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

February 23, 2007
Before we start today’s lesson, a book update. I have nearly completed the revisions and should have them back to the publisher by the end of March. The cover art has been completed and is ready. The artist is Jim Matuska and you can view his work at www.sd40.com/jim_matuska_art.htm. Jim has done a couple of pieces for me over the years and I am quite pleased with his work.

And now, on with the show.

Things go wrong on the railroad no matter how well planned the day, week or month might be. Sometimes they go haywire. In other instances they just go horribly wrong. In many cases, all the planning and careful operating practices in the world cannot prevent such instances, they just happen. In keeping with my long established practice, no railroad or individual names will be mentioned and locations will also be omitted.

Our first exciting adventure occurred at a locomotive shop. A locomotive had just been serviced, was pulled out of the roundhouse (ya, this actually was a round roundhouse, turned on the turntable and placed onto one of the holding tracks. Being that it was a very warm day; the locomotive was shut down to save fuel. Unfortunately the employee that placed was in charge of this move neglected to apply a hand brake to the locomotive when shutting it down as required by the rules.

It is very clearly stated in the rulebook that you are never to depend on the air brakes to hold cars or locomotives that are unattended in place. This is why we are required to properly secure trains and engines with handbrakes whenever we leave them unattended. You will now receive a lesson in how well this rule works.

The air leaked off from the brake cylinders of the locomotive allowing the brakes on it to release on their own. This is not uncommon, although on locomotives the air should remain in the brake cylinders a little longer than it did on this particular locomotive. The locomotive was sitting a track with a slight descending grade that did its drop in the direction of the turntable.

For those of you not familiar with a turntable, this is a track that is mounted on what resembles a bridge. This bridge rests in a circular pit. There are tracks at the bottom of this pit for the bridge to rotate on and allow for it to be easily moved by an electric motor. There are numerous tracks all around the turntable pit to allow for locomotives to access it from different points within the servicing facility. Turntables are used to turn locomotives to allow them to face the opposite direction. They are also used on conjunction with the true round, roundhouse. Locomotives can be pointed toward any of the stalls on a roundhouse.

There are actually some round roundhouses still in use in this country. One that comes to mind is the Indiana Harbor Belt’s facility at Gibson in Hammond, IN. We have a turntable at Markham located at the Woodcrest, the locomotive facility. While the old roundhouse once located here is long gone, the turntable lives on to spin locomotives to point them in the right direction. The roundhouse at Shops Yard in North Fond du Lac, WI on the CN Wisconsin Division, recently known as the Wisconsin Central Division, before that the Wisconsin Central Railway, prior to that the Soo Line and even prior to that the original Wisconsin Central, also has a working turntable.

The tracks that lead up to the turntable itself do not have any type of skates or bumpers at the end where they lead up to the pit. You cannot have them here as they would interfere with normal movements to and from the turntable track itself. I suppose you could place portable skates on the rails, the same type of skates used in many hump yards, but I have yet to see this done at a turntable.

But I digress.

The locomotive in question was shutdown, no handbrake applied and now, left unattended on this slightly descending grade. The brakes leaked off and the engine began to roll; and roll towards the turntable. Only problem was that the turntable track had been rotated away from the track this locomotive was parked on. When the dead, now free rolling engine hit the end of the track where the pit began, it continued to roll. It did not know there was no track in place for it. In doing so it dropped off the end of the track and landed in the pit. But it did not fall all the way in.

When it dropped off, the fuel tank hit the rails and brought the movement to a halt. However, the movement lasted long enough for the front half of the locomotive to hang over the edge and the front pilot of the locomotive to actually land onto the base of the pit. This resulted in the locomotive sitting at about a 45 degree angle. It also had the set of trucks that rolled into the pit fall partially away from the locomotive as well. It was quite the sight. And as luck would have it, I didn’t have my camera with me that day.

The boys with the big yellow toys had to be summoned to pick this locomotive up out of the pit and put it where it belongs, on the rail head.

Our next episode was recounted to me by and old steam era Engineer that I used to know. He told of hostling at the roundhouse during the 40’s. It was first night on the job after his training. He was working nights as all brand new rails tend to do. The foreman gave him instructions to pull a locomotive into the house after spinning it on the turntable.

So as a good and eager young employee trying to perform his job well and make the foreman happy, he quickly went about the task. As he began to pull the steamer into the house, something went amiss. The throttle on the locomotive jammed and he could not get it to release. The old steamer was picking up speed. Being new, he panicked. Before he could get it stopped the locomotive rolled through the stall, went through the wall and when it finally came to a rest, was sitting in the middle of the road that passed along side the property of the railroad. Nobody was injured in the mishap, but he told of his pride being on life support.

