Railroaders' Nostalgia > SP Whamo on the Coast Near Elwood.

Now there is a sharp curve near Elwood on the SP coast line.
It is tricky ,not only because of a speed restriction, but also the track descends into the middle of the curve and immediately ascends out of the
curve. This is classic "Run In and Run Out" territory.
I am riding with Whamo, a nice enough engr.
Little did I know that Whamo had sent the dishes off the tables in the Dining Car!
At Oxnard, the regular SLO conductor came up and preceeded to tear into Whamo. This went on much more than just one or two minutes.
Whamo didn't seem fazed about it.
Riding with Whamo required holding on to your seat.
Often when he got past the 60mph big curve going east at Chatsworth, he would really let that COAST DAYLIGHT roll: Right up to
85mph approaching RAYMER.
Pumpkin time next month: Time to watch "Spooky Sophie" on You Tube.

Whammo..Hubert H. Hudman. He was a short and round engineer. He always had a great story to tell. Am surprised he was engineer on the Daylight. He was restricted to yard and locals only in the early 70s. Worked with him to Bakersfield one trip. The consist had a unit that would drop the amperage load causing slack action . The conductor on the caboose called the head end and said Hud you just knocked over the stove. Hud replied hang on give me a minute i will right it back up!
I heard a story when Hud was a fireman with Myron Hechtor. The lead unit was a GP9 high nose. Hud went into the toliet while the train was about out of tunnel 26. The brakeman and Myron locked Hud in the nose. Unfortunately coming out of the tunnel the train struck a horse and wrapped it around the nose with him in the nose. From Myrons story it was pretty gruesome.

Another story a conductor, Roger Jenks, was chewing out Hud. After a few minutes Hud spoke up and said. Roger the SP pays me more to put up with you than for you to put up with me!

Posted from Android

ApproachCircuit Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Now there is a sharp curve near Elwood on the SP
> coast line.
> It is tricky ,not only because of a speed
> restriction, but also the track descends into the
> middle of the curve and immediately ascends out of
> the
> curve. This is classic "Run In and Run Out"
> territory.
> I am riding with Whamo, a nice enough engr.
> Little did I know that Whamo had sent the dishes
> off the tables in the Dining Car!
> At Oxnard, the regular SLO conductor came up and
> preceeded to tear into Whamo. This went on much
> more than just one or two minutes.
> Whamo didn't seem fazed about it.
> Riding with Whamo required holding on to your
> seat.
> Often when he got past the 60mph big curve going
> east at Chatsworth, he would really let that COAST
> DAYLIGHT roll: Right up to
> 85mph approaching RAYMER.
> Pumpkin time next month: Time to watch "Spooky
> Sophie" on You Tube.

Was NO 85 MPH on the Coast. Jeez

Speed limit that is...
 

Working at Burbank Junction one day the Day Chatsworth Hauler hit the first annunciator light on the interlocking board.  I decided to line the hauler over to the number 2 track at the Allen Avenue crossovers and flipped the corresponding levers on the interlocking machine.  I watched the progression of lights on the board and just as soon as the light illuminated on the number 2 track the radio blarred out, "Hey Burbank, what are you doing, trying to kill us?"  Whamo was at the controls of the hauler.  I responded, "what do you mean?"  Whamo responded, "we just took the crossover at Allen Ave. at 50 MPH!  We had a green signal!  You almost killed us!"  The Allen Avenue crossovers were 25mph turnouts in those days.  I immediately called the signal maintainer and reported the incident.  The signal maintainer worked for hours checking the signals approaching Allen Ave. and the signals at the crossovers.  They all checked out and worked like they should.  I think Whamo may have overlooked some signals approaching Allen Ave. and mistook the bottom green for a high green.

Pete
Camarillo, California

"Whammo", named after the kid's line of toys? That, along with Hubert Hudman, is a classic old head name.  He probably carried an aluminum grip and timeslip cover.

WP-M2051 Wrote:
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> "Whammo", named after the kid's line of toys?
> That, along with Hubert Hudman, is a classic old
> head name.  He probably carried an aluminum grip
> and timeslip cover.

Hubert was named by two factors. He was an expert with a wrist rocket slingshot.
Number two he always made a hook without causing a whammo sound.
Hubert was around 5 foot 4 and looked liked the old kids punching blow up toy Bobo. His arms where short and in order to reach the brake valve handles for switching he made a custom set of hard plastic extenders that fit over the handles. When he spoke he started every sentence with " Ah ah ah."
Hud grew up in Porterville and originally hired out on the Western Pacific before working for the SP.

Posted from Android

   I think the "Wham-O" also referred to the way the caboose acted when he was the engineer on a long train.  Ask me how I know!

Brian Black
Castle Rock, CO.

I remember working with him once at Gemco. As I remember, he had his own special made independent brake valve handle.