Railroaders' Nostalgia > SP falling asleep after you have taken your call!

Yes, it happened. Those minutes in bed in the wee hours of the. morning are very precious. So the phone rings, you take the call,
look at the clock and figure "oh well I can stay in bed a few more minures before getting up". Well then what happens after you fall asleep and wake up at the exact time you are supposed
to be on duty. It happened to me twice that I can remember. If you are working out of a very large terminal, like taylor Yard, you can be protected by default!! Yes, did I luck out! There was
no power at the house. Crew was here and there because of that , people just wandering around at 3am, some at the RH shanty others at the yard office. There were times that you could be
90 minutes late and account no power you just wern't missed. You even had time to go to Van de Camps for coffee. Nothing moves when there is no power.
For this to happen, for the most part, you have to be assigned a large terminal where things just don't work smoothly. There were times the Conductors could not get their bills for almost 2 hours!
The other time I over slept, the crew dispatcher, bless his soul, covered for me. Such were the times at the SP and if you remember memories like this, you probably would like to have more of them!

Firecracker Day coming up!

How about the "main Line Change " you were called for and 3 hours later it still hasn't shown up. And of course, it's never daylight; these kinds of situations love to  occur between midnight and 4am.

In 41 years on the RR, I never overslept. When the phone rang, I was up. It helped that I didn’t have a phone by the bed. I had to get up to answer it.

Posted from iPhone

I got saved one night by  a late train, I was rolling up the middle of 5 lanes at 80mph in my dually when she shut down and would not restart ( trash blocked the fuel filter inlet ) 
Called the yard hey im gonna be late, Your good your train is still 2 hours out where ya at a Trainmaster will come get you. Got to work a hour late and still waited a hour before getting in the yard shuttle to the train. 

At Emporia, Santa Fe crews still handled Amtrak trains for a while before they finally qualified their own people. One of our low seniority firemen was force assigned to 3&4, and he lived over at Strong City. He got called for whatever time it was, usually 30 minutes before train was due, but he went back to sleep. He finally shows up, but the train was delayed 30 minutes. A few days later, the Road Foreman invited him over to his office for Brownies and coffee, one for each minute the train was delayed, 30 in this case. On his way out, he said "You know, it was worth it to see that train waiting on me for a change, after all the time I've wasted waiting for it".

Posted from Android

Happened to me at Taylor. Called for a coast train AR 1201am. Went back to sleep woke up at 500am. Questioned my self was I called ? Realized I was hurried to work figuring was out of service. Showed up to work walked in and the conductor wad there laughing. Received a call from the AGYM said the power is now ready at the turnout. Walked over and the blue flag was just being removed. Dodged a bullet.

Posted from Android

CPCoyote Wrote:
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> In 41 years on the RR, I never overslept. When the
> phone rang, I was up. It helped that I didn’t
> have a phone by the bed. I had to get up to answer
> it.
>


I had the alarm clock across the room for the same reason.

TAW

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on the situation) I can't sleep when there is a light on in the room. So when I take my call, I just have to remember to turn on the bedside lamp and even if I doze off, it will wake me up in a few minutes. If I'm too out-of-it to turn the lamp on, all bets are off. When I'm that fatigued, it's best for me to just force myself to get out of bed and get moving.

TAW Wrote:
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> I had the alarm clock across the room for the same
> reason.
>
> TAW

Though I was not in train service and not subjected to calls, I do wake up hard. 

My addition to putting the alarm clock across the room from the bed was placing a chair in the direct path from the bed to the alarm clock.

I had a railroad dream one night about being called. It was very realistic, I should have known!
After a few minutes the phone rang. I then knew it was no dream. I threw on my clothes and made the yard in
record time. Call was hours late. Sometimes lady Luck is on your side.

Did I tell you about the gal on crutches I met in Playa del Rey?
Wow what she knew and I didn't!

When you were turning and burning on the Xtra board and the phone was ringing at home every 6 hours you got really punchy.

One time I woke up and got sick to my stomach… I FELL BACK TO SLEEP FOR HOURS!! I called the caller to see what status I was in (this was before robo callers and they would answer by the third ring) I was freaking out on this caller apologizing for falling back asleep and asking if I was MC or no showed. She calmly talked me off the wall insisting that I was NOT called, or in any trouble; she did say, however, that I was working too much and to stay on the line. She came back and said I needed to be off and the shift manager agreed that they would put in my history I needed to be off for the good of everyone. I LS for 24 and it was all good.

