Railroaders' Nostalgia > I got ZZZapped by my own train!

Any experienced train service railroader will know this scenario: You take a call for some really good train, one that is usually always handled with priority and is powered up nicely. Maybe you even take a call for the hottest train you run, the “flagship of the fleet”, so to speak. But by the time you arrive at your on-duty point things have changed drastically. For whatever reason your call has been modified. Trains have been swapped with another crew just ahead of, or right behind yours. And now the train you will work is a real dog, some long & heavy drag. There can be a gazillion routine reasons why this happens, but suffice to say it does happen on a semi-regular basis.

At approximately 0300 on October 16, 1980 my sound sleep was interrupted because I took that call to go to work. The cob-webbed memory corridors concerning my career history are dim at best, but I seem to remember being called for my favorite train, the Chicago ~ Richmond 199. Any train service railroader will tend to remember incidents like this. Of course, this put me in a good mood to put up with going to work at the ungodly hour of 0425. But upon arriving at the wire office on duty point in the Emporia (KS) Santa Fe/Amtrak passenger station I was dealt some bad news. The 199 was shuffled off to another crew and the train I would now be working was the lowly 138. According to my time-book this train had 131 cars & 6700+ tons. I didn’t record the 199 that we were so brutally deprived of, but a typical consist would be around 35 pigs @ 2500 tons with 4 big units. ALWAYS 4 big jacks, sometimes 5…

For whatever reason this 199 very uncharacteristically “fell down” from its initial estimation into Emporia. I can only guess, but the most likely reason for a huge delay between Argentine & Emporia would be some mechanical breakdown. Maybe a bad-order car had to be set out. As a result my crew was bumped forward to a train that was supposed to have departed Emporia behind the 199. So, instead of galloping out of town in fine style aboard a sleek Arabian steed called the ‘199’, we would be lumbering out of town aboard some pregnant hippopotamus called the ‘138’. It goes without saying: the inevitable would occur between Emporia & Wellington, the next crew change point. And I have no doubt some of you railroaders reading this have already suspected the next part:

On this storm-threatening morning we got all of 15 miles out of Emporia before a diverging signal herded us into the 4th District siding at Ellinor. As we made a slight left-hand turn the west end of the Ellinor main & siding came into view. There was a big ‘clear-proceed’ signal light glittering off the shiny rails like a thousand bright green diamonds. Yup, you guessed it! This was the MAIN LINE signal providing that alluring glitter. Unfortunately the small, and very RED dwarf siding signal was our governing signal. We were going to be zapped (ran around) right here by the very train we should have left Emporia on. And of course, as this was happening the static electricity gods residing up in the clouds just had to show their amusement at our misfortune with a little spark of laughter off the right…

1. AT&SF waycar 999026 is a bright & colorful blur of westward time-exposure motion at the west end of Ellinor (KS) siding on the electrical morning October 16, 1980. Taken with camera lens pressed against glass from the cab of AT&SF 4609 on train 138 O-1.

Thanks for looking back!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/16 08:39 by santafe199.

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Awesome photo and story Lance!

Nice shot!
 

The old runaround. At least most CBAs back then provided a penalty claim to the carrier for the practice, usually depending on where the runaround occurred. Nice shot though Lance. You certainly made lemonade from lemons on that trip.

Thanks for the compliments, guys! Very much appreciated.

trainjunkie Wrote: > ... You certainly made lemonade from lemons...
But there is a flip side to this saga! There always is in train sevice. For every tale of "runaround" woe you hear from some railroader, there is a tale of glee, as well. I've also taken my share of calls for dog trains and ended up on hotshots, even my 199 a time or 2! If you take train service records from any 10 railroaders working random pool turns over a prolonged period of time I will guarantee you the bad calls/trips will even out with the good calls/trips. Even the calls that get changed. The one surefire way to upset this balance against yourself is to constantly & loudly moan, groan & belly-ache. In the railroad world the shit-mouths ALWAYS get what's coming to them, sooner or later...

