Railroaders' Nostalgia > Staring down a [s]cowl

For a few days in March of 1984 I was on a work train. As I recall we were just a scrap ‘picker-upperer’. We had unit 3687 with a few gondolas & a Burro Crane in tow equipped with an electro-magnetic dish. This was used to pick up loose tie plates, spikes, angle-bars & all sorts of other scrap metal odds & ends that the M.O.W. boys had piled up in various places around El Dorado & Augusta, KS.

In the course of our typical day we would make almost as many reverse movements as we would in the traditional forward direction. This particular day I was the rear brakeman. Along about mid-morning the train dispatcher stashed us away in an auxiliary track and told us to “stay there for a few”. That didn’t sound very good. Apparently that classic noon time rush of trains was headed our way.

We had no other choice but to sit and watch a half-dozen trains roll by in both directions. What the heck, it was a nice day and with my camera I was able to pick off a couple of the westbounds in decent light. Then we got the radio call we were waiting for. The DS would be ready for us after just 1 more westbound, so he gave us permission to pass the red dwarf signal and re-enter the westbound siding, watching out for cars ahead. With the crew once again rounded up I took up my post on the rear platform of our waycar. I could see a distant headlight to the east as we started our movement…

[I’m sure every group of railfans that spends any time at all chasing & shooting RR subjects together will come up with their own unique phrases & witticisms. We in the KS Gang of the 80’s certainly had a few. One of these was in reference to the famous EMD cowl 1st seen circa 1967 around Uncle John Santa Fe’s mainlines. These were of course, the brand new F & FP-45s. When any one of us would score an EMD cowl on the point of a train and later show that slide in one of our innumerable & informal slide shows we had come to say: “Look at the SCOWL… on the COWL!!” Cornball? Sure! But we made our fun by over-emoting & over-emphasizing both words, and somehow it never got old.]

I stood on the rear platform of my waycar, now rolling slowly eastward. The headlight I saw just a few seconds earlier was now the rapidly-expanding face of an EMD cowl. I could clearly make out those 2 oddly shaped front windows & the cigar-band emblem. A dark blue pilot completed a sinister “face”. Indeed, the windows looked like black eyeballs, with the number-board eyebrows and the dark pilot creating a sort of scowling smirk. Some hotshot piggy-backer was going to blow by my perch just a few feet to my right. To be sure, this train was in the process of reducing from a top speed of 70 MPH down the 30 MPH restrictions over E 5th St & US hwy 77 crossings. But that was still several hundred feet of track to the west of my rolling position. I took a medium telephoto shot, then lowered my camera. My spine tingled just a tiny bit as that ‘SCOWL on the COWL’ rushed by me. I think I was smiling…

1. AT&SF 5985 leads a westbound (Chicago-LA train 188?) through the crossover plant at Augusta, KS on March 6, 1984.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 8 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/14 11:16 by santafe199.

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Lance, VERY COOL!

KR

Well Lance,

There's there's no "scowl" on my "cowl" while looking at your fine shot. Paid railfanning was the absolute best thing going before employee photography became treasonous, eh?

-E.O.

hogheaded Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well Lance,
>
> There's there's no "scowl" on my "cowl" while
> looking at your fine shot. Paid railfanning was
> the absolute best thing going before employee
> photography became treasonous, eh?
>
> -E.O.

Indeed!!

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