Railroaders' Nostalgia > A wee bit of green in the Big Sky

Date: 03/17/16 11:05
A wee bit of green in the Big Sky
Author: santafe199

In October of 1991 I was still new to working out of Laurel, MT for Montana Rail Link, having just moved down there in September from 4 years of working out of Missoula. Off the Laurel engineer’s extra board I caught a round trip with Mr Gene Dobson. He was the Engineer & I was the ‘Assistant Engineer’. This was a new job title, so far as I knew still only 4 years old in the RR industry. It was a new agreement between MRL & the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. The idea was to have 2 qualified engineers on a train for the equally new longer running districts. Each man could trade off half of the running responsibilities, thus greatly reducing the risk of running while fatigued.

On a beautiful autumn day we were rolling east through the Missouri River Canyons between Toston & Logan. Leaving Toston the DS called us and told us at Lombard (ghost town) we’d have to hand-throw the east siding power (CTC) switch because he was having trouble with it. Since Geno was running the first half of our trip the task of getting down and performing this common chore fell to me. We got stopped behind the eastward signal and I hit the ground walking up to the switch. In those days I was still carrying my camera with me on mainline pool trips & other ‘outside jobs’. In the afternoon sunlight I could see a possible photo opportunity. So I had the camera strapped over my shoulder as I was making my way to the malfunctioning CTC power switch.

The procedure in these all-too-frequent situations is to unlock & put the switch mechanism in ‘hand-throw’ mode, then physically mover the lever to see that the switch points actually move under your power. Then you line the switch for the intended move. Now that the switch mechanism is 'off power' your hand or vocal signal beckoning your engineer to ‘come forward’ supersedes the red signal he is sitting behind. When the lead engine’s second truck is on or past the points you put the switch mechanism back in “power”, lock it up and hop aboard. Needless to say, your engineer has the train moving very slowly. Of course, if you’re a railfan toting a camera you grab a vertical shot showcasing the canyon’s north wall somewhere in that string of events. And because the switch mechanism is on the north side your railfan photo has to be taken from the “dark side”.

So here’s a bit of a green Montana memory almost 25 years old & a hearty salute to shooting pictures from the dark side…

1. BN 6809 leads two trailing AT&SF units: 5049 & 5093 on the point of BN train 01-196-15 over the MRL mainline at the east siding switch at Lombard, MT on October 16, 1991.

2. ‘They’ say EVERYBODY has a we bit o’ the Irish in ‘em on St Paddy’s Day! Even that dark old lad, Darth Vader.
So… Here’s to the DARK SIDE!

"If you're lucky enough to be Irish, then you're lucky enough." — Irish Saying
Lance Garrels
santafe199

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/17/16 11:08 by santafe199.