I wonder if the police came along and ticketed him for illegal parking or operating an overweight, oversized vehicle without a permit.

Another story was recounted to me by an Engineer friend dealing with an episode occurring in more recent times. Owing to a decline in business, this guy was cut off as an Engineer and set back to Brakeman. The job he was called to work this fateful night had to stop en route to pick up a locomotive at some outpost yard. All they were told was that this locomotive was “bad order.” This is quite a generic term when no other information is forthcoming about the problem. Bad order can mean countless problems.

To expedite the move, the Brakeman decided to hop on the locomotive to be picked up and operate it. His intention was to bring it out and couple right to the locomotive consist of their train. As he undertook the move, he quickly discovered the problem; a sticky throttle. The throttle got stuck in run 5 and the locomotive took off. Unfortunately he panicked. Even though there were several different options available to him to stop the engine that could have been accomplished even with the stuck throttle, he didn’t resort to any of them immediately. Instead he first attempted to free up the throttle but that obviously didn’t work. By the time he grabbed hold of his thoughts and put the engine into emergency, he was past that so-called “point of no return.” The point of no return is that imaginary spot where if you fail to take the proper action, once past that point, any action then taken will be pretty much too late and a wasted effort. The locomotive had picked up quite a bit of speed and even with the emergency brake application he finally initiated, was still moving along pretty well. He slammed into the locomotive consist of his train that was sitting there waiting for him. The collision derailed the engine he was aboard as well as the one he was going to couple into. There was also some significant damage to both engines as well.

“Crash, bang, smash ‘em up.”

The results of his efforts to save time earned him a trip to the clinic where he got to participate in the whiz quiz. Fortunately for him all that studying had done previously paid off as he was “clean and green.”

One Engineer I used to work with had his career ended with a freak mishap. He was running a passenger train and had two F40PH-2 locomotives for power. He hit a dip in the rail at about 70 MPH. It wasn’t anything that was listed on any bulletins requiring a speed restriction. All of the conditions must’ve been exactly right, sort of a “perfect storm” type scenario for what transpired. At this dip, the two F40’s separated; apparently one drawbar must have risen up a bit and the other dropped a bit. It was just enough for the two to separate without actually being uncoupled. Oh yes, this has happened before, but usually with the cars and not the locomotives as I have had this occur in my trains more than once over the years.

The locomotives came apart; the train went into emergency and began to bring itself to a stop. At this moment, this Engineer was unaware of the separation of the two engines. The second locomotive and the rest of his train then plowed into his lead unit. He was not prepared for this impact as there is very little slack in passenger trains so the run in forces are normally less severe. He was knocked forward out of his seat and into the front window. He nailed it quite solidly and at an awkward angle. The impact of it resulted in very serious back and neck injuries. These injuries required several surgeries and prematurely ended his career, only about three or four years from retirement age. Now he cannot stand up straight or walk normally. I’m relatively certain this was not the retirement he dreamed of or planned.

Our next disaster involved a caboose and some cars ahead of it derailing. The Conductor that recounted this story to me told of rolling along one evening relatively uneventful up to that point. As was required back when we still operated with cabooses, a member of the tail end crew was supposed to periodically look behind them from the back porch. They were supposed to look at the roadbed and observe for fresh marks or scratches in the roadbed. These marks would indicate dragging equipment or even possibly derailed cars in the train.

This Conductor decided to step outside, have a smoke and take the required look at the roadbed. When stepped out and shone his lantern towards the ground, he discovered very fresh looking marks in the ties. He immediately returned to within the friendly confines of the caboose to call the Engineer on the radio to instruct him to bring the train to a stop. As he got back inside and grabbed hold of the overhead railing, he felt a sudden and severe change in the slack of the train and then heard the air go into emergency. He grabbed onto the center overheard railing with both hands and felt the caboose jerk extremely hard. He told of feeling his legs leave the floor and suddenly, he felt very light. He was airborne.

The caboose had derailed at about 40 MPH.

He recalled the caboose starting to roll over on its side. While maintaining his grip on the railing, he was swung around as well and said the last thing he remembered was hitting his head on the ceiling of the caboose. The next thing he remembered was waking up in the hospital with a pounding headache. It seems that when the caboose derailed, it not only went on its side, it continued the journey rolling onto its roof. The caboose then slide on the roof for several hundred feet until it dug into the earth enough that it finally stopped.