As far as my story above goes: It's just a lot more fun to sing the blues, than it is to warble in the flowers. (Something about human nature... ;^)

Lance (aka "199")



 

Neat photo and the story along with was great. In fact i'm sure i'm not the only one on T/O that enjoys your stories.
Robert  aka "8notch" in Lawrenceville Georgia

santafe199 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Any experienced train service railroader will know this scenario: You take a call for some really
> good train, one that is usually always handled with priority and is powered up nicely. Maybe you
> even take a call for the hottest train you run, the “flagship of the fleet”, so to speak. But
> by the time you arrive at your on-duty point things have changed drastically. For whatever
> reason your call has been modified. Trains have been swapped with another crew just ahead of, or
> right behind yours. And now the train you will work is a real dog, some long & heavy drag. There
> can be a gazillion routine reasons why this happens, but suffice to say it does happen on a
> semi-regular basis.

​And isn't it amazing how certain individuals tend to get traded ONTO hot trains from dogs more often than others?

​We had a couple over the years in our pool, the "Hill Pool" between Eugene and Klamath Falls. One person (a fellow engineer) even got the nickname "Touch-tone Tommy" because of all the time he spent on the phone with crew dispatchers and train dispatchers, not to mention all the Christmas cards he'd send them. Of course he'd deny all this but more than once a dispatcher would thank him for whatever he did on the radio.

​One time I was 1st out and he was behind me on the board. Knowing how he operated I knew anything was possible though. As I checked the line-up I could see a good "pig" coming with a heavy piece of crap behind it. The call came out correctly with me on the intermodal and "Tommy" on the heavy drag. Amazingly by the time I got to the yard office the calls had been reversed even though the "pig" would be there first. An even bigger coincidence was that "Tommy" was already there even though he wasn't on-duty for another 30 minutes or so. To say I went ballistic would be an understatement.

​I called the dispatcher and went off on him for playing these games with "Tommy". He knew he was busted and changed the call back to what they should have been. I then got in Tommy's face and basically told him I was fed up with his crap. Of course he denied doing anything but as I left the room I noticed he was back on the phone almost in tears, probably to the dispatcher. I really didn't have many problems with him after that though.


 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/19/16 12:30 by Railbaron.

Happened all the time on the Valley Div'n too, Lance; the only penalty was if you were run around in the home/originating terminal.  Anyway, you were hosed, or in "Spanish", el hoso royale.

When working as a fireman I was ordered with engineer Dean Marsh early in the morning on a hot shot out of Emporia.  When arriving at the depot discovered we had been swapped to a dog.  Marsh was pass retirement age and was very comfortable financially so he could afford to only take the calls for good trains.  Since this swapped occurred after he was called he didn't have much choice.  He was fit to be tied.  He told the operator there in the wire chief's office to get the dispatcher on the phone and inform him that he wasn't going to go on the dog, he would just quit.  When the operator completed the call he just went on about his other duties.  Marsh yelled at him, inquiring what the dispatcher had said.  He said the dispatcher had said he didn't give a flip if Marsh went on the dog or not, just let him know for sure and he would call another engineer.  Marsh did work the dog.  I just don't have any pictures of my trip like Lance does for his.

What I discovered over the years was the return trip would quite often be just the opposite of the outgoing trip, hot shot - dog, or dog - hotshot.  It would balance out in the long run.
     Mark

Working Bakersfield to Fresno in the late 80s, you didn't want to be within two turns of Jimmy Fleeman.  It didn't matter what order the hotshot and the dog were in, you got the dog and Jmmy got the hotshot.
If there were two average trains coming, and the first one had a pickup to make enroute and you were second out, you would get called first and make the pickup, while Jimmy would go right on by a half hour later
G. 

That's a sweet photo.

Lance,
  In the 20 years that I worked the L.A. to Yermo pool (160 miles) I had a lot of 3 hour 20 minute trips, on hotshots, and even a couple of 3 hour 15 minute trips but, one time, comming west, we were just forty miles outside of Los Angeles at only 2 hours and 15 minutes! It looked, for sure, like we might make it in under three hours. Even the old head conductor that I was with kept saying that he'd never heard of anyone getting over the road that fast. Then it happened. The dispatcher called and instructed up to swap trains with some drag that was short on time and finish their setouts!

Neat photo and I really like the story.  At least you didn't have to stand the roll-bye in the rain.
Brian Stevens

In Roseburg Oregon, as well as the LA Basin-Tayler Yard/West Colton/Long Beach-Deloris that was
all SP until '96, then UP until it was "my" turn to pull my final pin in '01 ,it was "THE STORY OF MY TWENTY-FIVE YEAR RAILROAD CAREER!"
dsr



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 05/24/16 14:13 by donsrich.