I’ve fell back asleep 2 or 3 times in 26 years and I still made the calls in decent time. Put the lights on and get outta bed… sigh.

Regards

Posted from iPhone

I kept a small kitchen timer beside my bed set for 30 minutes...which at my away from home terminal was enough slack time so that right after I took my call in the wee hours I would hit the timer button and go back to sleep.   At our home terminal. for a short time we had a "quiet" room where there were a few recliner chairs.  So, if you got to the terminal and found out your train was delayed you told the manager on duty you were going there and got some sleep.  That also saved lives I am sure as when I would get back to the home terminal after being up all night you could go there and get a nap before driving home which for me was a 50 minute drive.   I also dealt with fatigue while on duty by seeing sparks back in my train at night and so would stop my train (the conductor was usually asleep too) and get a short nap which was all I needed to be alert again.

ApproachCircuit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I had a railroad dream one night about being
> called. It was very realistic, I should have
> known!
> After a few minutes the phone rang. I then knew it
> was no dream. I threw on my clothes and made the
> yard in
> record time. Call was hours late. Sometimes lady
> Luck is on your side.
>
> Did I tell you about the gal on crutches I met in
> Playa del Rey?
> Wow what she knew and I didn't!

Please tell us the story. Where did you meet her at the Admirals Dingy ?

Posted from Android

When the crew clerks were still working at the yard I got a "second call" about 30 minutes after my on duty time of 0 dark 30.  The clerk asked me if I was planning on coming down to work.  I was only 20 minutes from the yard and the thru train did not arrive till 30 minutes after I got to work.

Only over-slept one time to the point of it being an issue. I was firing on a midnight switch local, and the engineer called me up and asked if I was planning on coming to work. He offered to try and kick rocks till I got out there, and I told him not to.

Long story short, the night trainmaster took me out to the crew (they were doing line work several miles west of town). The next morning, the hogger asks the lead trainmaster about showing me on duty, and the TM tells him, "Show him on duty on time, and tell him to be more careful next time."

Like it's been said: that was then, and this is now.

When the phone rings or the alarm goes off, get your feet on the floor. It can save you a lot of trouble.

This isn't rail related, but it is over-sleeping related.  A friend of mine was not at all a morning person.  If she had an early final during her days at Stanford, she would have a telegram sent to herself, to be delivered at a specific time.  In those days you could do that -- a person would come to your house and ring the bell until you came to the door.  So, two alarm clocks, ten minutes apart, then the telegram.  

i always get out of bed when called.  I know I'd oversleep if I tried to get a few more minutes of sleep.

Every time I go to bed expecting to get called by a certain time at the call doesn't happen, i'll wake up and feel I must've missed a call.  I check the boards and see that I' haven't been called and sometimes am still 2 or 3 times out.  I'll go back to sleep and start dreaming about getting called.  Or dream about trying to call the caller and not being able to dial the phone.  usually that lets me know I'm dreaming, the phone number has been programmed into every phone I've had, cell or land line. for many years.

I haven't had a land line for about 7 years now.  While I've accepted having just a cell phone, I still don't trust it.  One time one of the major cell carriers had an outage and half the crew base at our home terminal couldn't be contacted.  

That’s why I still have my landline phone still hanging on the kitchen wall ol buddy! 😆.

Don’t trust anyone and never will since we hired on…

Regards

Posted from iPhone

Regards to 57A26 when I was firing a passenger train I would wake up about the time I was supposed to be called. If the train was really late, I would wake up call the crew clerk, be told to go back to sleep, wake up about 45 minutes later and do the same thing again.

Sam

Drknow Wrote:
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> That’s why I still have my landline phone still
> hanging on the kitchen wall ol buddy! 😆.
>

You're becoming a rare telco customer then. Even when I retired four years ago the number of land lines had plunged.
Biggest reasons people kept them, some equipment like some home alarm systems and court ordered gps ankle monitors don't like the digital phone signal like you get with cell or voip phonelines.
Most landline phones still have the old analog phone signal.

I never really thought about getting rid of my “phone”. It’s the cheapest damn insurance against a MC you can get.

Ever since the Carrier started treating a MC on par with child molestation about 10 years ago there is no way in hell I’ll ever get rid of my real phone.

7 more years in hell, if I can make it.

Regards

Posted from iPhone