When he awoke in the hospital a company official was there to fill him on what had transpired. The caboose did indeed, roll onto its roof after it derailed. He was told that the safety bar he was holding onto for dear life had actually been ripped from the ceiling. There was a small dent in the ceiling where he had struck his head when he made contact with it. While this in itself sounds pretty bad, that was about as bad as it got for this guy. Well that and that he got filthy dirty. When the caboose rolled over, the exhaust stack and flue from the stove fell off and all the soot that had built up inside there spewed all over the cab and all over the Conductor. The folks at the hospital had do perform quite a bit of clean up work on him in the emergency room first.

The caboose sustained heavy damage and was eventually scrapped. Our Conductor however, faired much better; aside from some bruises and contusions the worst of his ailments was a minor concussion. He missed a few weeks of work and then returned. He told of being sore all over for several days after the mishap. The medical staff at the hospital and the investigating team from the railroad were amazed that his injuries were not more severe.

Another caboose episode occurred to an old friend also moving along on a train. He had gotten up to use the facilities and was on his way back to his seat when he heard the train go into emergency. As normal in such situations he firmly grabbed a hold of the overhead safety bar and then felt the slack of the train run in and run in very hard. He told of getting knocked so hard his feet left the floor and then his shoulder popped. Apparently the train derailed and came apart in the process. The tail portion of the train had a lot of weight so it was slowing down much slower than the stuff piling up in front of it where it had become separated. This rear portion of the train proceeded to slam into the derailed cars, which is what caused the slack to run in so hard.

My buddy wound up with a separated shoulder and had to have surgery to repair it. He told me railroad officials commented to him they could clearly see where he was hanging onto the overhead bar for dear life as there was actually a bend in the bar from his tight hand grip. The Conductor in the caboose was also seriously injured as he got slammed forward with his chest and face solidly hitting the portion of the bay window area in front of him. He was holding firmly onto the seat but the seat was ripped right out of the floor and he was propelled forward, seat and all. I was told that the impact of his hitting the window and the bay itself popped the entire window, frame and all out of the wall. This guy was very seriously injured and this episode ended his railroad career.

The last event in this lesson also involves a caboose. A coal train was pulling into the yard. There was a stream at the end of the yard that they had to cross while pulling in. This was accomplished using a small bridge that was maybe, one hundred or so feet long. Dozens of trains a day plus numerous yard jobs switching here used this bridge with no problem. However, this day would be different.

As this train was pulling into the yard, without any kind of warning, the last few cars right ahead of the caboose suddenly just rolled off the rail, went over the side of the bridge and plunged into the stream below. It was not a steep drop, maybe ten to fifteen or so to the water. Well, as these cars went, they just yanked that caboose right along with them. When it landed, the caboose tilted somewhat but did not turn completely over onto its side. When it landed the batteries in the battery box broke loose and pushed up knocking cover off. The batteries came out landing inside the caboose and broke open. The juice inside of them then splashed all over the place, including onto the Conductor and his Flagman. They received some chemical burns but aside from getting thrown around and having their next bowel movement occur prematurely, they were pretty much alright.

This Conductor told me of their both being more concerned with drowning than anything else as water from the stream was pouring into the caboose pretty quickly. While the water in this stream wasn’t that deep, they were concerned that perhaps the caboose had sunk deep into the mud and that they might not be able to get out.

I can fully understand their concerns as it was dark out and they had just taken a little swan dive into the water getting banged around in the process. While a caboose generally weighs in around twenty-five or so tons, light by railroad standards for a rail car, that weight can be significant when it is dropped from ten or fifteen feet into a soft, muddy stream bed. I used to go off-roading with a four wheel drive truck I once owned. I would cross streams and even my truck weighing in at a little over a ton could, would, and did sink into the bed of the stream and sometimes I got stuck. So it’s easy to realize that a caboose that weights twelve tons more than my truck would likely sink just a little bit deeper, and do so much quicker.

However, they were not completely buried. The caboose wasn’t even halfway under water. These guys were able to get a window open on the side facing up and pull themselves out onto the side facing the sky. Their fears quickly subsided. Aside from the minor burns, dirty laundry and wet boots and feet, they came out of this in pretty good shape. They were lucky.

And so it goes.

Tuch

Hot Times on the High Iron and the HTOTHI initials, ©2005 by JD Santucci.