to the bath room to clean everything from the front of his shirt down to the cowboy boots he was wearing at the time.

He and I are still good friends to this date after both of us have suffered a great number of trials and tribulations during our careers, he's never failed to call if he needed help or just someone to talk to, nor have I. I count him as one of ten people in this world that I would trust with my life if it ever got that bad. John, I salute you!!

Hey SOB. Do you remember the time you pulled a test on my crew and I at the east switch at Ansel way back when? The signal was red, and the dispatcher authorized us to flag the signal. Dominick Fravola, the head man, got down and inspected the switch, which was required at the time, and as we were about to move, you called on the radio and asked us to hold up a minute. You got up on our engine and chatted with Carl Foss, Dominick, and I for a bit. When we started to move, you gave us a surreptitious whiskers sign, and pointed to the east. That tipped us off that the test was not over.
Carl was complying 100% with the restricted speed rule, when we observed someone giving us a stop sign on the curve between Ansel and Rosamond. Carl said, "should I pull down to him?"
"Hell no," I replied. "A stop sign is a stop sign, stop right here."
Here comes Del Green, another local RFE, a huffin' and a puffin': "Why didn't you pull down to where I was," he ranted.
At that point, I jumped right into his face. "A stop sign is a stop sign. It doesn't say where to stop!"
Even he realized I was right. The best he could come up with after that was why didn't Carl sound two shorts on the horn when he saw the stop sign.
You and Del; two distinctly different management styles on the old SP, I would be curious as to what Del said when you two got back together.
A whole thread could be started about Mr. Green.

Brian Black
Retired SP/UP Conductor
Castle Rock, CO

It was Don 'Greasy Fingers' Green.

He was RFE around LA at the time Amtrak bought the SDP-40's and began running them on the Sunset.
I caught No. 2 one Sunday night and Don was waiting for us at the register room at Taylor roundhouse.
He announced that he was going to ride all the way to Yuma. It was obvious to me that he was itching
to get some throttle time on these new units. Well, I decided that if he wanted to run a locomotive
the best way that I know of is to mark-up where ever he held seniority and he could run engines to
hearts content.

We got to Yuma and I did all the running. When we were called for No. 1 on Tuesday
morning, guess who is going to ride back to LA? I had not seen him during the long layover and asked Don
about his whereabouts while visiting that fair city. "Oh, I stayed in my room and studied my voter information
guide"; there being a general election within the next few days. We left Yuma and now my resolve is
even greater that he is not going to run my train, especially with those new shiny SDP-40's. I started
to feel somewhat ashamed of my actions and resolved to offer him the throttle after the station stop
at Alhambra, a mere twenty minutes from LAUPT. As I was coming to a stop at Alhambra, I guess Don had
had enough; he grabbed his grip and descended the ladder remarking that he would ride the coaches the rest of the way.
I never saw him again that day.

Charlie

There was a Don Green Charlie, but Brian IS talking about the most illustrious(tongue in cheek)Del Green.


V

SLOCONDR

SLOCONDR Wrote:
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> There was a Don Green Charlie, but Brian IS
> talking about the most illustrious(tongue in
> cheek)Del Green.

>Oops, sorry guys. I guess Mr. Del Green happened
along the scene after I departed SP in '79. I don't
remember any other 'Green' except the aforementioned
Don and of course who can forget the infamous Homer Green?

Charlie

Wasn't that "shotgun" green (when he was in Tucson?

I do believe it was the same character. I know he was off the Tucson Division and I vaguely remember some wild story about him and a shotgun. Can you fill in some details?

Brian Black

Heard the same story but thought it was in Arizona, over by the Jct at Casa Grande.

On another note, I was on the SF one night and came around the curve at Santa Susana at 60 mph. Here sits a little yellow flag and 2 guns. Well, I had just kicked off a set so I had to come right back after them. Well, as we slowed, I could see the little red flag in the distance, just west of a little culvert/bridge. Well, here sat a bunch of white cars and about 6 people waiting to give us the once over. Well, I stopped right on the bridge/culvert and they had to walk about 10 cars to get to me. No hand rails, just ballast so they had to climb around the front of the engine to get to the ladder.

