Charlie :bear-unsure:Oh Charlie :shout0pn: Any one know where he is these days? Went south for the winter? I am having Charlie Stories with drawls :we-cry:
You wait until the signal maintainer releases you, or in some cases until the dispatcher releases you. Some flagging jobs are on a schedule ie, when a utility must work on or near the tracks, you are there to protect those workers, so you are there until they leave or until the dispatcher relieves you or a replacement is sent out. CT
Size Matters... continued I was working rear collector(brakeman-flagman) on an afternoon shift METRA job. We had a 4:53PM departure from CUS on a WB short-turn. Always a crowded train! I'm doing my ticket sweep(covered 2 coaches) and upon reaching the center entrance vestibule of the rear coach, I discovered a lot of standees there. As I made my "tickets please" call, this one young man challenged me by stating that he had to run to the train and didn't have time to stop at the counter to buy his ticket and he was NOT going to pay the(at that time)$1.00 surcharge for paying cash fare on-train. Now I am a "full figured" adult and 6' tall. This young man was at least a head taller than me and had a good 50lbs of weight on me! This was one really big young fella!!! He was adamant that he would NOT pay the surcharge since he had to run for the train. (Pity!.. at that time he could have caught another train to his stop less than 10 minutes after our train). Well folks... I got "toe-to-toe" with him, looked up at his eyes and said "I dont care"!!!! I guess I said that so convincingly that he handed me his money AND I charged the surcharge as well! I also gave him a copy of the public timetable for the route and showed him the address for METRA and told him that he could write or phone them to see if they would refund his surcharge. Dunno if he ever did, but IF he did, I'm sure his request gave that METRA clerk something to laugh at! BTW I would even charge METRA employees the full fare and surcharge if they forgot their passes! If anyone should know better,it would be them! More later!
Heck, I never knew you could pay the fare onboard the train! This kid didn't happen to play football for a little team called the Bears, did he?
METRA tries to discourage paying cash fares on the train. The surcharge had increased to $2.00 by the time I retired. I understand that METRA will be trying these hand-held wireless credit card terminals on-board. On one of the California state commuter lines, they operate with an "honor system" for tickets. It is assumed that most if not all passengers will buy a fare card for their transportation. This particular authority had very random spot checks to enforce their fare system. Recently they have increased their surveillance since a larger percentage of riders than expected were avoiding the fare terminals and riding for free. This also involved greater risk to the operating crews since it involved the fare dodgers entering the platforms from the ROW. This is the biggest problem, IMO, for commuter railroad, trespassers on the ROW. This young man I spoke of, he looked to be in his early 20s, certainly had the build to make a good defensive lineman for ANY pro football team! LOL CT
We have some very crappy weather in Chicago today. Rain,freezing rain,sleet and snow! Reminds me of this one particular night at Eola. I was working 2nd shift East Yard(15:00 -23:00)my foreman was a young married man, a "set back" engineer named J.... At any rate, we get our switch lists,have a job safety briefing and sally forth to the Roundhouse, grab a couple of lokies and pick our way out into the yard. J.... was on one side of the loco platform and I was across from him on the opposite steps. He was giving the signals to the hogger and I was lining the switches. At any rate, it had been steadily raining since before our start time and when we ventured out to get on the power, we were having freezing rain and sleet. J.... and I were both wearing "safety orange" ,company issue,rain suits. As we bravely, albeit disdainfully,sallied forth into the yard, J.... called across the platform to me , "Ya know Chuck, it just cant get any worse than this"! I replied "Oh yes it can"! To which he queried "How's that"? I said, "we could be working 3rd shift"! J.... agreed with that assessment! At any rate, the freezing rain/sleet turned quickly into all snow and we wound up with about 4" of the white stuff. I would experience this sort of weather a few more times in the course of my brief career, but I took comfort in thinking about my predecessors in railroading. Those ole-tyme railroad switchmen/brakemen had to ride the TOPS of the cars in weather such as we were/are experiencing today. Cant do that anymore. Sort of a left-handed benefit I guess! LOL CT
I was working 2nd shift West Yard switch as helper. My young buddy Andy(not his real name) was the foreman. We needed to set a large cut of cars fairly deep on an empty track and Andy asked me to go down into the track the number of cars we were to add and he would send the cut to me and I could tie on a hand brake to hold the cut in the track. Before he was to do that he said he would kick a couple of cars in some other tracks. OK ! I got down into the empty track and waited while Andy kicked an empty 5pack well car down the lead to track 1. and then he was shoving a cut of "hazardous" tank cars with residue into another track and he was positioned to make a cut and let the cars roll in. I was standing deep in the track,as I mentioned but looking west I could see what he was doing since he was in the lighted area. Now mind you, there was a light breeze blowing and both yards are working and trains are going by on the main so there is always sounds of motion going on, some cuts will rock back & forth after making a joint, some cars will roll very slowly to a rest. At any rate as Andy was about to make the cut on the tanks, I notice the 5pack rolling very slowly back down the lead toward Andy. I was about to give him a shout on the radio when I heard him stop the shove of the tank cars and I saw him run toward the 5pack. Fortunately the brake end was facing him and he clambered aboard the 5pack and braked it to a stop less than a boxcar length from the tankers. He then dropped off the 5pack and sat on the ground to compose himself! After he regained his breath and his adrenaline lowered, he asked me why I didn't warn him that the 5 pac was still moving, didn't I hear moving cars. Mind you, I was 5 or 6 tracks in from where the 5pack was supposed to go, so I told him that I hear all sorts of cars moving, and to stop and listen for himself and tell me what he hears. Needless to say he shouldn't have kicked the well car anyway, they should really be shoved to a joint due to their length and the dynamics of the car snaking down a lead can lead to trouble if uncontrolled(as he quickly learned). Needless to say Andy was humbled by the experience and said later that he was getting ready to jump off that well car but finally the handbrake took hold. CT
==================================================================== yeah, its that stringlining thingy for one and the fact that Eola yard is a flat switching operation(both East & West yards)with a horrible table roll. At Eola they dont get all that many intermodal type cars since there is no use or need for them there. This one was probably a "return to home rails" situation,cant say for sure. What did happen is that due to the track dynamics and car dynamics,there was enough energy to send the car back out towards Andy. Those particular tracks on the very low side of West yard have a slight anticline toward the east end,just enough for gravity to overcome its forward movement. It is not unusual for cars to roll back out of tracks 1 or 2 but they usually die on the lead before doing any damage. This well car had too much energy. which segues me to another story. but gotta check first to see if I done told this one awready.
