Railroaders' Nostalgia > My first waycar

All throughout the late summer & fall of 1984 I spent a great deal of my free time studying the new Uniform Code of Operating Rules. This was a new comprehensive code of RR operating rules that the vast majority of North American RRs had joined together in. Santa Fe adopted this code in (I believe) 1983. I was also cramming into my brain Santa Fe’s safety rules & their study guideline for current Middle Division Timetable special instructions. After 6 years I was about to clear a huge roadblock/milestone on my immediate RR career horizon. More to the point, as a brakeman I had to work minimum number of months before taking promotion to conductor. Because of the early-mid 1980s reaganomics-fueled furlough time I suffered it took until 1984 until I had enough working months for that qualification. Now I had to pass a thorough set of operating & safety rules tests in order to take promotion to the level of fully qualified Freight Conductor.

I had an inner excitement that was not necessarily borne out of being railfan in RR train service for my beloved Santa Fe. But I was genuinely happy with myself as a plain ol’ railroader. Going into taking the test in late 1984 I knew I had studied & crammed enough to have complete confidence in getting a passing grade of 90% or better. That is: I KNEW I would get the equivalent of a grammar school “Grade A”, something I didn’t exactly see a trainload of during my school years 1-12. Looking back I’m quite sure could have annexed a few more As on my various report cards. But I was always one of those students just lazy enough to be satisfied with getting decent passing grades of Bs & Cs with the occasional D.

My big day for taking the test finally came. And went. Ironically, I don’t remember the exact day in November(?) I took the test. And after I passed the big test I failed to keep any paperwork from this milestone event in RR my career. I don’t even remember the exact grade I received. All I remember is that grade started with the number “9”, and ended with: “Congratulations son, you’re now a qualified conductor for the Santa Fe Railroad!”…

Since hiring into Santa Fe train service in 1978 I had always looked up to both conductors & engineers with a bit of awe due their elevated positions. And through the early years of my budding career I looked forward to actually working as one or the other. When I sort of bungled a chance to enter into engine service in 1979, I knew it was the conductor position I would be aspiring to. When my time came I had plans of taking my first call for a conductor job with a modicum of personal celebration. I was hoping to get an understanding rear brakeman who would take my camera and get a shot of me sitting at the conductor’s desk tending to the waybills & other 'train business'. Maybe he could also get a shot of me sitting perched up in the cupola. And to be perfectly honest I was fervently hoping my glorious first trip as Santa Fe Conductor would be on a 70 MPH hotshot. Maybe even (dare I say) train 199, the hottest train in the Santa Fe fleet at the time!

On the afternoon of June 14th, 1985 I came rolling into Emporia as an extra-board brakeman on train 1-433-13. My crew got tied up by 2:50 PM. I had a message waiting for me. It was the phone call I was looking forward to. Sorta. It was actually a message for me to call the chief clerk over in Newton. On the other end of my (a-hem…) milestone phone call was the cold and impersonal announcement that I had been force-assigned as conductor to crew #2 of local train LMI 27-28, effective at the call to duty on June 17. LMI 27-28 was a new train symbol for the old locals 1411-12 which went on duty over at Sand Creek (Newton) in late afternoons, and worked between Sand Creek & Arkansas City. That meant working all-night performing extensive interchange work at Wichita, Mulvane, & Winfield Jct. Not to mention any stops for grain or other local business at Putnam, Sedgwick, Valley Center, Udall & Hackney. This also included regular stops in Connell siding which was Santa Fe’s access into the huge & sprawling Boeing complex southeast of downtown Wichita. Switching Boeing could & would often involve HOURS of working time. As a result there was a very heavy load of switching, transfer & local business to take care of working this job. Did I mention this was usually an all-night job? Although the distance between Sand Creek & Arkansas City was less than 100 miles, 1411/LMI 27’s crew went dead on hours of service on a regular basis. It wasn’t so bad for 1412/LMI 28 crews heading back to Sand Creek. Switching time at Boeing tended to be much less when heading back home to Sand Creek. This was because those hated, nasty-to-switch-with Hi-Wide cars outbound from Boeing would nearly always go down to Mulvane for forwarding to Kansas City and interchange with the BN. In short: this local was NOT a very desirable job on Santa Fe’s Middle Division seniority District #1! Ka-THUD (#1)!!! There went my ‘delusions’ of grandeur at making my 1st conductor trip on some Santa Fe hotshot. And it got worse…

By 1985 Santa Fe had an agreement in place with the Unions to start running trains without waycars. A small mechanical device called “ETM” (End of Train Monitor) was hung on the rear coupler of the rear car to serve as a rear-of-train marker. This would replace the classic Santa Fe waycar. In fact, in early June I had seen & photographed my very first train with no waycar. On the afternoon of June 17, 1985 I made the drive from Emporia to Sand Creek to work my new (forced) conductor assignment. Riding with me were my 2 brakemen. R L Nielsen & B A Ensz. They were also force-assigned to LMI 27-28 crew #2. We arrived at the Sand Creek yard office and went on duty at 4:30 PM. That’s when Ka-THUD #2 happened! LMI 27 1-17… my train… my first-ever trip as conductor would be going out with NO WAYCAR. I was now having severe second thoughts about my new title as conductor. And it got even worse…

