Railroaders' Nostalgia > when you could think for yourselves . . .

I hired out with Santa Fe in the Los Angeles area in May '78, retired July '09. During that time MANY changes! Answering a question last night from a publisher about a photograph brought back memories of the good old days when engineers could make some decisions on their own and one particular situation. Cajon Pass is a very well known grade and approximately a twenty five mile climb from San Bernardino, CA to the top at Summit. The two track CTC line is mostly two percent from San Bernardino to Cajon station where it splits four miles below Summit at the station of Cajon with the original main line, known as the South track being three percent and the nearly two mile longer newer North track being mostly two percent. During this period the engineer could decide whether or not you could make the steeper three percent climb and simply let the DS know you could go "either way", simple as that. One night in the early nineties the usual parade of eastbounds were progressing up Cajon Pass out of San Bernardino when over the radio conversations were about a train between Cajon and Summit on the normal eastbound track that had lost a unit due to running out of fuel and was barely moving. Not long afterwords they lost another unit which also ran out of fuel then stalling on the grade. I was on a Los Angeles to Chicago stack train with a mixture of power with a one hundred class GP60M leader not known for it's slow speed lugging abilities. Being the gung ho wanting to get over the road type of hoghead I was and since we were doing around twenty four up the hill with our two small GP's helping on the rear and not wanting to sit on the train all night waiting I called the DS and told him we could make the South track to get around the traffic jam that was obviously going to happen. Immediately a short comment came over the radio from the older wiser more experianced old head on the San Bernardino based helpers about making it. MY general rule was whatever you were making on the normal grade you would lose about ten mph on the steeper track. After getting the signal to proceed east from Cajon station up the steeper three percent original main things were going fine, we setteled down to between thirteen and fourteen miles per hour. About half way up there to Summit a loud electical bang occured with smoke entering the cab and an annoyingly loud alarm bell ringing. I thought oh oh? After opening windows and nose door to vent smoke, saw that we were still making our thirteen to fourteen mph and the alarm stopped, but would ring for a half minute or so every couple of minutes, called Ft Worth Mechanical to let them know we had a fault notice along with a regular alarm bell but the unit continued working fine. We finished the climb ok and on approach to Barstow made the usual call to Barstow yard for landing instructions and heard my favorite reply, "Terminal building, everything through but the crew". The attached photo was taken on the westbound return trip nearly twenty hours later with traffic still backed up half way to Barstow of trains waiting in line to get back over the pass the following afternoon with an eastbound passing, the result of the previous nights fuel fiasco. Those were enjoyable days to be running trains being able to make your own decisions with the engineer making the call instead of some computer program. I think I pulled the pin just in the nick of time ;-)
JB



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/19/15 15:42 by 3rdswitch.

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3rdswitch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------. Those
> were enjoyable days to be running trains being
> able to make your own decisions with the engineer
> making the call instead of some computer program.
> I think I pulled the pin just in the nick of time
> ;-)
> JB



Ditto that JB. I retired in 2004 from the UP/SP. Worked many years out of Colton/Yuma and Bakersfield over the Palmdale Cutoff. Too many computers running trains now and lawyers writing the rules.

I remember the Cajon Sub DS occasionally asking us (UP trackage rights trains) if we thought we could make the south track. Unfortunately, the answer was usually "no". UP liked to run at the minimum HP/ton limit with everything but Z trains. But every now and then we'd go up the hill on the south track on one of those.

You didn't check the fuel when you took over the consist?????

It was not my consist.
JB

In years past I've seen heads-up thinking on the part of train dispatchers and operators that seems to have gone by the wayside.  Many experienced dispatchers had their moves all planned out, based upon what they knew the running times of the trains involved for a meet, overtake, etc. would be.  I used to hear dispatchers and operators ask a crew they could count on to give them "a good move" so they could line up for the next move after the first one cleared.
As the new breed of train dispatcher came aboard, I began to hear all to often "Train Dispatcher to symbol X - how long do you think it will take you to get to point Y?"  The older dispatchers never had to ask this question (unless they had an unusual reason for doing so) because they KNEW.
Andy

How could an engine run out of fuel that close to where it departed? Can you imagine if airline pilots left the airport without making sure they had enough fuel ! How long would it take to check the fuel levels. Somebody should have been held responsible.

