Railroaders' Nostalgia > They managed to screw it up

Englewood told a story about a derailment at 75 http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?11,4000101,4000428#msg-4000428 Date: 04/03/16 07:36 Re: 3/B&OCT 75th Street 1968 Author: Englewood that reminded me of an entertaining incident.

In my later BN days, surrounded by incompetence, arrogance, narcissism, and disdain for doing anything correctly instead of expediently, I originated the phrase They call them management because whatever they do, they manage to screw it up.

In 1968, there wasn't much of that, but there were occasional examples. It was much easier to deal with when it involved only occasional examples. Mostly, such folks were entertaining and we managed to generally ignore them. What if one were to collect a bunch of such individuals and put them in charge of a train? In future years, that would not be unusual and would provide entertainment during a strike (when such were still allowed). In the summer of 1968, I had a peek into that future.

Here: http://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?18,3931973,3938729#msg-3938729 Date: 01/18/16 07:39 Re: A case of mistaken identity, I told a tale of such a manager who was entertaining and easily ignored. However, the events leading up to my encounter with him were something to behold.

The Belt T&E were on strike. BRC wasn't running any trains, but the tenants kept on working. That was perfectly legal. They weren't party to the strike. However, it was getting ugly. The operator at Belt Jct. was under heavy sniper fire one night when I was at 75. He couldn't get to the intercom or the dispatcher phone to call for help. Finally, he was able to reach the speaker box, pull the talk key down and tell me what was up. I got the PRR operator at Beverly Jct (he had a city phone, unusual back then) to call the cops. One night C&O 1/90 went in the ditch between Belt Jct and 80th Street. A rail was pulled and the gap bonded with wire. At 75, we had some drive-by scouting of the tower, but they didn't do anything to us.

BLE set up pickets on the Southwest Highway crossing at the east end of the C&O yard, continually marching back and forth across the tracks. There was some question about whether that was legal, but since shooting operators and derailing trains was also not legal, it didn't seem to matter. The Belt came to a stop. Nobody's crews would pass the pickets at Southwest Highway. C&O started shuttling trains between the yard and 75 using a road foreman and a trainmaster who was a qualified (as in Really Qualified, not strike-breaker quasi-qualified) engineer.

Apparently, there was similar activity going on at the other end of Clearing; probably at Archer Ave, which would cut off both routes to Clearing. For some reason, the Q decided to deliver directly to the C&O via the B&OCT. That was a normal interchange route for Santa Fe, but not the Q. Other than the headroom needed to back out at 22nd Street and run to Robey Street, the Q never operated on B&OCT south of 22nd Street.

I came to work on 2d Trick to relieve Pat Hard. As I came up to the driveway crossing of the BOCT/PRR - BRC wye, I could see that folks were hard at work on a derailment. OK, at least it doesn't appear to be on the mains or blocking anything else.

When I got inside, Pat told me the whole tale of the debacle.

As the Q engine went roaring around the wye in an attempt to avoid stalling, he noticed that there was so much management on the engine, there was no room for all of them in the cab. Some were on the walkways. The Superintendent was running the engine.

Big interlockings are designed with a feature known as sectional release. It is often possible to start changing the route behind a movement. That's important in a big plant, especially a mechanical plant or an electric or electro-mechanical plant with mechanical locking because of the size (length) of the machine. In a modern microprocessor plant, sectional release is still important when movements are slow and at very short intervals, such as in a big passenger terminal. This feature is the reason for the rule prohibiting backing up in an interlocking.

