So how far can you shoot a ringmaster across the tent?
zugmann Well, we came to a satisfactory sollution to the problem. A good way to start the weekend.
Well, we came to a satisfactory sollution to the problem. A good way to start the weekend.
23 17 46 11
Link to next quarter:
http://cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/t/204574.aspx
James
One clown all the way across the tent beats two only halfway across . . .
Aren't there safety rules for clowns that supposedly govern all circus acts and personnel ?
Would reference to them - esp. the "Prime Directives" to the effect that "Safety is of the First importance in the discharge of duties", and "When in doubt, the safest course must be taken" ?
Or just tie him under the trestle under he comes to his senses . . . (see A Treasury of Railroad Folklore).
- Paul North.
For some reason, I feel a disturbance in the force.
Jeff
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
zugmann I need a new job.
I need a new job.
Another day at the circus, and we had to have a discussion with the ringmaster.
Something concerning how to use the canon to shoot the clown across the tent. The code of conduct for clowns says one thing, but the ringmaster doesn't want us to do it that way - he doesn't think it allows us to shoot enough clowns across the tent as he wants.
Randy, my entire May issue is missing--so far! But thanks for the heads-up!
Our lawn was mowed two days ago, and the garage was swept out, some evergreens pruned, and rocks hauled. We'll be having a landscaping consultant in this spring (something we bid on last fall at the Historical Society's auction).
My "venture out" today went a little further than it should have. By the time I got to West Chicago and return on my bike (32 miles, including a lot of wandering), I was beat--I should sleep well tonight! Not much spectacular was seen, except for an eastbound welded-rail train on UP. There was one CN freight that I knew about (northbound), but I missed it because I was too far from the tracks at the point where I heard it whistle through (UP trains don't sound their horns in West Chicago).
I hope to get out to West Chicago on my bike once a week this summer, like I used to do when I was in better shape. It's the nearest place where I can be assured of seeing freight cars standing still, and that said cars could include some good ones to document. I did find a good one at the second of the two sites I went to today.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
Evening everyone.....
Look over your May Trains issue carefully: I was missing four pages out of mine. Customer service has been notified.....
Looks like Wisconsin and Southern will be busy this spring and summer, noticed lots of new ties dropped outside of our Richfield terminal, they are changing out ties and rails from Slinger to Milwaukee. When all is said and done, track speed will be raised from 10 to 49 mph.
At home again, lots of stuff to do around the house this weekend, which will include mowing the lawn (it's too early to be doing this, yet!!!!), and getting a bunch of trim ready for installation. There's also some landscaping to be worked on outside, which my company so graciously paid me for this week (safety bonus was paid out this week).
See everyone later...
Randy Vos
"Ever have one of those days where you couldn't hit the ground with your hat??" - Waylon Jennings
"May the Lord take a liking to you and blow you up, real good" - SCTV
Lowville & Beaver River is part of the GVT fold now - I've seen LBR cars in Scranton several times. No doubt just using the reporting marks as the line hasn't seen freight traffic in years.
They're trying to work out a sale of the line to the county. The L&BR tracks are to remain, while the former Utica & Black River (NYC) tracks from Lowville to Carthage will come up, isolating the L&BR.
It's up in the air right now.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
As Mookie would say, ^~^!
Those would be in the 4800 series, which I gather is full of a bunch of neat stuff, not all of which are old Railboxes. The ones I know about are LBR 4821, 4822, and 4823, all of which came from the RBOX 11000 series, via Missouri Pacific/UP.
I think I'm going to venture out today for fresh sightings.
an interesting story (post). On subject matter I would prefer Friday afternoon St. Louis Barley Pop.
Y6bs evergreen in my mind
For Carl, the resident carIDologist:
Couple of LBR (Loweville & Beaver RR, the internets told me) ex-RBOXes in the yard the other day. Build date of 1975.
That would basically be a baggage/express car--its number is in the series for passenger cars. MP, if I recall correctly, was one of the last railroads to offer LCL freight service, and it may have had something to do with that (also note the passenger-car trucks beneath it).
Carl, what was the use for the MoPac two door box car shown in Feeling a bit BOX'ed in?
zugmann No promotion involved. Straight off the street.
CShaveRR with logos for Richardson International.
with logos for Richardson International.
Hmm, PROX. I always thought it was a C. Something about how the O blends with the X on a moving train.
Tank cars with logos for Richardson International would be handling either chemical fertilizer from a plant or some raw chemical going to a plant.
