Railroaders' Nostalgia > Ouch, that hurt......#1

I started working as a brakeman-switchman-Santa Fe Railroad Middle Division, June 1965. We did not work with radios. You did everything by hand signals. I worked a couple weeks on the brakeman's extra board. I was forced assigned on 79-80 running between Abilene and Osborne. I did not care about the other brakeman that much. I placed a bid for 73-74 working out Emporia to Concordia, KS and Superior, NE. I was on the Friday-Sat layover. My attempt getting away from the other brakeman did not work. He followed me over to 73-74 the same day.

We went on duty about 6AM at Emporia, Sundays. We would run to Concordia, then tie up. We would go on duty Monday morning working back to Emporia. We were off on Tuesday.
Wednesday on duty about 6AM. This trip, we would run to Superior, NE, then tie up. We would work back to Emporia on Thurs. We were off on Friday & Saturday.

We would work Strong City, picking up cars that had came from Sand Creek going up the Strong City branch. Plus, we had some industry work at Strong City and Cottonwood Falls. We would have breakfast in Abilene. We did the switching around Abilene then work the branch up to Concordia. We would have lunch like 4PM or 5PM at Concordia. We generally had a good size train. We could have 60 to 80 cars leaving Strong City.

On this one day, we had our late lunch at Concordia. We had a lot of switching at Concordia before leaving towards Superior. We had a lot Concordia cars that we would switch out. The engineer switch ends so we could switch on the sunny side of the train.

There is a rule in the rule book that one will become familiar with their territory. I was riding a box car. I was riding on the end, where the ladder went to the top. I was about 15 cars from the engine. I was passing signals to the engineer from the conductor and rear brakeman. I did not realize that a switch stand was near me. I had put my arm out to give a stop sign. Wham, my arm hit the target on the switch stand. I had a few choice words to say to myself. I managed to hang on to the car and finishing passing the signal.

I made mental notes where the switch targets were and what side of the train they were located. I guess that I learn my lesson as I never hit another switch target during my railroad career.

This was all my fault as I was not paying attention where the switch stands were located. So, this ouch was all my fault. Tomorrow, I will post a story about Ouch #2. It was not my fault.

Gary A. Rich
Aurora, CO



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/14 13:00 by waycar_rider.