Passenger Trains > Train #508 Backward?

I just saw 508 go through Steilacoom northbound with the 59 pulling and the cabbage car trailing. Anybody know what's up?


Pete

pobrown Wrote:
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> I just saw 508 go through Steilacoom northbound
> with the 59 pulling and the cabbage car trailing.
> Anybody know what's up?

If you can trace this trainset backwards to #509 on Sunday the 28th, the answer would be yes.

#509 ran out of fuel somewhere between Napavine and Kelso. The BNSF sent an engine from the Kelso area. #509 operated with that to Eugene at normal speed, arriving about 2 hours late. There is a rule that whatever engine was used was limited to 40mph when pushing a Talgo so the trainset was turned in Eugene and returned Monday to Portland as #504.

Somehow the trainset missed getting fueled in Portland and nobody noticed during the five hour layover in Seattle.

jb

jdb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> pobrown Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I just saw 508 go through Steilacoom
> northbound
> > with the 59 pulling and the cabbage car
> trailing.
> > Anybody know what's up?
>
> If you can trace this trainset backwards to #509
> on Sunday the 28th, the answer would be yes.
>
> #509 ran out of fuel somewhere between Napavine
> and Kelso. The BNSF sent an engine from the Kelso
> area. #509 operated with that to Eugene at normal
> speed, arriving about 2 hours late. There is a
> rule that whatever engine was used was limited to
> 40mph when pushing a Talgo so the trainset was
> turned in Eugene and returned Monday to Portland
> as #504.
>
> Somehow the trainset missed getting fueled in
> Portland and nobody noticed during the five hour
> layover in Seattle.
>
> jb


Ran out of fuel???????????

Boy, I'll bet somebody's ass in the vise today.........


Slo

jdb Wrote:
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> Somehow the trainset missed getting fueled in
> Portland and nobody noticed during the five hour
> layover in Seattle.
>
The engineer doesn't check his fuel gauge?

JAChooChoo Wrote:
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>
> The engineer doesn't check his fuel gauge?
>

The Seattle-based engineer departing his away-from-home terminal at Portland on train #500 frequently never gets a chance to see his engine. Because the train is so often delivered late to Portland by the UPRR the Seattle engineer is waiting at the spotting point for the cabbage car to relieve the inbound engineer and get the required face-to-face with him. While the passengers are being unloaded and loaded the Albina Fuel Company truck is normally pumping fuel into the trailing F59. As soon as that's finished there's a highball and they're gone, trying to regain some of the lost time. I don't know the reason for it not being fueled in Portland on that particular day but it's quite possible that they came into Depot 4 (as I did this morning on #500) and were blocked from getting fuel by a freight train on Depot 5. Rather than taking the additional time hit waiting for the freight to clear (which is often an unknown amount of time) they may have just been told to skip the fuel. The F59 would have no trouble making Seattle from Portland even if not fueled because it is fueled the evening before in Portland on #507. The problem lies with the "do nothing" Amtrak Seattle mechanical department which is too lazy to check an inbound engine in their terminal. It would have been a simple matter for Seattle mechanical to have called a fuel truck to solve the situation had they even bothered to look at the engine. I have been trying unsuccessfully for more months than I can count just to get them to put one drop of oil in the big padlocks on the back of the cabbage cars so that the keys will go into and/or turn the lock cylinders so that I can comply with the rules requiring the locking of the equipment when exiting it. The only Seattle-based cabbage car working south that is currently lockable it the AMTK 90252 and one wonders whether the key is going to twist off inside the cylinder when trying to turn it every time it is used. I have been reporting on the MAP100 the inability to secure the cabbage cars six days per week (with the rare exception of a day when one works) for the last three years to no avail. No matter who has been in charge of the Seattle mechanical department it has never been effective in the 18+ years I've been with Amtrak.