My theory has always been, when you see derailed or broken PROX cars you head for the hills, unless you have special training like Tree, because their cars normally carry something really nasty or there's leftover residue still inside.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
tree68 In their defense, though, one has to wonder if the system might not share part of the blame for not adequately preparing them for the promotion - like letting them see how the position works. I suspect that's often due to supervisors who hoard information, for fear that if somebody knew how to do the job, they could do it, too, lessening the super's importance... Been there, done that.
In their defense, though, one has to wonder if the system might not share part of the blame for not adequately preparing them for the promotion - like letting them see how the position works. I suspect that's often due to supervisors who hoard information, for fear that if somebody knew how to do the job, they could do it, too, lessening the super's importance...
Been there, done that.
No promotion involved. Straight off the street.
Turns out that the C&NW car in the photo is still on the property, albeit privately owned (by the same fellow that owned it at the time the picture was taken). I walked right past it a month or so ago while doing some switching at our shop.
It's now numbered "99" and named "Nehasane.". We've been doing some work on it, and it's sitting on its recently refurbished trucks in the Flickr photo.
PROX, Bruce.
As for crude shipments, yesterday's sighting at Porter was my first of a crude-oil train I've confirmed as such. I didn't note every car on the train, but I don't recall any PROX cars. There were plenty of UTLX, and a lot of CIT Group cars (DBUX, CTCX). Maybe a few TILX.
However, if a train I saw earlier this year on CP turned out to be a crude-oil train, there were some PROX cars in it--cars in the 78000 series, with logos for Richardson International.
tree68 In their defense, though, one has to wonder if the system might not share part of the blame for not adequately preparing them for the promotion - like letting them see how the position works. I suspect that's often due to supervisors who hoard information, for fear that if somebody knew how to do the job, they could do it, too, lessening the super's importance...
Nice to be back after a too long absence.
My Mother was talking a couple of weeks ago, about how she had talked once with one of my dad's co-workers, about how both of them should have taken the company up on their offers of promotion. It was a very disruptive style, you had 24 hrs. or less to decide if you wanted to take them up on an offer that literally came out of the blue. The guy had decided that the few years of disruption to your family was more than compensated for by the bump in your pension payout. That system of go now, or forever hold your peace, must have cost them a lot of potential good supervisors.
I was going to come here earlier this year and mention that the last of my Dad's age group of co-workers had passed away. Dispatchers that started out hooping steam engines out in front of bunkhouse stations, in places with non RR populations at or near zero. Mom had mentioned at the time, she was the last of the widows still standing.
Carl, or anybody else, I have been meaning to ask this for a while, what with all of the crude oil moving by rail, do you see any of it moving in the US in Procor (reporting mark PRCX) cars? The Canadian affiliate of Union Tank (UTLX). If it is petroleum or petrochemical related, Procor has some type of specialized car to move it, up here. I was reading an article on the weekend that the shortage of suitable equipment is starting to become a factor in this new crude-by-rail business. I would think business on both sides of the border must be going like gangbusters for Procor.
From the guy who was the engineer that day (he even remembers the purple fleece jacket...):
I think this was Car 400 on CNW - been along time........ It was at one time named "Sea Level" and originally I think was on the NYC RR (B&A). It ended up with CNW and became CNW President James Wolfe's car. TRAINS Magazine November 1993 had an article about this as the "Haunted Car"
I might be able to narrow down the year, but it's hard to say. I think the picture was taken at Minnehaha. I'll have to ask around.
------------------------------
Some promotions run smack into the "Peter Principle," wherein a perfectly competent {name your occupation} finds out that he/she has reached their level of incompetence as a supervisor (or even just the next step up the ladder). All too often, though, in their zeal to be the best {name your position}, they don't realize that they don't have a clue that they don't have a clue.
You get a few of those. It's amazing what people expect you to be able to perform do when they have no idea what you do to begin with, or what it takes to do it.
What's worse, though, is when a guy who was in your ranks is "officially" made your superior. It goes to their head pretty quickly (I think they give them shots or something). And if they ever "throw it up" and come back into the ranks, the indoctrination somehow stays around, and they're no longer very enjoyable to work with. We ran one of those completely out of town a few years before I retired. The job had gone to a lot more than his head, unfortunately, and he died of a heart attack in his mid-30s, working his "new" job.
And yes, Paul, we had one guy who thought he was the ringmaster, another who thought he was a babysitter (turns out he was the biggest baby of all!), and the usual drill sergeants, pit bulls, and whatever.
But, in all fairness, some folks are pretty good guys that you hate to see leave when they do (but whether it's through retirement or promotion, you have to be happy for them, and are often unable to blame them for wanting to get out of town!).
