I loved to pi## off the neighbors across the street from the service track in Roseville. Blasting on the horn all night and getting a hold of an old EMD switcher that had been idling for days. Grab a hand full of throttle and it would put up enough smoke to clear out all the mosquitos for miles,not to mention gassing out the neighborhood. [:o)][:p][:D][8D]
I BLOW THE HORN EVERY CHANCE I GET. ESPECIALLY IN THE WEE HOURS OF THE MORNING. HEY, THE RULE BOOK STATES THAT THE ENGINEER MUST START BLOWING THE HORN AT OR BEFORE[WITHIN A REASONABLE DISTANCE] OF THE WHISTLE POST AND CONTINUE WITH RULE 19b UNTIL THE ENGINE FULLY OCCUPIES THE CROSSING. I LIKE WHEN THERE ARE MULTIPLE CROSSINGS!!! heehee
Oh, I believe you – I already do both of those things. It’s always slightly embarrassing to realize I’ve been standing in a grocery store line or something, swaying back and forth, even when neither of the kids are with me. But even if I always do those things, at least I know someday I will no longer be covered in zwieback crumbs, I will be able to grow my hair out and wear jewelry again, and SOMEDAY I will even be able to take the safety gate down so I will no longer have to risk a broken leg trying to get over the gate and out of the house to see a train. 
Hi Jenny and Nora,
And no, its not just a “female” thing.
Let any one of my kids walk down the hall at night, and not be heading to the bathroom, and I come wide awake.
Nora, wait till your four year old looks at you, while eating dinner, and puts on every dimple she has, while politely telling you that “its rude to eat with your elbows on the table daddy, if your that tired, you should go to bed”.
Your parents were right when they tell you," just wait, I hope you have one just like yourself, then you will see what I mean".
Problem is, no one warned me all three would be like that!.[:0]
Stay Frosty,
Ed
[:D] Marty - I have a mental picture of you and it is made up mostly of the glint in your eyes! Sometimes a leer and sometimes just sheer madness! It makes me laugh when I read your posts and think of that!
Mook[:X]
[8)] You are exactly right! I am reading GCOR and it says just that. I am far enough from tracks that the whistles don’t normally bother me and in the spring/fall with the windows open, it is a great sound. But the switch engine is just plain annoying. I listen for the whistles to see what he is doing and he just whistles a lot!
Maybe he is lonely and I should go down there and sit by the tracks in my ugly nightgown, no makeup and hair straight on end and scare the he** out of him!
He deserves it!
Jen
Jenny,
You ever see what night time switch crews look like?
They would scary the bejesus out of the Addams family.
There is a reason they are only let out at night!
We try to be gone before they come on duty, after all, I have to still go home and eat dinner!
Stay Frosty,
Ed
i just wanted to reply to the topic of train horns. i wanted to ask why is it so hard for the public to get hold of a set of horns. i would like a set for myself. why do i get such a negative response from the railroad when i call them to inquire about purchasing a set. what is the big deal???
kd5pnx
jason
The murder rate would go up a lot, since all the neighbors would kill you or anyone else that had them!
Jen
kd5pnx:
Are you going to mount them on your vehicle? That would sure be an attention-getter. But where will you put the air compressor capable of 130psi?
Perhaps the Leslie or Nathan companies could be contacted directly.
Ever here a Hot Shot BN SD70MAC horn at 65mph. Now that will send chills down your spine and blow out your ear drums.
hold on to your wallet, them suckers ain’t cheap. Why do you think they steal them all the time.
On the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway(former CP operation) and the Canadian Pacific Railway trains have to stop and be manually flagged through crossings that aren’t working properly. There are even some crossings on the E&N that have stop signs on both sides of the crossing, where the train must come to a complete stop before entering the crossing.
Gosh, Ed. Did you think like that when YOU were stuck on midnight? I’ve been known to give up my daylight job on occasion and go back on night time for the solitude and change of pace. I can state without reservation that the guys on midnight are just as normal as…er… Never mind.
Its not that hard to mount a giant air horn on your car as my friend did it with no problem along with his loudspeaker. A lot of times engineers will lay on their horn when I’m video taping up close that scares the be-jesus out of me.
Uh Huh, my point exactly.
Was stuck on midnights for a month. The other guys were a little, well, weird is the nicest thing I can come up with. Although creepy fits too.
And most of them liked working nights, but considerng the other things they though were fun, I can see why nightime appealed to them, no one can see what your really doing.
Put it to you this way, last time I was forced to a night job, it was august of last year, temps about 90 at 2:00 in the morning.
The helper on the north end switch crew came walking up the yard, wearing nothing but his work boots and radio belt.
No one even batted a eye.
When I asked, they told me he works like that all the time in the summer.
He walked to his car, got some change out of it, went into the lunch room, bought a soda, then walked off back down between the tracks towards the north end.
I got back to afternoons as soon as I could.
Ed
Gotta start watching trains at nite!
Couldn’t he keep his change in the pocket of his birthday suit?
Jen
They start on duty a hour after we did, and he had clothes on then, so I guess he left his change in the pockets of his pants, where ever he left those.
That whole crew is weird, the foreman wears a old army vest and camo pants, with black jump boots, and a black dew rag on his head, every single night.
The engineer sit up in the locomotive all night, reading gun books and Solider of Fortune while sharpning knives.
But they get their work done, so no one says a thing about how creepy they are, they just leave them alone.
Stay Frosty,
Ed
Ed, Hello, Wow, I have read for years the logo “Don’t Mess With Texas”. But maybe it should read don’t mess with Texas AND Switch Crews. LOL.
Stay Safe and Look, Listen, and Live.
Don’t forget the troops.
Hey Ed isn’t it true that sometimes more often then not the people who workl at midnight creep people out? theres a guy i used to work with… hes on another line now… thank God… he was so into little kids… he was about 30 but he was always staring at 13 year olds and making innapropriate comments… it was actaully creepy-scary… He works the Delson now, i stay as far away from him as humanily possible…
Which reminds me, i hafta agree with whoever said this… Often i sit up in the front with the engineer… and when we get to this crossing last at night… i often blast the horn as much as humanily possible… Because some rich snooty peopel live there… and the keep complaining to the town and to the RR comapny that the late train used “Exesisive horn use” yes, sometimes my boss askes me the next day… and i tell him the same dog is always on the tracks and won’t get off!!
I only do it at around 12:30, because i figure either theyre trying to get some sleep… or doing you-know-what! so an interruption never hurt anyone!!