Railroaders' Nostalgia > Night sounds in the yard

You just got outta the house and you make your regular stop down at the depot looking for photo-ops. It’s a humid spring night, a little on the warm side. Ah yes… an eastbound train sits on the eastward main right in front of the depot with plenty of ambient light. Maybe you’ve got time enough to set up your tripod and clip off a couple of time exposures. It’s been a quiet night with not many trains running. But in the back of your mind you know how quickly that can change! You get a shot from the platform and realize this train doesn’t have a crew on it. You’ve got a rare chance for an unusual shooting angle.

As you set your tripod up for a second shot you have to strain your ears, but you can just pick up some familiar sounds of the night around a typical railroad yard. From way off in the depths of the yard you can hear a switch engine banging away on a cut of cars. From somewhere near that bright yard light tower back there comes the muffled growl of a non-turbo charged 1200-something San Berdoo rebuild, followed immediately by the slack run-in of cars being suddenly kicked into motion. Then the unmistakable squeal of brake shoes cuts through the air followed by the slack run-out. A few moments later a free rolling car couples into a standing block of cars, echoing like a huge but far away bass drum. From over at the roundhouse comes the 1-toot, 2-toot horn sequence ritual of a new newly lashed-up engine consist being air tested by the mechanical department boys. From far behind you the faint sound of a horn sequence blowing for a lonely rural crossing comes wafting in through the humidity. A westbound train will soon be entering town. It’s still well before midnight so the sounds of automobile traffic on West 6th avenue 3 blocks to your right is also reaching your eardrums. But all of these sounds are competing for attention with the dominant sound right in front of your tripod. The lead EMD turbo charger in low idle is singing along with the gruff idle chug of a couple of a big GEs. And right behind that mismatched diesel aria is the steady drone of mechanical refrigeration emanating from the block of orange reefers that always graces the head end of this train 811.

What you don’t hear at the moment is the very consist in front of you throttling up, getting 3100 tons of Chicago-bound perishable & piggyback business coerced into eastward motion. That’s because the outbound Eastern Division crew isn’t legally rested and on duty for another 17 minutes. Not to worry. In just a few minutes your ears will be tuned in on a cacophony of horn blowing with that westbound train rolling over the 9 residential street crossings between NR Jct and the passenger depot crew change stop. By the time the Middle Division head end crew has climbed aboard and is pulling on its westbound charge the outbound Eastern Division crew has crossed the track and is saddling up aboard the 5028, ready to spur their hotshot into the night toward Argentine. Of course, both trains will have slow to 4-5 MPH to let the rear end crew changes become complete. The westbound will go through a complete rolling crew change: inbound crew off and outbound crew on the waycar in smooth motion. The eastbound will merely pick up their outbound rear end crew because the inbound crew was already plucked off the train by the crew van.

Now you’ve let yourself be conveniently “trapped” until both trains have passed by. Your railfan ears are being flooded with the full stereo, surround-sound orchestration of 2 trains passing by in close proximity. The singing of flanged wheels on hard steel rail is accompanied by the eastbound squeaks and groans of piggy-back vans swaying gently on those long flats. And behind that is the rhythmic uniform sound of westbound coal loads pounding the rails. Soak it in while you can! In just a moment both trains will be gone and you’ll have to strain to pick up a few sounds of the night, in a typical RR yard…

1. AT&SF 5028 idles at the point of hotshot train 811 G-1 on the eastbound main at Emporia, KS.
Photo date: April 9, 1981.

Thanks for listening!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/17 06:28 by santafe199.

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That is a well written piece AND a great shot! Highball!!

That description is the next best thing to being there!

Rebecca Morgan
Jacobsburg, OH

Nice.
JB

Superb--masterfull writing, words fail me.
I LOVED reading this.
LONG-LIVE the memories of the late, great Santa Fe Railway.
---Daniel

Lance ---
That is a beautiful and evocative picture in
very well-chosen words about what being next to
a railroad yard at night sounds like -- seemingly
still and quiet until you really start to pay
attention to what is going on. I could almost
hear all those familiar sounds just by reading
your prose.

This essay alone is worth 5 years of a Trainorders
subscription.

Thank you, Sir!

Really nice writing, and photo.

Nathan

Great story. The only thing missing is is the actual feel of the slight breeze and the smells of Diesel and other industrial secents.

John

And if the wind is slightly out of the north, you can get a wonderfull whif of the Iowa Beef packing plant. Fred Reber used to say.. "You can usually smell Emporia before you can see it"