Refresh my memory - how many people do you have on your crew and their job titles.
[8D] Stay Dry
Jen
Three, engineer, switchman foreman, and switchman helper.
Engineer runs the motor, I am the foreman, so I get to make the decision, fade the heat when its wrong, and pull pins. The helper gets to run all over the yard, handleing switches from track 33 thru track 48, thats 16 switches he throws, about 50 or 60 times a hour for about 8 hours every day. I probaly throw about 40 switches in a shift.
Rank has its privileges.
We both ride cuts of cars into the tracks to set bumpers, and couple up tracks, who ever is closer to the work takes care of it.
Once we are through switching out the inbounds, we build the out bounds for the local industries. We double over the tracks we switched into, block out the “spot” cars in the order the train will work the industries, and swing the whole shooting match over to the C yard, which is where our “road” crew will pick up the train. We spot them for ground air, and turn the carmen lose on them.
Rain is pretty much done, so I did stay dry.[8D]
Stay Frosty,
Ed
Thank you - just what I wanted to know.
Send us some of that extra rain - it was 100 here yesterday and so humid you couldn’t fall over! No rain, tho!
Jen
light spinkles today as i cut the grass.felt good.glad your okay ed.Matt wants to come jump in the puddles.
joe
Hi Joe,
Tell Matt to bring his life perserver, most of the puddles are really deep.
We are not that far above sea level.
Stay Frosty,
Ed
he’ll bring his floaties and rubber ducks!
stya safe
joe
I wanted to ask how a huricane affected the railroad. Probably not too much in Montana or Colorado, but maybe in Texas?
David
Most of the damage is done to the roadbed, even a small stream of water, only a few feet across, if its flowing fast enough, can erode the subroad bed quickly.
Road crews have to watch out for trees, tree limbs, telephone poles, and other debries blown or washed up onto the tracks. Tropical storm Allison left a few cars on the right of way and the tracks. In yards, the biggest concern is blow outs, where cars not coupled to secure tracks blow out of their tracks and out onto the leads and main. These things move a lot more easily than you would imagine. Beyond that, hail and lightning are about the only things we dont work in, wabash pointed out the lightning strikes in the yard, with all that steel around, plus the rails and wet ballast, when it hits in the yard, you can get a nice little buzz from it, I have had the hair on my head and arms stand up, we called it quits then.
When we signed on, it was made clear to us from the get go that we were expected to report for duty and do our jobs regardless of the weather, and we do.
It was also made clear to us that if we felt we could not perform our job safely under some conditions, hurricains, heavy fog, hail, no one was going to force us to.
The equipment itself is pretty bullet proof, other that hitting it with another train, you cant really damage it. The track work takes the most beating. Switches have all the grease washed out of them, washouts ruin the road bed, trash and junk get in the flangeways of the frogs, or between or behind turnout points. Things like this small hurricain may slow us down, but rarely shut us down. The only time I can remember we didnt work due to weather was the last time it snowed in Houston. Not because the trains couldnt run, but because most of us never drove on ice and snow before, and we couldnt get enough people in there to make up crews.
For the second shift, I made it in, my engineer and the assistant yardmaster made it, and a foreman on one of the other yard jobs got there also. Four guys on a
ED
like I my brother says in florida when a cold snap comes his way"who left the front door open??"
glad your safe
joe and matt
Ed I was born and raised in Michigan. I can remember one storm when the dog stepped over a six foot fence. I also remember standing on a snow drift and looking down on top of the school bus. Mom was awful tired of me and brother after two weeks with no school!. Four inches of snow is not even a storm. In Colorado their was a large storm. The state patrol was issuing tickets for driveing on the roads. I was repremanded for missing work, it was the the fourth largest storm in Colorado history!
David
And you live in that stuff by choice?
Last Christmass we were walking around in shorts, tee shirts and flip flops. had the A/C cranked up to the max.
I have been in London, England for a winter. The first thing in the morning, its beautiful, by noon it looks likes dirt piled everywhere, with a top coat of slush on everything.
Sorry all you snow bunnies, you can keep the stuff, thank you very much, think I will stick with my grassland praires, swamps and bayous, snakes included.
Never snow skied, but you know what?
Surfs Up!
Stay Frosty, (ha ha ?)
Ed
…Ed, can appreciate your tell of the rough 4" stuff down there…I don’t like it either and I was born in western Pennsylvania where we did get fairly healthy winters. 30" in a 24hr. period is not impossible but generally they have equipment to handle it. Here in Indiana the avg. winter snow fall is about 22".