Posted from iPhone

You're trying to compare a railroad and an airline from the point of view of a non-railroader, which just won't work!
A locomotive is supposed to be supplied with fuel, sand, cooling water, drinking water, lubricating oil in the engine, and in the air compressor.  During the time firemen were employed, the firemen were required to check the supplies while the engineer checked the train orders and the train consist weight with the conductor.  Once the firemen were cut off, in an attempt to prevent delay, an SP Superintendent's notice was issued that read: "Enginemen taking charge of engines in the Los Angeles Terminal will consider them to be properly supplied with fuel, oil, sand and cooling water."  When you take charge of an engine consist in a roundhouse where they are fueled every day you come to work in your home terminal, you expect the units to be fueled.
Locomotives of that vintage did not have fuel gauges in the cab, as do automobiles, and many of the mechanical gauges on the side of tanks either didn't work, or didn't give the proper reading.
Further in your not working for a railroad, you haven't experienced a local manager trying to save money on his budget, without regard for the company's budget.  This results in the roundhouse being instructed to only fill units half full, and the crews which always expect units to have plenty of fuel departing the next crew change point getting a big surprise when they run out of fuel halfway through their trip.  Before this brilliant manager got this idea, units would arrive in his terminal half full, and he only had to add half a tank.  After his units ran out of fuel on the next manager's territory, he started shorting fuel so his budget wasn't penalized.  Of course the company was the one that suffered because of all the hours of service reliefs required to get fueled units to trains.  This is why the SP painted an assigned maintenance terminal on the side of all their locomotives.  The roundhouses would actually send a consist out with a locomotive in it with an assembly leaking water which would only run a few minutes beforre it failed, or some other heavy repair.  This made the next roundhouse fix it, or so they thought.  Actually the next roundhouse just switched it out, filled it with water, and sent it back.  This resulted in hauling all sorts of bad order units around the railroad, so the roundhouses could meet their quotas of number of units repaired per day.  The general roundhouse foremen would look over all of the bad order units, and pick the ones that could be fixed the quickest, leaving the rest for the next shift.  The next guy did the same thing, and maybe a couple of new bad orders came in from the service track, so they got a quickie.  This caused some units to sit around a roundhouse for two  or three weeks before finally being put in a ramp track.
G  

To add to the above..... the Roundhouse Foremen would play the pass off game on their shifts and the General Foreman (boss of the roundhouse foremen) would try to pass off what couldn't be handled to the next shop, which was doing the same thing to him.

If a crew took charge of a consist and it was signed off as inspected, then away you go, otherwise you risk being insubordinate. If "they" signed off your inspection then this is the way "they" must want the power to go out, not the business of the train crew to tell mechanical what to do.

Back in the 70's there were some crew changes done "on the fly", no one was looking at anything and the concern might have been is there water on board to drink and does the a/c work. Even if an engineer noted (which could be deceiving or difficult due to the old fuel gages) a unit low on fuel there might not be anything done about it other than be threatened and told to go. Think back to the WP wreck in 1980 at Hayward. Several guys died because of that debacle.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/15 10:58 by train1275.

I did not know about the accident on the WP until reading this post.  Bad accident and a number of management failures.
Here's the ICC report
http://dotlibrary.specialcollection.net/Document?db=DOT-RAILROAD&query=(select+4056)
Andy

When I worked for the NYC 1959-1963 as an Operator, I heard a train stop at Nash, IN, just west of Danville, IN in a deep cut on the St Louis line and tell the dispatcher that they were out of fuel.  The Chief Dispatcher got on the line as asked the engineer why he did not check before he left Brightwood (yard on the east side of Indianapolis) and the engineer said he did check, saw that it was low and told the roundhouse foreman and the roundhouse foreman told him to get on the engine and go, so he did.

biff Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How could an engine run out of fuel that close to
> where it departed? Can you imagine if airline
> pilots left the airport without making sure they
> had enough fuel ! How long would it take to check
> the fuel levels. Somebody should have been held
> responsible.
>
> Posted from iPhone

That's an easy one......................You can check fuel levels until the cows come home but if there are no fueling facilites at your originating station then you keep your fingers crossed that you make it to the next available fuel rack. If you don't work there, which you obviously don't, then you'l never get the opportunity to see some of the things like this that make the job so interesting.and exciting (rolling my eyes).

Chico43 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> biff Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > How could an engine run out of fuel that close
> to
> > where it departed? Can you imagine if airline
> > pilots left the airport without making sure
> they
> > had enough fuel ! How long would it take to
> check
> > the fuel levels. Somebody should have been held
> > responsible.
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
> That's an easy one......................You can
> check fuel levels until the cows come home but if
> there are no fueling facilites at your originating
> station then you keep your fingers crossed that
> you make it to the next available fuel rack. If
> you don't work there, which you obviously don't,
> then you'l never get the opportunity to see some
> of the things like this that make the job so
> interesting.and exciting (rolling my eyes).

