Railroaders' Nostalgia > Don't try It

You're risking your future at McDonald's.

I worked across Northern Nevada and stock on the track was not uncommon and we sort of got used to what they were likely to do. In this case she is less likely to cross and heed the horn warning. If the rest of the herd was on the opposite side, now that would more likely to be another sad story. Hitting one of these critters can really make a very unpleasant mess on an locomotive.

At night this would be a lot more scary. If we had time to think about it we would turn off the headlights which was sometimes effective but not always.

Pat

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One night on the Smokey we hit a bunch of cows that got loose around the Somis-Moorpark area. Well, we were there a bit coupling up air hoses and finally took off to LA. We told the dispatcher they might want to change the power out in LA because it was covered in cow guts and blood.

Nope, Main Line change at Main Line Tower. I will bet the outbound crew were pretty sick of it by the time they got to Yuma.



Nudge

One time I was working the Guadalupe hauler. Were coming down off of Schumann Grade, just outside of Guadalupe when we ran through a heard of wild boar, running across the track. The next morning, on the way out of town, I looked for them but they were gone. Someone had carnitas for breakfast!

In the late 1950's I recall visiting with some Missouri Pacific railroaders at Mrs. Fuller's restaurant dinner table in Horace, KS one evening after I'd been driving a tractor and plowing for my father all day. In visiting, the discussion approached the earlier times in the steam days and one engineman recalled once coming from Hoisington, KS to Horace and told of hitting a herd of cattle on the way with the engine. One of the livestock, after being hit, managed to get tossed and wedged between the engine frame and the smokebox. The crew after stopping and inspecting, was unable to successfully remove the critter, so they continued to Horace where some of the roundhouse crew managed to remove it. This man said it was a terrible trip on toward Horace as the aroma of the burnt hair and skin managed to make its way into the cab as they traveled westward. Not good!!

Can you use "Roadkill Helper" on those things or is that just for smaller critters like skunk, opossum, squirrel, raccoons, and other small game?

John

About 8 yrs ago headed home to Spokane from Wenatchee a young angus bull decided to butt heads with me. I was approx 10 miles west of Odessa, WA coasting down from 60 to 45 mph for a speed board. Up ahead on a long straight stretch I could see something black on the track but couldn't tell what it was. As I got closer, this young bull (about 800lbs or so) saw me coming and realizing I was bigger than he, decided to turn tail and head down the track away from me instead of just turning aside off the track. Well of course I drilled him dead center and felt him roll under our lead unit (GE 44-9) lifting us up off the front truck, the fuel tank, and then the trailing truck. The air didn't dump, no red lights or warning bells, and we were still on the track so we didn't slow down since we still had over 6 hours until Hauser fuel rack. Made it in about 5 PM and when getting off, I looked and sniffed around and didn't find a shred of "beef" bigger than a small strip of hide. It was mid November so the fueling crew didn't have to smell much. In thinking it over, I figured that my front coupler hit him square in the bung hole, forcing his front legs to buckle and roll straight under the unit. If he had turned at the last minute so that we would have broad sided him, I really think we would have derailed and chewed some ballast!

In 1963 I had hired out on the San Diego & Arizona Eastern while furloughed on the SP in Los Angeles. One afternoon I
was the fireman on the daily westbound freight 451 between El Centro and San Diego. Between Tecate and Tijuana we were
descending a loop into a valley where we could see a herd of about 150 sheep grazing smack on top of the right of way.
The engineer, Roy Robinson let out a yelp and poured the air out of the brake pipe in an effort to get the speed down
to a crawl before easing the front of the covered wagon into the flock. I asked Roy why he was so concerned about hitting
the woolly critters, after all they were trespassing on railroad property. He said yeah, they were trespassers but
if we happened to hit them just right we would probably derail because sheep are very compact and solid and if they got
under a traction motor they would very likely raise one or more wheel sets. We parted the flock with no blood spilled and
went on our way.

Charlie

SP was responsible by law for maintaining the fences along the line south of Tucumcari, and actually did a fairly good job of maintaining them (better than with the locos, anyway), yet cattle still made it onto the tracks with some regularity, sometimes in small herds. Whenever we hit a cow, the rancher had to be compensated. The amazing 'coincidence' was that it was always a rancher's prize bull or heifer that we hit. One day, the M/W boys came across a rancher cutting holes in his own fence, and after SP persuaded the local DA to prosecute the guy for criminal vandalism, very few cows wandered the tracks anywhere near the rancher and his neighbors.

EO

Ah yes, wildlife.

We hit moose all the time in Alaska. Horrendous noise, especially if it's a big bull, and it often makes a huge mess. Right now the cows are running around with their calves. I hate hitting those poor things.

A couple weeks ago we rounded a curve coming into Birchwood and there was a cow with twin wobbly newborns standing in the gauge. Fortunately they heeded the horn, momma and one baby went one way, and the other baby went the other. We had about 7,000 feet of train so I hope they reunited after we passed.

