Railroaders' Nostalgia > On board sunset

It was one of those hard driving Kansas rain storm sagas whose principal players were a cow & a flat rock! It rained so hard my engineer, Jimmy Hartman & I went through a few intermittent, seconds-long spates where we literally couldn’t see two car lengths ahead of us. It was even difficult, at times to see the handrails on the nose of our rebuilt GP-7. It would be an understatement to say I had some measure of unease about the whole affair. It was bad enough that this relatively new brakeman couldn’t clearly see the track ahead. But when I looked over at my veteran hogger and saw a look of consternation on his face I began to pucker up, just a tiny!

Not to worry, though. In due time the rain went away and Mr Sol made a brief & very bloodshot appearance just before retiring for the night…

1. Sunset scene (with fresh lake-lets of standing water) while entering the eastbound yard in Emporia, KS on May 22, 1981. Taken from the left-hand seat in the cab of AT&SF 2004 on Abilene ~ Emporia local train 1334 V-1.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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Looks like you even captured the signal bridge at Merrick!!
 

In the '69 - '72 era the fireman only protected what they called "Veto" turns.  There were 7 veto turns in the Emporia, Ks pool.  In the summer of '72 they got all that changed and we could work any freight position.  I was getting close to taking promotion and knew if I passed that I would be getting forced to some local or road switcher somewhere and I did not have hardly any experience working them.  At that time they were operating a Abilene turn out of Emporia so I bumped onto it with Jim Hartman.  He said he would run up one day and I could run back, then the opposite the following day.  We were taking empties to Abilene and bringing loads (coupler capacity trains) back to Emporia.

On about the 3rd or 4th eastbound trip that I had operated we had a scary experience.  When approaching Neva with a tonnage train I had set a little too much air so released the brakes, then reapplied them but the system wasn't recharged.  Had to go to emergency and stopped just a couple of cars from the RED signal.  Of course my heart was beating about 1,000 beats per minute and another part of my body was all puckered up.  I made some comment such as "boy, that was sure close" and all Jim said to me was "you need to learn from that".  All I could think of at that time was Jim was being so good and helpful to allow me to get some experience and I in turn had just about cost him his job.  Needless to say I approached Neva in a more cautious manner after that.
     Mark     

KskidinTx Wrote: > ...operating an Abilene turn out of Emporia...
We were working just the opposite: This was a "down & back" turn based out of Abilene. For the first time I was working a short crew. I was THE ONLY brakeman on the job. It was the beginning of the Productivity agreement between Santa Fe and the UTU. What I couldn't know was that it was also the onset of early 80s reaganomics trickling down (pissing) all over me & several thousands of other working class Americans. I would work in a non-furloughed status an average of merely 10 weeks a year for the next 6 years...

Jimmy Hartman was a great guy to work with. He had an easy going countenance with a quiet humor that made you like him immediately. And he was in fantastic physical shape for his age! I remember working a vacation vacancy on the Abilene Roadswitcher for a week in the summer of 1980. I was 25 years old, and in about as prime a shape as I was ever going to be. Our routine was to park at the Abilene depot, and the 5 of us (Mike Zenner was firing on the job) would walk the 2 blocks north to "The Texan" cafe for beans. One day that week Jimmy challenged me to a foot race up to the cafe. I said "OK", and away we went. I got a 3 or 4 step lead and it was ALL I could do to keep ahead of him! HOLY MOLY... was I ever surprised. Jimmy & I stopped at the door to the cafe. I was gasping for breath, while he was barely winded. He looked at me with a twinkle in his eye. I don't remember clearly, but he could easily have said something like: "And let that be a lesson to you, kid!"   true story... :^)

Lance/199

I the training program in '79, I worked the Abilene to Emporia turn with an exciting crew. Billy Dale Carrier was the Engineer, Sherman Wolfe was the fireman, and Cliff Morgan was the head brakeman. (all dead now) I had never met any of them before, but I learned a whole new set of operating, train handling, rule G & conduct rules from those guys. I survived a couple of weeks with that bunch, and moved on to to something else for a while.

ddg Wrote: > ... I survived a couple of weeks with that bunch...
You should have gotten hazardous duty pay! I don't think I ever worked with Billy Dale. I think I worked with Cliff a time or 2, but he never paid me much attention.
SHERMAN however, was a handful! He was a trip all the way there & half way back...

Lance/199

I made a trip to Newton with Sherman once. The orange vodka dripping off his chin took care of the first half. I ran out, while he slept it off. We doubled back on the 883, it was his turn to drive, and he was good as new by then.

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Sometimes I feel sorry for people who don't get to see stuff like that......But I get over it pretty quickly.

SD45X Wrote:
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> Sometimes I feel sorry for people who don't get to
> see stuff like that......But I get over it pretty
> quickly.

Are you referring to ddg's description of "Sherman" or Lance's postiing of the sunset?

The sunset:)