We spent 8 winters in Florida and it CAN get cold down there…Didn’t really see any snow but I did see temps in the 20’s plenty of times. One other thing, they don’t build houses down there to handle it either until lately.
And yes I like the southern weather in the winter but boy you can keep those poisonous snakes and alligators.
I lived in Orlando, Florida (near the airport) for a couple of years. One of the years they had a huge snowstorm hit back home. So of course we called and rubbed it in that we were wearing shorts and all. It was nice and I wouldn’t mind going back to visit, but I’ll stay up here in WI. Summers aren’t as hot and humid.
I’ve been stuck in the middle of traffic at noon w/o air conditioning when it’s been over 90 degrees. Yuck!!
Speaking of alligators, I remember seeing something on the news about where they pulled this huge alligator out of this resevoir/pond surrounded by homes. The thing was so huge they needed to tie the cable to the back of a truck to get it out. Apparently it was sticking around because an old lady had been feeding it.
Besides the snakes and alligators, there are cockroaches. The cockroaches are disgusting and nasty. I remember sitting in the livingroom watching TV and seeing a big fat roach squeeze itself right into the house through the bottom of the door (closed shut). I’ve opened up a kitchen cupboard for a glass to be greeted by one. They make lots of noise as they get sucked up by the vacuum cleaner. [;)]
There are fire ants which are vicious (and ingenious) critters. I hated cutting grass down there because of those things, and grass grew really fast down there!
Then there are those little lizards which are fun to catch when they get inside the house. [;)]
…Yes, and the little lizards are so hard to catch…It does get warm and HOT
…Sorry, hit the wrong key and posted too quick…I was saying it does get hot even in January…We made it a thing to go to Daytona to watch the Nascar Winston Cub guys practice and test out the new cars before the first race in February and sitting in the stands one really had to be careful to not get sun burned…
But living in the central part of Florida I could keep a watch on operations of the Florida Central R R…Not hard to take pic’s because of the slowing running. Especially in the Eustus / Tavares area. Mt. Dora Doodlebug too…I understand someone is trying to restart that program again.
I think cockroaches, especially the tree roaches we have down here, are natures version of Houdini. It matter not one bit what you do, or spray, they just dont quit. They are kinda the states built in house pet, if you will. I would tell you a story about the grain car, a boxcar, that had the door slide open, and what was crawling around and in the wheat, or the raw material for your bread and wheaties, but you would gross out, and never eat bread again.
And gators dont bother me, my wife raises columbian boa constrictors, I share the house with eight of them, and a luensicent Texas rat snake. The biggest is eight feet long , and weighs 55 lbs, the smallest one, the rat snake, is 3 feet long.
No, they dont squeeze or try to eat people, but we dont have a lot of overnight house guest either.
Stay Frosty,
Ed
Can we get back to the nice clean snow?
At least for 5 or 6 monthe I don’t have to cut the grass.
You can tell the Canadians in Florida – they’re in the swimming pool in January.
I’ve only had a few times when I didn’t get to work because of snow. A few years ago I backed out of the driveway, which we had shovelled, and couldn’t turn in the street. Luckily, all the other guys on the block came over and pushed me back into the driveway.
We had another time when I made it to the GO Train, but we stopped a mile or two from Totonto Union. Seems the snow was so high that each train was filling in the double slips as it passed and they had to be shovelled out before they could be thrown. I got to work about 1 or 2 p.m., just before they closed the office for the day.
Refresh my memory - how many people do you have on your crew and their job titles.
[8D] Stay Dry
Jen
Three, engineer, switchman foreman, and switchman helper.
Engineer runs the motor, I am the foreman, so I get to make the decision, fade the heat when its wrong, and pull pins. The helper gets to run all over the yard, handleing switches from track 33 thru track 48, thats 16 switches he throws, about 50 or 60 times a hour for about 8 hours every day. I probaly throw about 40 switches in a shift.
Rank has its privileges.
We both ride cuts of cars into the tracks to set bumpers, and couple up tracks, who ever is closer to the work takes care of it.
Once we are through switching out the inbounds, we build the out bounds for the local industries. We double over the tracks we switched into, block out the “spot” cars in the order the train will work the industries, and swing the whole shooting match over to the C yard, which is where our “road” crew will pick up the train. We spot them for ground air, and turn the carmen lose on them.
Rain is pretty much done, so I did stay dry.[8D]
Stay Frosty,
Ed
Thank you - just what I wanted to know.
Send us some of that extra rain - it was 100 here yesterday and so humid you couldn’t fall over! No rain, tho!
Jen