About the Author J. D. Santucci (a.k.a. "Tuch") began his railroading career in 1978 as a trainman on the Missouri Pacific. After a round of lay-offs in 1985, Tuch embarked on a railroad odyssey, working in many different situations for different roads. This column tries to explain some of the nuts and bolts of the job and also demonstrates what we have to deal with on a regular basis within and without the industry. Tuch currently works through freights out of Chicago for Canadian National/Illinois Central. ©1999, 2003-2007 JD Santucci. Logo ©2002 The Railroad Network. By J.D. Santucci

May 6, 2004
No, unfortunately today's theme is not derived from a great oldie by the late Patsy Cline. Nor is it a story of me coming unraveled at the seams, although a few people may have a few comments on that issue. This time it is train separations that we'll discuss.

Once again we're horribly late getting this one out. Between changing job assignments and a death in the family (the loss of the grandmother of the beautiful bride), I've been a bit preoccupied up with other issues. My new job assignment is the Hawthorne-Markham transfer that handles trains 338 and 337 between the above named yards. While I have the same day off of Thursday, I now go to work in the overnight hours of the morning in that time period that I many years ago I coined as the "late night side of early morning." And being that this assignment doesn't generally come close of the target call time I never really have an idea of what time I will go to work everyday. So getting sufficient sleep is going to become a real contest again.

But enough of that; now, let's get on with the show.

In the past I've touched upon train separations, also known as break in twos. Today we are going to discuss what up to this point has been the third worst trip of my railroad career. This trip resulted in multiple break in twos on one single trip. It also kicked off a period of two weeks where I managed to have a total of seven of them. Talk about running into a real streak of bad luck, this was really it.

The railroad gods were angry my friend; "like an old man trying to send soup back in a deli."

We drift on back in time to the year of nineteen and eighty-seven, and the latter part of the month of October in particular. It was the first month of operation for the fledging Wisconsin Central. The railroad had only been in the actual business of railroading since October 11th, so there was still a great deal of chaos in effect. There was still quite the learning curve as well for all of us that came from everywhere around the country.

I was working a train from Fond du Lac to Chicago. If I recall correctly the train was T042, a manifest train en route to the CSX at Barr Yard in Riverdale, IL, a southern suburb of Chicago. We had something like 135 cars or so this particular evening. In those early days at the WC, we did not have the luxury of end of train telemetry devices. We were using the Starlight brand of marker, affectionately known as a "Starlight" or a "dumb FRED." This type of marker did not transmit information from the tail end of the train to the engine; it was merely a flashing red light with a big reflector underneath the lens of the flasher. There was an air hose on it to connect to the brake pipe and an air gauge on the Starlight, but it would only convey information about brake pipe pressure to the employee standing right there to look at it.

While I don't recall what power we had, it can remember it being a mish mash of it. In those early days at the WC we did not have most of our own power on the property. Being that the original start up date of September 12th was delayed for a month by a court order; the company that WC was purchasing the group of former BN SD45 locomotives from decided to make some additional money off them during our start up moratorium. Many of these locomotives were leased out to the perennially power short Southern Pacific. So when the court ordered stay was lifted, most of this power was out west somewhere on SP rails still under lease to them.

As a result of this lease arrangement, WC found itself dreadfully short of power at the start up. We were leasing power from Conrail, Soo Line (including a bunch of former Milwaukee Road units still in their orange and black scheme), Green Bay & Western and even the Indiana Harbor Belt. So it was the norm to have a true rainbow of colors as you could have power from one of four five railroads in your consist.

I seem to recall there being at least one former BN unit, one ex-Milwaukee Road unit and one Conrail unit with us on that eventful evening. I do remember there being either four or five units in our locomotive consist.

In any event, we were heading east (timetable direction not compass) towards Chicago. There was a great deal of slack action in the train as I could really feel it. We had a bunch of loads back there with a block of empties ahead of them. Being that we were all still very new to the property, I was still learning the territory, so I was still developing a feel for the terrain. So there we were rolling along starting down the hill from Slinger towards Rugby Junction, WI. We had topped the ascending grade that brought us into Slinger and after winding around a curve and crossing the Wisconsin & Southern just east of the road crossing in Slinger, we would start our descent towards Rugby.

As you head towards Rugby Junction you are not dropping straight down the entire way. The route drops in steps; you drop a bit, level out a bit and drop a bit more, level out a bit more and then drop down into Rugby before starting back up hill again about a third or so of the way through the station.

Approaching Rugby Junction I had the train rolling pretty good as we were close to our then, 40 MPH speed limit. The throttle was in idle and we were just drifting down the hill. I was slouched down in the seat all nice and comfortable, feeling all was right with the world when pop, the train suddenly goes into emergency.

"Emergency, everyone is to get from street, emergency!"

We came to a stop with the head end just west of the signal at Rugby Jct. West. Conductor Gene Fendley gets suited up and heads out to take a look for the problem. About four cars deep he discovers and air hose with the glad hand missing; it had apparently blown out. The glad hand is the metallic fitting at the end of the hose that allows for quick coupling and uncoupling of the air hoses; quite the ingenious device. This blown out glad hand required the hose to have to be replaced. This was the reason we went into emergency.

Gene gets the hose changed out and cuts the air back into the rest of the train. After several minutes of pumping, the air is not coming back up, so he begins to walk and look for any other problems. About fifteen cars behind the engines he finds it, a broken knuckle. He tells me the type it is and I go back and check to see if we have one. Normally you'll carry two replacement knuckles on each locomotive, an F type and an E type. They are not interchangeable and must be replaced in kind, thus the reason you normally have two of them with you.