My good buddy R. has a son R. Jr. who went to work for the BNSF after getting his degree at a prestigious university in Wisconsin. R. Jr. took the job as a means of paying for his student loans, not only did he discover that he could make his student loan payments, but he could afford a new car and the other "niceties" of life also. He is still with the RR but in a desk job in another city. Enehay... story about cars rolling... R.Jr. was working a job that required him to set out a car in the east end of West Yard. Well it seems the track that R.Jr. set-out the car was empty but R.Jr. thought it had cars in it and that his car would make a joint to standing cars. Now it gets interesting... R. Jr. "kicked" the car into the track(which he should NOT have done). Well it seems like all the switches were in the right alignments and the derails dropped and that lone boxcar rolled all the way through that track and up the lead to the roundhouse before it slowly came to a stop, after having traveled about 1 mile, WITHOUT hitting anything or anyone! R. Jr. will never live that one down!!! ct
Dumb luck on that one! Kicking cars into an empty track is forbidden for the same reason, I'm guessing?
Right! You dont want to kick cars on an empty track simply because they will be free-rolling. I am just guessing that R. Jr. believed that there were cars in that track. When you set cars in on an empty track you want to shove them in and spin a handbrake or two on the cut, or have track skates on the rails. You cant kick a car or cut of cars if you already have a brake tied down. It all boils down to being safe and using good judgement. If it is dark and you cant see the length of the track and are unsure of how many cars are on the track, then beat your feet down the lead or the track and get all the way in and check what you have on the track. That is why switchmen carry lanterns. I have a couple more short stories about cars on yard tracks. Later! CT
==================================================================== OK! here's one of them... I lucked out and won a bid for 1st shift(days)East Yard at Eola a number of years back. I was the helper and held the job for the week(we bid weekly for jobs-you could hold it indefinitely unless someone of higher seniority bid on it). The foreman was an old head who had been holding a candy job out on the former Fox River Branch working out of Ottawa IL. The branch was sold to Illinois Railnet so he came back to Eola. He has since retired. At any rate this ole boy was great to work with, just a kind,gentle person,could tell a lot of stories and he was a good teacher. He taught me some seldom used hand signals. His nickname was the same as a famous newspaper comic strip character and that was due to his last name. This foreman was the sort of person who would take whatever work he was given and plug away at to completion, so the yardmasters would take advantage of him and give him a lot of work, simply because he could get it done!! This one particular morning, we are really kickin' in the cars ,bang,bang,bang!!! Then we come to a fairly large cut of cars for a particular track,mebbe 8 or 10 cars,B...... looks a the list,looks at the track,looks at the turnover sheet and sez that we have no room on this track for these cars. He calls the YM on the radio and tells him that there is no room on the track. The YM sez yes there is. B......sez no there aint. This goes back and forth several times with the YM claiming the turnover sheet states there is room on the track. I was getting a bit peeved and I was gonna get on the horn and tell the YM to get his lazy backside out of his chair,get in the jeep and come take a look for himself!!!!!I didn't like this YM and I assure you the feeling was mutual. This YM is also retired. At any rate the YM decides to take B......'s word for it. We were to discover later that there were 21 more cars on the track than what the turnover sheet was showing. Moral... never argue with the guy who knows how the job is done! In spite of the amount of daily work we did, I enjoyed working with B....... He was forced to take a medical leave due to vision problems. He woke up blind one morning! As I mentioned, he has since retired. He was one of the friendliest, most knowledgeable guys I ever worked with. I had the good fortune of working with him a couple of days in a row out in Ottawa. One of those days we went all the way to the end of the branch in Streator IL. The old Fox River branch was one of the most scenic stretches of the railroad outside of the lines along the Mississippi River. CT
unfortunately, not many and none with high water on "Ole Miss". Outside of my qualifying trips as a conductor and also as engineer, I never did get to work much up to La Crosse or past Savanna. I didnt have the seniority to hold a regular line so it was pretty much the "luck of the draw" off the extra board. When I decided to work passenger service regularly, I got off the extra boards and bid whatever commuter jobs I could hold. When I was "set back" as an engineer, I was "old" enough to hold some decent commuter jobs. You are all aware of my yarns about my last long-term regular job. It was a day job,a real worker,but the pay was good and worked every other Saturday.#1232 also had all major holidays off since the holiday trains were worked by the crews with lines that worked on Sundays. A lot of my friends and the "older" rails always told me how lucky I was to be able to hold the jobs I did with the seniority I had. It all goes to what I've said earlier, once you know how the game is played,you can play it to your advantage. A couple of stories that I do have on working the"long pool"(Chicago - LaCrosse WI) are not really nice stories at all. CT
