Back during the SP/UP western merger meltdown, there was quite a lot of bitterness going on between the UP folks back in Omaha, and the SP employees. In the defense of the SP employees, most of them had a right to be bitter. The ‘merge’ wasn’t going well, and the UP people seemed to bring quite a bit of arrogance to the situation. That combined with the fact that a large portion of the meltdown happened during a very hot spell in the West made the situation pretty volatile.
One day, a Yardmaster who worked a small yard in the L.A. Valley area (who will remain nameless), was heard receiving a PBX phone call from an inbound train that was to be dropping off cars at the yard. This particular Yardmaster wasn’t known for his charming personality on a good day, let alone a bad one. Because of the merger mess, the yard was routinely jammed with cars, and he seemed to be at the yard all hours of the day and night trying to deal with it… Needless to say, the guy was a hair trigger just waiting to go off. We’ll just call him ‘John’.
So he picks up the phone and answers the call…
Yardmaster John: “Hello… ____ Yard.”
Train: “Hello John… This is the (symbol) coming up the main with our cars to set out.”
Yardmaster John: “The who?”
Train: “We’re the (symbol), and we are coming up the main now, about 10 minutes out… We have 15 cars to set out.”
Yardmaster John: (The spring is winding tighter) “Sigh… Nobody told me anything about you… How many cars?”
Train: (The crew knows this guy, so now you can hear the fear in his voice) “Uh… Maybe 15”
Yardmaster John: (After a long pause of silence) “Great… What the $%#@ am I %$#@n’ supposed to do with another %$@&n’ 15 cars, when there’s no $%^&n’ room for the cars that are already %&@#n’ in here to begin with!”
Then after a short amount of silence, you begin to hear the sounds of John the Yardmaster trying his ***edest to break the phone rec