So I tossed the proper one off the engine, and pulled the part of the train we had a hold of up to it. Gene grabbed it and replaced it on the car that needed it, shoved back to the rest of the train and put us back together again. The air still wasn't coming up so he walked some more. He found another broken knuckle somewhat further back and we repeated the process of dropping one off, pulling him up to it and having him pick it up and setting on the car and shoving back to the car with the broken knuckle. In this case, it was on the leading end of the car, so it had to stay behind. By loading the replacement knuckle onto the last car, it saved Gene the awkward manner of having to lug this 86 lb piece of iron along the right of way back to the car that needed it.

So now this one is replaced, the air cut back in and it now comes up quite nicely. I guess we're back in business. Gene makes the walk back up to the engines and we get ready to roll again. By this time, train 218 had caught up to us and was stopped right behind our tail end. Their Conductor gave the highball on the air and we began to roll. I didn't roll very far though, maybe a couple of car lengths or so when the air went into emergency yet again.

"Danger Will Robinson, danger!"

Gene began walking back again and the Conductor of 218 began walking towards our head end to find the problem. Yet another knuckle was discovered to be broken, this one being close to the tail end of the train. The Conductor on 218 grabbed one from his engine, the one on the front of the locomotive itself, and changed it for us. He put the train back together and we were finally, and for certain, back in business.

My guess was that this third knuckle broke as the train was just about stopped, but the train separation there was not far enough apart to cause the hoses to separate between the cars. When the brakes released after getting the second knuckle replaced, the slack probably rolled back in and these cars on the rear closed up tight against the rest of the train. As I started to pull away, the train separated at this broken knuckle far enough to finally cause the hoses to separate and put us back into emergency again.

The failed glad hand on that hose four deep really did a number to us.

Now we're on the roll again and things are back to normal. We're rolling along pretty good again and have now reached Leithton, where the EJ&E crosses and connects with us. There is also a passing siding located here as well. It is now daylight and we're rolling along under cloudy skies. All of a sudden the air goes again. Now what?

Geno starts walking again only he doesn't have to go far. There was a shorty hose, also known as a dummy hose between the brake pipe hoses of the third and fourth locomotives. The use of these is supposed to be prohibited between locomotives, but whoever put this power together overlooked that rule this particular evening. Shorty hoses are used when the air hoses between two cars are a bit too short to either make properly or even make at all. This hose is generally just that, a short hose with glad hands on either end to allow it to be used as a filler between two other hoses; the shorty hose bridges in the gap.

Anyhow, the shorty hose blew out between these two locomotives causing the emergency application. The prime reason they are not supposed to be used in this situation. Once the problem is resolved and one of the hoses on the locomotives was changed for a longer one to allow the hose to be made properly, we are not getting the air back. So it's more walking for Mr. Fendley. I'm sure by now he is sorry he left Texas to come to Wisconsin to work for the WC and even sorrier that he got stuck working with me.

Forty-two cars deep Gene finds a broken knuckle. By this point in time we are getting low on sand in the hours of service glass. Gene gets the knuckle changed out but that about does it for us on time. The powers that be decide to relieve us there and send us to the hotel to tie up and get rest. 218's crew takes our train the rest of the way in to its final destination.

In the six plus years I had been a promoted Engineer, plus the seven months of on the job training as a student Engineer and also the time I worked as a Fireman prior to that, I had only gotten one knuckle prior to this trip. And that one was as a Student Engineer. So in one night I managed to get four of them with three of them occurring with one felled swoop.

The following day on our trip back to Fond du Lac, we were heading up Lomira hill with an overweight and underpowered train. It was rainy and foggy and we were pretty much on our hands and knees making the climb. I was under 10 MPH and hoping like hell that we weren't going to stall. And again, we were on short time. I recall having a Soo Line GP9 and several Conrail GP35's as part of my locomotive consist that day and one of them was in the lead. As we were struggling along, one (or more) of the units picked up a viscous wheel slip. Before I could even react, everything bit the rail again and we lurched forward. This, my friends, is never good, but even worse under the particular conditions we were operating under. The air went into emergency and we stopped abruptly.

Geno began the trek back yet again and there it was another broken knuckle, seventeen cars behind the engines. We were now about dead on the hours, so we didn't take care of changing it out. They relieved us and cabbed us back to Shops Yard. Gee, four knuckles in two days. I was afraid I was going to be dubbed the scrap iron king or something. The idiot Trainmaster that I had so much trouble with in my days at the WC started to call me Knuckles, but fortunately that name didn't take. Only one other person there ever called me that aside from him. Several weeks later this individual did something far worse than I have ever done, so he didn't call me that too often as I reminded him of his episode whenever he did. Perhaps someday we'll recount that little adventure of his.

I got two more knuckles over the course of the next twelve days when the railroad gods must have felt I had been punished enough. After this brutal two week period ended, there was no more iron for quite awhile. I managed to go about two years before getting another one and then about a year and a half before getting another.

Since then I have only gotten three more in my entire career up to this point. I supposed though, that I have just whammied myself and will probably destroy an entire train next week. We'll keep you informed should it occur. Hopefully, there won't be anything like this to write about again anytime soon.

I should make mention though that I am acquainted with an Engineer who told me of getting four of them at once. It was his maiden voyage as an Engineer and it took place on a cold rainy night. He was working a coal train when his night to forget took place. I'll bet he was really popular with the boys after that trip.

And so it goes.

Tuch