That sure is the truth Chico43 about working there and seeing some stuff that goes on. 

My little story was once I got on a run through train in Cincinnati that had come up from Florida somewhere.  Auto rack train.  Rent a wrecks for power.  Inbound crew says all is good.  Glanced at the fuel guage...it said full.  Hmmmm, they must have had the fuel truck here to fill it up.  Took off down the road, got stopped up around Dayton and was out walking around to kill time.  Looked at the fuel gauge...it read empty.  Grabbed a piece of ballast and tapped on the fuel tank.  It sounded hollow.  Went to the second unit and it sounded hollow to.  Toned up the Dispatcher and told him I was close to empty on both engines and probably should stop in Dayon to fuel up.  He said no, run them until they won't go.  I made it to Crestline but read later they had to get a fuel truck out to some rural road crossing.   

In the 90's, just after SP got their SD70M's, they started running the MWCEU from West Colton to Eugene with just 2 SD70M's back-to-back without a fuel stop. Since the train was mainly empties the 2 units could handle the train just fine and it would make the trip with just the 2 units. On paper the fuel capacity said the trip could be made without refueling but unfortunately paper lies. If the train got delayed somewhere, or if it had a lot of open cars that had a lot of wind resistance, the train would often arrive Klamath Falls with around 200-250 gallons of fuel on each unit, enough to make Eugene on paper. More than once though, including one train I had, we'd leave Klamath Falls and head north. We'd crest over at Cascade Summit and start down the hill. More than one train, including one I had while stopped at Abernathy, you'd hear the unmistakable sound of the lead unit dying due to running out of fuel. The problem was that evidently on those units the fuel pick-up is near the rear of the tank and when the unit was pointed downhill the fuel would flow to the front of the tank causing the unit to die due to lack of fuel even though the fuel gauge, which was near the front of the tank, would still show fuel.
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/15 22:42 by Railbaron.

Railbaron Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In the 90's, just after SP got their SD70M's, they
> started running the MWCEU from West Colton to
> Eugene with just 2 SD70M's back-to-back without a
> fuel stop. Since the train was mainly empties the
> 2 units could handle the train just fine and it
> would make the trip with just the 2 units. On
> paper the fuel capacity said the trip could be
> made without refueling but unfortunately paper
> lies. If the train got delayed somewhere, or if it
> had a lot of open cars that had a lot of wind
> resistance, the train would often arrive Klamath
> Falls with around 200-250 gallons of fuel on each
> unit, enough to make Eugene on paper. More than
> once though, including one train I had, we'd leave
> Klamath Falls and head north. We'd crest over at
> Cascade Summit and start down the hill. More than
> one train, including one I had while stopped at
> Abernathy, you'd hear the unmistakable sound of
> the lead unit dying due to running out of fuel.
> The problem was that evidently on those units the
> fuel pick-up is near the rear of the tank and when
> the unit was pointed downhill the fuel would flow
> to the front of the tank causing the unit to die
> due to lack of fuel even though the fuel gauge,
> which was near the front of the tank, would still
> show fuel.
>  

Now you got me curious as to the sound a unit makes when running out of fuel...

The same sound as when you shut it down any other way.  Why would it be different?

My experience has been a roughness like the engine is mis-firing, depends a little on whether going over the road or if sitting idling. When idling they tend to gasp and wheeze and snort a bit, sort of like a dying wild beast. Over the road under power it is harder to distinguish with other noise going on, and if it is a trailing unit then you simply get alarm bells ringing.

Shutting down most engines is generally a smooth transition of idling and rpm's idling down to the sound of alarm bells. - Much smoother in my experience.

I'd like to thank everyone for posting, this is ONE of the most informative posts of life on the tracks.

I was called for an eastbound stack train at Wellingyon, KS. It came in with three next to new 600's. The inbound crew said the rear one died coming into town. I went back and started it, put it online, but it died again leaving town, the Condr isolated it, and we were down to the head two. At Ridgeton, the 2nd one started smoking and dropping it's load,then died. Again the condr tried a re-start with the same results. That's when we started to realize we were out of fuel on those two. Between crossings, I went out the back door hung over the railing, and looked at the guage, on out leader, which read "E". We continued on, and like the others, it ran out at the golf course crossing west of W. Ottawa. The DS had a work train at Ottawa put it's train away, come to the rescue, and haul us on into KC.

Posted from Android

So, did anyone get any crap about sending those units out on Empty, or was it just another day on the railroad?