In the air brake section of the Uniform Code of Operating rules in effect during 1985 there was a rule which fading memory now forces me to paraphrase: “When making an airbrake test after making pick-ups and/or set-outs an employee MUST be in position to observe that the air brake piston on the rear car is in proper working condition.” That is: somebody had to physically watch that piston come out & go back in. Guess who “an employee” turned out to be??!! Yup, that’s right! Yours Truly would be that employee now walking the entire train length back to make that observation. And it would be Yours Truly who would be that employee walking back up the entire train length after making that observation. I would do this because I just wasn’t devious enough to dump that rule observance responsibility onto one of my brakemen. Even ‘worser’: Since Santa Fe had traditionally been bootlegging through traffic between Sand Creek & Arkansas City on local trains 1411-12, I foresaw many occasions on my new LMI 27-28 assignment where we would be handling as much as 80-90 cars on a regular basis. Meaning I would regularly be walking up to 80-90 cars back to the rear end and the same 80-90 cars back up to the power. I was now dreading my new title as conductor. Oh… to be sure, there were a select few places where we could pull the train ahead, preventing me from having to make the walk back. But in most places if we pulled ahead we would be long enough to be blocking a crossing somewhere. And to be doubly sure, in 1985 there were no provisions in the operating rules which allowed for backing a train up blindly to pick up “an employee” satisfying the crew’s air brake rules obligations…

Early in my Santa Fe career I got into the habit of notating loads, empties & tonnage for every train I worked. My 1985 timebook shows we departed Sand Creek on June 17 with a mere 5 cars. But it didn’t show just how many cars we picked up at Wichita and other forward locations. I have vague, 32 year old memories of walking nearly a mile back to the head end after work at Winfield…

1. ETM 742 hangs on the rear coupler of the return leg of my first round trip as a Santa Fe conductor. This is the rear car of local train LMI 28 1-18 in Wichita, KS, 60 some-odd cars behind the head end.
Photo date: June 18, 1985.



Edited 10 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/17 18:44 by santafe199.

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For the life of me I couldn’t understand why in blazes Santa Fe picked locals to start regularly running trains without waycars. There was absolutely no common sense here at all. By rule, every single stop for work on every single local on the entire system would involve horribly wasted time while somebody was walking. And to be honest, I could envision unlimited occasions where affected employees could brutally manipulate this walking time to the crews’ advantage. Personally, I was convinced we would be going dead on the hours of service nearly 100% of the time in both directions on LMI 27-28. Then a miracle happened...

On June 19 I reported for work at Sand Creek at 4:30 PM for my second-ever round trip as conductor. My beloved Santa Fe evidently came to its senses. Maybe some of my misgivings about local trains with no waycars occurred to some manager who had the power to adhere to common sense. Santa Fe put the waycars back on the locals! On my second-ever round trip as a conductor I would be riding a waycar. My 1st-ever Waycar…*

2. And here is My Waycar, AT&SF 999450 on local train LMI 27 1-19 at the W 93rd St crossing NNW of Valley Center, KS. My engineer & 2 brakemen stopped back to clear W 5th St, then cut off and pulled on ahead to perform local work. When the time came for an air test all I needed to do was hop out and observe that the brake cylinder piston had worked properly. *By the way: when we stopped here at Valley Center we had the original 104 total cars out of Sand Creek, so I’m well over a mile from the head end…
Photo date: June 19, 1985.

3. The next afternoon AT&SF 999450 returned with me on local train LMI 28 1-20 on duty at Arkansas City at 2:55 PM. In this image I’m stopped out in the boonies SSE of Valley Center, KS. By this time, after sizable pick-ups at Winfield Jct & Wichita I was over 70 cars behind my engineer & 2 brakies up front…
Photo date: June 20, 1985.

Thanks for listening!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

PS: In image #3 we have a semi-rare opportunity to look at an eastbound train rolling into a typically gorgeous Kansas sunset. Yes Virginia, I said eastbound train. The main line between Wichita & Valley Center may have been constructed at a SSE ~ NNW angle, but Santa Fe’s Middle Division timetable says that all trains travelling through Wichita from Arkansas City to Sand Creek are eastbound. (Have a nice day… :^)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/17 18:50 by santafe199.

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Nice story Lance. I thought for a minute you were going to tell us about riding the empty gondola!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/15/17 11:11 by tomstp.

Oh the ups and downs of "workin on the railroad"
JB

I got an interesting PM with a correction to my terminology. The official name of the rule book I was referring to is actually: "General Code of Operating Rules" or GCOR for short. I think I was trying to get across to people who aren't involved inside the RR industry how the new rules were "uniformly" accepted by those RRs. And if my memory serves, Santa Fe was a late entrant into the adoption of the new Code.

Lance/199 

Lance my own first caboose, er WAYCAR, story is pretty simple in comparison. A month after I hired out as a switchman in San Jose, I transferred to San Luis Obispo brakeman extra board. My first job was a dogcatch to Santa Barbara, and because I was still generally clueless, the old conductor, Foghorn Fagan, elected to ride ahead to help the head man (who was a seasoned w/ 6 months seniority) with the work en route. The good news was that I had asked Trainmaster Bill Giles for a caboose key. The bad news was that when I climbed alone onto that dark caboose, I had no idea what to do.

EO

Why, light the stove, of course!

Great story. And that first shot is a keeper. You don't often see photos of read end devices attached to a car equipped with plain bearings. The time overlap when this could have occurred has to be pretty short.

- Norm

I got to looking through my train log watching journals. On 6/20 there were no notes of your local 28, which meant I likely did not see it. I did make an entry of local 25 to Wellks that departed Sand Creek sometime prior to sundown w/93 cars and a caboose. You may have arrived prior to his departure. They were to s/o 68 and p/u 72 @ Wichita. The increased than normal train consist was, no doubt, harvest related. Only a guess that perhaps 25 had a large batch of empty jumbos that would be going west on the Pratt branch. Just a guess on my part. 
Sam