75th Street was set up with sectional release on the B&OCT and Wabash. On the mains, you could start pulling iron for the next move when the train ahead had passed the diamonds. In the wye, you could pull iron for the main as soon as the movement ahead cleared the derail between the Pennsy switch and the main. That's what Pat did. The instant the Q caboose was clear of the plant, the iron was already pulled and he gave B&OCT Run 68 (Robey to Barr) the signal. Meanwhile, the intrepid Q Superintendent, in his attempt to keep from stalling his under powered train on the grade between the BOCT main and Western Avenue, failed get stopped for a switch at the east end of the yard. He had to back up, which he did. Under the watchful eyes of the picketing Belt engineers, he put his engine in reverse and opened the throttle wide. He was going to have to shove hard to get this tonnage backed up. Well...not so much. The train was pretty much balanced on top of Western Avenue. It didn't take all that much to back it up; certainly not as much as he gave it. As 68 was passing at 40 mph on the B&OCT, the Q rocketed back past the home signal in the wye and hit the (Hayes) derail in the wye. The caboose went airborne and landed on its side about a half a carlength from the track. The two hind cars derailed less spectacularly. 68. of course, went on by unscathed. There were no injuries because - there was nobody on the caboose! The engine was overflowing with management and there was nobody on the caboose. Pat was out there in a flash to look for whoever might be on the caboose, so he knew there was nobody there.

The Q Superintendent tried to cover just like many T&E guys would. We had the signal, then he took it back to run a B&O. B&OCT management were mostly older than dirt and all came from years of experience before being promoted. They also did not sell out their guys at the slightest accusation. You can't do that in an interlocking. It's a two minute grind out. Oh, well he told us that we could back up. Oh...how did he do that? Well, we heard it on the radio. Oh. Remember what I've said about B&OCT in those days. We had no radio - Zero, None, Zip, No Radio. The Chief, the Robey Street yardmaster, and the Barr trainmaster had a B&O base station. That was it.

Well, he must have called Cicero and had the yardmaster tell us we could back up. Oh, really? How did he do that. B&OCT towers didn't have a city phone. Pat would have had to tell the B&OCT dispatcher to tell the Q dispatcher and that didn't happen.

OK fine. What's done is done. I don't know what was done about the Q officials; I'm guessing not a lot.

Meanwhile, the Q caboose was there on its side next to the wye for months, a monument to arrogant stupidity. One day, it was gone when I came to work. The Q finally sent a crane and a truck to haul it away.

TAW

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/03/16 13:17 by TAW.

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A good source to get a complete over view and story behind the strike in Vernon Smith's book "One Man's Locomotives". The  strike lasted from July 29, 1968 to November 8,1968 one day after the national  elections. Charles Luna and Lyndon Johnson were good friends and Johnson did not appoint a emergency board until the day after the election.  The accident that TAW mentions involving the C&O train is mentioned in the book as well as the gun fire at Belt Junction Tower.    The  strike was over restoration of the third member to train crews, which the UTU attempted on other lines, which was as many called it back then "featherbedding" a term common in the 60's -70's and something new many young railroaders today either to young to remember or not alive at the time.  It was one of the longest strikes in history  . Good Story. 

Great story! I enjoyed it even more because it's my home territory, especially what you stated about balancing the train over Western Ave while in the wye.....

There was still hostility many years later over the strike.
Men of other crafts who had to honor the picket lines had been in major financial 
straights during the prolonged strike.  They were really p****d when the UTU later agreed to
give away the extra switchman jobs for a little extra money to the remaining switchman.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/05/16 06:50 by Englewood.

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
 The operator
> at Belt Jct. was under heavy sniper fire one night
> when I was at 75. He couldn't get to the intercom
> or the dispatcher phone to call for help. Finally,
> he was able to reach the speaker box, pull the
> talk key down and tell me what was up. I got the
> PRR operator at Beverly Jct (he had a city phone,
> unusual back then) to call the cops.
>
>

BRC = Belt Railway of Chiraq
Incidently for those of you who saw the movie,
the church that John Cusack played the priest in was
based on St. Sabina's which is only 1/2 mile south of Belt Jct.

Gotta love it when the person at fault uses every excuse in the book to get off the hook, and from what happened (and the B&OCT Local being lucky) I bet he really got his butt kicked!