There has been a black bear roaming around Anchorage Yard this year. Makes for an interesting additional safety hazard one must be constantly vigilant against. It's even discussed on our daily safety briefing at the start of every shift. A few days ago another black bear appeared in they yard and they started fighting. We have a carman here who survived a bear attack, so he is extra vigilant, and will immediately retreat to his truck when one of these suckers makes his appearance. I usually make sure there is something nearby with a tall ladder.

Awful lot of baby moose and bears up here this spring. More than I've ever seen in the past. They don't mix well with trains.

A former head of IT for the Alaska RR once couldn't make it in to work one morning as there was a mama moose in her driveway who wouldn't leave.

Yep, happens all the time. Last night some neighbors couldn't park or get into their house on account of a black bear raiding the trash can in their front yard. They circled the neighborhood for awhile until it left. "Roger...maintain holding pattern until bear departs."

Life in the last frontier.

You really don't want to mess with a moose. They're bigger then you are and they know it!

Back in the late sixties, we hit a flock of sheep at about MP 453 on the SP Colton-Palmdale cutoff and killed 264 of them. The caboose stopped right in the middle of the mess. The sheepherder spoke no English, but my conductor Buck Duane spoke enough Spanish to get the necessary information. There was some delay while the engineer and head brakeman removed sheep carcasses off the front end of the lead SD-9. When we left, the sheepherder was crying like a baby!
A fire hose was used at the east end of Colton yard to clean up the lead unit, but it still stunk of sheep for a long time afterwards. When we came back west the next day, there was no trace of the incident. MOW bulldozed a trench and buried them all.
As a post note, when we arrived at Indio for our crew and power change, someone spotted a dead sheep on the top of the third boxcar from the engine from the Jackson Street overpass.

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO

Damn. 264 of them. That's sad. I hate hitting animals. They just don't know any better.

Going west through Bazar, KS years ago, with a little GE on the point. A B-23. A big cow was up on the track, just before we went under the hwy 177 overpass. It too just turned and trotted right down the track as we approached. We hit her at 55, but there was no lift, or rough ride. She just went under between the rails, and the pilot skimmed her off a couple of inches above the rail. As we entered a right hand curve, I saw a small ball of dust under the train, getting further and further back. A few minutes later, the track supervisor called on the radio, saying he'd gone out to get her back in the field, but now there wasn't enough left to make a pair of cowboy boots.

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In about 1963 I was a young fireman going north (timetable east) on the ATSF's Douglass District when we rounded a curve about 2 miles south of Augusta, Ks and all we saw was cattle between the rails for a far as we could see. The engineer cut off the headlight but it didn't help. I don't recall bouncing around very much but heard lots of thuds and crunching. What amazed me was we didn't have any air hose separations. We were on a consist of F7s and I think the rounded nose probably helped to discard most of them to either side. The reason they were there was the Walnut river was overflowing its banks and the top of the railroad fill was the only place they could get above the water.

We heard later that the claim agent said we killed 28 head. I don't know how they could have ever determined the exact number with the flooding going on unless they took the rancher's word for it.

Mark

When I was working for the Rock and Rail out of Canon City Co, we had an interesting experience with a rather large "Bull". EMD, yeah, that EMD, were in the process of High Altitude Testing, (at least that is what I believe was going on at the time) of their then new to the market, GP15D & GP20D units. We had units 2000, 2001, 1501. One day while eb near Swallows Road west of Pueblo on the Tenn Pass Line (Actually it was known as "Cemetary Road") we came upon a heard of big Bulls and Cows. They were not in the proper mind set of "clearing" the main. With EMD 1501, leading EB, we struck one of what seemed to be one of the larger bulls at about 30 or so mph. We hit it and waited . No really rough ride so to speak, just a little hiccup, and on our merry way we went. After arriving in Pueblo, I got out to see what remnants, perhaps might be left. Only abit of hair and skin on the leading edge of the fuel tank was noted. Nothin else. No smell, no red stuff. Just that bit of scalp/hair. The next trip west, we went by the spot where we hit the bull. It was still there, legs straight up and def not mooving. Never heard anything from any ranchers along the way afterwards. It was def different to "watch" the expansion of the girth of said bull over the next week or so, as it seemed the carcass got bigger each time we went past. Sometime during that week, it finally went "Flat". Never noticed a smell or witnessed any other predators picking at the carcass, other than birds. Just another day along the rails I guess. Ben

One day the area Amtrak TM called me to let me know that No . 6 was coming into Omaha with one of those new GE passenger diesels (a P something) and invited me over to see it. It turned out the train had hit a cow out in Eastern Colorado and when I walked up to check it out it it definitely had lost its new locomotive smell.
JBOmaha
PS: I also remember I didn't like the recessed hand rails either...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/14/17 15:58 by Copy19.

Ironically, we hit a cow on #5 on Sunday on the Dotsero Cutoff.

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I had an antelope make a hasty retreat between the gauge one day at 70 mph. Thump.......and to our surprise it flew ahead. Looked like we kicked a field goal.