The last few days, Iowa among other places have been under a blizzard warning. A couple of storms, a day or so apart, went through. The first dropped about 8 inches in the Boone and Ames area. It didn’t have much wind to it and only rated a winter storm warning. I drove home from Boone during it and it wasn’t too bad. One just needs to drive for the conditions.
The second had almost as much snow, at least for us, but a lot of wind to blow the snow around. Also the temps were going to start dropping. this second round triggered the blizzard warning.
Uncle Pete put into effect some temporary rules regarding train lengths and number of locomotives on-line working. Friday afternoon found me first out with a mark for around midnight on the (what I call) the “all night sucker.” It’s the Chicago - Council Bluffs manifest. Almost always it’s at least a 12 hour day. It works Boone yard and getting into the yard is sometimes an exercise in waiting as other trains work ahead of it. Then getting into Council Bluffs is another exercise. It almost never is ready for it, resulting in sitting at Missouri Valley for 2 to 6 hours. Then after sitting, being told to tie it down isn’t unusual.
I hadn’t been watching the boards when I got called to recrew a long pool empty coal hopper, on duty at 1747hrs. I wasn’t too surprised, I figured with the weather conditions a lot of long pool recrews would be in the cards. (A note. Until a few years ago, most east-west trains changed crews at Boone. The Clinton-Missouri Valley was usually higher priority intermodals. A few years ago this started to change. Now the long pool has most of the through trains. Only 3 or 4 westbound manifests, ones that work, appear daily on the line up. We also get some irregular loaded westbound grain trains, most go east or south, and long pool scraps.&nbs
Sounds about normal for the conditions on any Class 1. Winter is a B…!
Was working CSX’s Atlanta Div. Had a snow storm hit Northern Georgia. Had a train dead a Tunnel Hill - was able to talk the MofW Roadmaster into getting the crew and driving them to a nearyby motel (I-75 parallels most of the W&A Subdivision between Atlanta and Chattanooga). One of the crew did want the ride since it wasn’t a ‘crew van’. [#oops]
Ah, winter railroading. A very interesting account of some of the impediments involved as well as your resourcefulness in getting over the road. I recall the Eastern Region General Manager saying it was a wonder any train came out of Wyoming, so bad were conditions one winter, circa 1979. It was wall-wall trains over Sherman Hill and most everything had to violate due to broken rails, impassable roads, et al. Not the first or last time. Appreciate your sharing this true tale as I read from the comfort of my retirement in balmy Omaha.
Terrific Story, Jeff… I saw it, and my first thught was, it was gonna be one of those,“… why the dog died, tales…”: IT WAS NOT !
There is something about HAVING to Work in winter conditions…Either Railroading, or Trucking… Loved this one.
Had a friend whi was a freight hogger for the I C [RR] out of Memphis, his nemisis was another engineer; who was nick-named by his co-workers as ‘Creeping Jesus’; but that is another of those ‘tales’…
Great account…enjoyed reading it. What kind of power did you have, and did you ever get the third unit to come on line? Seems as if you were woefully underpowered right out of the gate…i.e. two working units, 141 cars… one dead unit in tow… run eight and the snow drifts…
There is a difference between “AS IS” and “TO BE” environments. Beyond that this is a TRAINS reader forum so your going to get imagination and sweeping conclusions based entirely on visual observation from the outside vs operations from the inside. This is always going to happen in this forum.
The biggest issue with any miliary style culture is “this is how we do it” or “this is how we have done it in the past”. Both of which tend to push back on innovation. True not all innovation is good or common sense. However, if anything the railroad industry needs to be a lot more open minded when it comes to innovation or change.
Look how many times Amtrak has changed it’s operations for the better based on input outside the railroad industry.
OT, but… Back in the day, our open cab (no windshield or other cover) 1932 fire department pumper had a heavy coat and mittens on the seat in the winter for the driver to don.
Based on the fact that the coolant (likely just water) froze in the water jacket enroute to a call once, I’d say the coat and mittens were justified.
There was just a post on the Deshler cam chat that a crew had no heat in a lead unit and was looking for a heater…
One of our locomotives has a fantastic heater - almost too good. It’s either coat and gloves or baking bread on the control stand…
Once we were on a four-person MOW motor car between Lamar and La Junta with temp below zero. We had open stations at Prowers and Las Animas where we stopped to get warm.
There is nothing WORSE than an engine with a good heater, on 20 - 30 MPH track rocking back and forth with a bright sun glaring off newly fallen snow - to challenge everyone on the engine to stay awake.
There is a reason you bundle up babies warm and rock them to sleep - it works.
There was a story in today’s NewsWire about a CPKC train in icy Iowa that stalled on a hill and started sliding back downhill in emergency, headed to the BNSF mainline diamond in Ottumwa, with a BNSF train stopped across the diamond. The CP train finally stopped 20 feet short of the crossing, and the BN train had been warned and moved.
What was slipping? Was it the wheels sliding on the rails, or the wheels slipping against the brake shoes? If I were to guess, I would say wheels slipping on the brake shoes.
I remember back in the day with the 101st Airborne (Air Assault) nice 60-70 degree day in the Fall. “Don’t pack your coats your not going to need them the weather will be fine”. Red flag in the Infantry when you hear that and I packed a coat, long johns, sweater, gloves, etc. Some pointed at me and laughed at how stuffed my ruck sack was. So we get out there and the temp drops to 17 degrees and was snowing at one point. A lot of people did not have coats because they believed weather can always be predicted with 100% accuracy (they learned). We had to cut our military exercise short because of the growing number of cold weather injuries.
I am sure similar stuff happens in the railroad industry all the time and this is why they prefer former military people for exactly that type of experience and knowing when to think things through.
How difficult is it to authorize suspending the 12 hour rule? must permission be received from FRA or other organization, or is it an event which can be authorized by upper management subject to further review by the higher authorities (government) subject to fines or penalty?
Ed
It is a decision made at the Superintendent level or higher. It is a open checkbook decision. The carrier will ultimately be FINED for every violation. I don’t know what the currently penalty is.
