Railroaders' Nostalgia > End-o-the-line for a waycar?

It was September 11, 1985. I was officially on furlough from active train (and yard) service with the Santa Fe. But under an agreement worked out between the unions & the carrier I was able to take a call to work in “emergency service”. This was a way of letting furloughed employees get one or more days work during a half, which kept a paycheck at least trickling in. Almost as important it very often let a furloughed employee add a “worked-in” month toward his/her eventual RR retirement. It was also a way to let a regular employee lay off, even when the local extra board was exhausted.

So there I was working an afternoon shift as an emergency switchman over in Sand Creek (Newton), KS. I was grateful to earn a day’s pay. There were always 2 afternoon switch jobs, with one working each end of the yard in Sand Creek. On occasion both jobs would end up at one end of the yard or the other, trying to stay out of each other’s way. More often, the job at west end of the yard would come back to the east end of yard to go to beans at the yard office. Such was the case on 9-11-85. My west end job was in the yard office at beans while the east end job was still out there pounding the lead. Our bean period was about over, so while my switch foreman was getting more switch lists for the rest of the evening. I stepped out to get some fresh air. The evening light was failing fast, something I always looked at, because I always kept my K-64 loaded Canon A-1 handy. I walked out and watched the east end boys at work. The foreman, who I will call “Butch” (to protect the guilty) was really banging away at a long cut of cars. With everyone on his crew being veterans of 15-20 years each it was like watching poetry in motion. I watched Butch with a little bit of awe because I didn’t have that much experience at switching. This was because I had spent most of my young career in train service by choice. So it was a pleasure to watch a switch foreman efficiently kicking out a cut of cars. Very often you could see 2 or more recent kicks simultaneously rolling into their designated tracks.

Then I saw something that literally made me do a triple-take! Butch energetically kicked a car into a track. It was Santa Fe waycar #999063. I think she was supposed to go into some other now forgotten track number down deep in the yard. I’m just guessing, but I think AT&SF 999063 was probably going to be the waycar for one of the next day’s locals. One problem: Butch, with a bit over 20 years of experience had evidently forgotten to throw a switch that was virtually right under his nose. Waycar 999063 was now rolling no less than 10 MPH into a stub track just off the side of the yard office. A very short stub track… with a mere pile of dirt at the end.

It all happened in glorious slow motion. I smoothed out the triple kink in my neck and walked over to Butch. I casually mentioned to him that the waycar he just kicked was going roll right on down that track and climb that woefully inadequate mound of dirt and take off, just like an airplane. Butch looked where I was pointing and just said “you’re right!” We both watched the slow motion show. I swear, if I was a smoker I would have had time to light up and burn half a cigarette. AT&SF waycar 999063 reached the end of the track and hit the dirt, in almost dead silence. Of course it was the dirt that flew every which-way, instead of that wing-less waycar. But she did dramatically rise up over the dirt pile and rock back and forth 3 or 4 times trying to find her equilibrium. What sound we did hear was the squeak & groan of a carbody trying to find its suddenly missing trucks. It was touch & go if the 999063 would roll over on her side, but she righted up a bit and her motion stopped. Butch & I stood there in complete silence, both of us admiring his all-too-human blunder. It just goes to show how even the most experienced yard hand can F-up now & then! But I have to say this was almost a visual thing of beauty. Of course, bad news travels at light speed on the RR! In just a few seconds the entire human population of the yard office would be outside gushing forth with cheers ‘n jeers fired in Butch’s direction. Not wanting any of those bullets to land on me I ran off to get my camera.

I never found how much, or even IF Butch served time for is human frailty. In 1985 Santa Fe was just starting into the process of doing away with waycars. There were already a significant number of main line trains running without them. Butch might have done Santa Fe a favor with his goof. I never did see or shoot AT&SF 999063 again…

1. 2. & 3. AT&SF 999063 is possibly at the very end of its service career. After an errant switching move this waycar is playing king-of-the-hill in Sand Creek yard in Newton, KS on September 11, 1985.

Thanks for the show!
Lance Garrels
santafe199



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/17 09:33 by santafe199.

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Funny how those incidents really do seem to unfold in slow-mo. Apparently the 063 survived, becoming CMNW No. 10214. After CMNW, it was supposedly in Fillmore, California for awhile in private ownership but I never saw it myself and don't know what became of it. But at least it survived the Sand Creek yard dirt pile.

Thanks Lance!
TC

Now that's REALLY what I call a loose caboose!

Well, that could certainly ruin a guy's day! Nice story!

I lucked out with a similar deal on SP's Redwood Local, when we fumbled a drop. Our caboose hit a boxcar that was snugged up against a concrete end ramp at about 15 mph. Had the box not been there to cushion the blow... As it was, the cab shot skyward enough to see the tops of the bolster pins, but miraculously came back down in proper position on the trucks. Everything inside the caboose wound up wedged against the lead door, and the brake rigging was trashed, but the car still rolled once we bled off the brakes, so we used it the rest of the night and conductor Harold Shaw wrote it up with "bad order brakes". The Bayshore Yard carman must have been pretty confused about the condition of the brake rigging.

EO

trainjunkie Wrote: > ... the 063 survived, becoming CMNW No. 10214 ...

Thanks for the update! I've changed the exclamation mark to a question mark in my thread title...

Lance/199

The photos are great but the great story is what makes them great. Otherwise, they would just be photos of an up-ended caboose.
Thanks for sharing your story and photos.
ALLEN

That caboose had more value than planting it on a "pile of ......." LOL
Great series Lance

Bob Krieger
Cheyenne, WY

At least the adjacent tank cars remained unsullied.
...Lorenzo

No way....

I saw the same thing happen to a loose caboose at Strong City. It landed on top of a pile of dirt too.