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A question about couplers....
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Overmod, <br /> <br /> Both of the cars were boxcars. <br /> <br /> I was northbound on the UP again by 95th street when the dispatcher told us a train had gone into emergency. This was the second consecutive trip of this occurence. Right before we stopped at the problem area the conductor reported a broken knuckle. We pulled our engine up to the car with the broken knuckle. Somehow part of the knuckle was stuck in the housing and the pin could not be pushed up. We tried everything to get that broken piece of knuckle out of there, but to no avail. So, we ended up deciding that using a chain to tow the car would be the only alternative at the time. Someone suggested pulling the entire train back using the chain, which I thought was ludicrous. The broken knuckle was about 20 cars from the head-end in a 100 car train. I didn't think it was worth the risk of trying to pull all that trailing tonnage with a chain. My suggestion was to cut away with the broken knuckle car and take the head 20 back to Yard Center about 7 miles south, and then come back engine light and tie onto the rest of the train. The original plan was to have the one busted car set out at the yard and come back with the conductor riding the shove over about 15 road crossings in the South Side of Chicago!!! After we dropped off the chain and wished them luck we went further north and sat hours waiting to get called onto the Belt RR. We yarded our train just before hours of service expired and then waited three hours for a taxi. A nice long 16 1/2 hour day and to cap that off we get called at breakfast to deadhead home. NEED SLEEP.....[zzz][zzz] By the way I found out on the ride home that my engineer can saw logs better than Paul Bunyan!!!
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