_____________
Larry, I didn't know you had a coach like that. From the paint job, I'd guess that it had been part of the C&NW business train at one point, and was probably unloaded by the UP soon after the merger (the UP liked our "theater car" and the full-length dome car, but that was about it). I have no idea about how to research it. It shouldn't have been in bad shape.
And said manager is probably saying much the same, thinking he (she) had to serve as "Ringmaster" to keep all the Bozos, other clowns , and wild animals in line . . .
Have you ever read F.H. Howard's article from Trains in the 1980's titled "The Way It Was" about his time as a yardmaster for the CP ? It's good for a case of what you've got now. If you don't have it, I'll scan it and figure out a way to get it to you.
Last night was one of those nights that I wished I hired out with the circus. Probably be more professional.
Unbelievable what passes as a manager anymore.
Carl - I was sorting through the pictures we use with our 'show kit' and ran into one that might interest you.
I have no idea what happened to the car. I don't believe it's on our line anywhere any more.
The 705 was L&N 14, then Hercules Powder. The last actual NYC SW1 was 704.
Gee Carl, that was quite the tour you gave. Perhaps if you get too bored in retirement you might start up a little money-making venture: Train tours around Chicago. Get yourself a nice minivan for your customers (with maybe a moonroof for photo ops) and you'd be all set.
Today I welcomed three church members into my world for the day. At our church's annual auction last month, I offered a day of train-watching (including lunch and gas). One person bought it (for a steal, it turns out), and invited two guests, one of which drove, taking a fantastic load off me, particularly since he had an idea of what I wanted to do.
We saw little while going around the EMD plant at McCook, then heading down I-55 between the premier passenger route of the past (ATSF) and the route of the future (CN's portion of the Chicago-St. Louis route, which will eventually be upgraded to higher speeds). Little seen along the Skyway, and nothing seen going through at Griffith (one train headed toward us from the east on the former GTW, but stopped and doused lights before it even got close).
From Griffith it was on to Porter, where we saw two westbound Amtrak trains on the Michigan line (giving no clue at all about how fast they had been going within a mile or so of the place), A westbound pulled up on the Water Level Route and stopped short of Chesterton until the second Amtrak disappeared, then he came through--a train of empty crude-oil tanks. Whoever told me that crude is being shipped in 30000-gallon tank cars nowadays is absolutely correct!
We then went to Michigan City, taking a drive down the street where South Shore trains still ride, before going to lunch at Swingbelly's (the old NYC station in Michigan City). Our good view of Lake Michigan from the waiting dining room was blocked by, of all things, a train! Two SouthShore GP38-2s had just pulled a few cars off the Amtrak main line and into the clear on what must be a connecting track between Amtrak and the SouthShore's tracks by the NIPSCO power plant.
CSX was somewhat busy when we caught it west of Gary after seeing only a couple of NICTD trains on the SouthShore line up to then. We passed a train of coal gons from Michigan City (no wonder the yard there was so empty!) and met a manifest not too far away from State Line. We were headed to Dolton Junction, which was once the busiest hot spot in Chicagoland. Today, it was the story of our life: the only move through was three light UP units going back to Yard Center from Barr Yard. And CSX and IHB had held trains out that didn't so much as wiggle while we were there.
We then crossed over and went to Blue Island, which looked at first like it wasn't going to be much better. But we had a manifest from the west, a stack train from out of Barr Yard, and a manifest out of Barr Yard up the line into the city. Just as we were leaving, a welded-rail train (C&O style, using cut-down gons instead of flat cars), complete with a caboose on the end, shoved out toward the crossing, then went back in. While we were there, two Metra trains went by on the Rock Island District line, above the other proceedings.
Feeling a little disappointed at the lack of trains seen per hot spot, we went toward home. But then I decided to play the ace up my sleeve, and took the tour into Proviso. We watched one of the young kids I trained once (now pretty high on the seniority list) do his job for a while, and swung around to check out some of the power at the diesel ramp. It was at Proviso that I had my sighting of the day: Gensets are invading the hump! UPY 888 and another six-axle, three-engine unit were sitting behind the hump tower. The CRO we visited said that they are extremely quiet and powerful, but they don't always work right, yet.
I think our trip to the yard redeemed it for us. It did for me, anyway--it was the first time I'd been into the yard in about a year and a half. A few things have changed, but an awful lot appears to be about the same as always. 'Twas a nice place to visit, but I don't think I'd want to spend 40 hours a week there any more!
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