Well, they started to read me the riot act about stopping too far back and I gave them the same reason. Where does it show WHERE to stop. Joe Storment was the RFE and he said he would do what he could to "smooth" it over. Smooth over what? Oh the 20 questions. They finally had to let us go, we had to go to Moorpark for an east train.

The tales of testing could go on.


Nudge

It was in Arizona, around Tucson.

gyralite Wrote:
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> It was in Arizona, around Tucson.


It was in Arizona, at Picacho. Engineer got off of his power. left it in Run-1, figuring to line a hand throw switch and get back on the locomotives as they went by, oops, too fast to get back on. Del was the RFE for the east end district from Tucson to Lordsberg at the time but happened to be in town at Tucson and in a company vehicle with Gordon Toncheff, Tucson Trainmaster. Now you have to remember that this was during the Dove season and Gordon had just picked up his shotgun from the gun shop where it was being worked on (cough,) The two of them raced out of Tucson and headed West, towards the runaway consist. As the got closer to where the locomotives were, they drove onto the Harriman Highway, found the locomotives and turned around and matches speed with them. The only ammunition that was handy was bird shot, it took Del three shots to open up the MU hoses between locomotives and finally stop the locomotives, thereby gaining the nickname "Shotgun Green". I will tell you that Del was an Olympic Class Skeet and Trap shooter, he's not too shabby when he uses his M-1 Garand or his .41 Magnum pistol. He's also very adept with Thompson Center Fire weapons.

I will also say that he is a very good friend to me and always will be. While he had a rough period during his time as an S.P. Officer, he overcame that period and became what I consider to be a very caring and trusting soul. I've been involved in a lot of testing with Del and a lot of other officers as well and I'll be the first to tell you that he saved a lot more people than he ever sent to investigation. I think (my opinion) that it was his gruff exterior that turned people off and caused the animosity that I sometimes saw when we were out testing together. I've also seen him occur the wrath of Superintendents for throwing out investigations for what he considered to be lousy testing processes or for bad applications of the rules or just plain bad railroading by the officers involved in the testing procedures. As I said, he is and always will be my friend. So you can take all of this as you would like.

SOB

Interesting technique -- I'm reminded of the runaway locomotive -- was it in Illinois? -- that they made a TV movie out of. Didn't they try shooting the emergency fuel cut off switch?

Frankly, it seems to me this should be standard operating procedure. If you could get the Locomotives into emergency and stopped just at the cost of a few airline hoses it would be well worth it. Some stray shotgun buckshot isn't going to do a whole lot of damage except to the hoses and connectors.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/16/12 11:50 by Narniaman.

based on a true story out of (IIRC) Ohio, I can remember the news clips of the incident

CB

The run away locomotive you speak about started at Toldeo Stanley yard passed through Findlay and was stopped down in Kenton,Ohio when a cop shot the emergency fuel cut off button.

cpr-hogger Wrote:
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> The run away locomotive you speak about started at
> Toldeo Stanley yard passed through Findlay and was
> stopped down in Kenton,Ohio when a cop shot the
> emergency fuel cut off button.

They tried to shoot the button but couldent. Train stoped when a railroad official jumped aboard and shut it down.
JC

Posted from Android

I'm surprised the movie people didn't use the helicopter to fly in front of the train and claim they were using the rotor blast to slow the train to a stop. There is nothing they won't do and then so many people believe it.

The story I've heard was that they actually shot the red fill cab on the fuel tank, not the emergency cut off button.

Ryan



JasonCNW Wrote:
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> cpr-hogger Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The run away locomotive you speak about started
> at
> > Toldeo Stanley yard passed through Findlay and
> was
> > stopped down in Kenton,Ohio when a cop shot the
> > emergency fuel cut off button.
>
> They tried to shoot the button but couldent.
> Train stoped when a railroad official jumped
> aboard and shut it down.
> JC
>
> Posted from Android