Kid-in-the-Cab

[Sonofahoghead]

As you can see by my post count I am quite a junior contributor to the message board community here, so I am hoping that this post is appropriate to the forum.

 

I’ve been keeping a life journal since my teens which I still add to regularly, and below is a past entry I came across that I thought y’all may get a kick out of.  The creation and journal entry date was 1992, though the events of the story happened in... I’m guessing around 1967 or so.  I am now 61.

 

Intro:  My father was an engineer for the Union Pacific from post-war 40’s thru 1969.  He began his career in Challengers and Big Boys on the Wasatch run between Ogden, Utah and Green River, Wyoming, and died (at age 50) just as the UP 6900 series locomotives (DD40AX) were being rolled out.  He also served as a Union Pacific liaison with the BLE

 

When the story took place I was only around 12 years old, so my specific nomenclature description memories may not be prefect; hence, I am hoping that someone(s) here can enlighten or steer me toward more information on the particular locomotive model at issue since I cannot seem to find much on them today.  Secondly, feel free to muse and comment on how the times have changed, since any crew member who dare take (sneak) their kid onboard mainline locomotives as often as my dad did with me (both freight and passenger) would today not only lose their job and credentials, but probably face some sort of nanny-type criminal prosecution as well.  Sure makes me glad that I grew up when I did.  Hope you like the story.

 

“Whirlybird”

 The Union Pacific had a very small number of prototype/experimental locomotives in the mid-to-late 60’s that were [supposed to be] the cutting edge in the future of light, efficient and economic railroading.   They were called “Whirlybirds”; a nickname derived from giant engine cooling fans that were vertically oriented and positioned directly behind the cab.  The diameter of the fan blades was probably around six feet across, and they would come on intermittently per thermostat control.  Since the bulkhead partition wall between the fans and the rear of the cab was only a few inches thick,  the fans were very noisy.  Quite annoying, actually.

 

 These locomotives where also strangely shaped.  More like a commuter unit than a mainliner.  Where the nose on a typical locomotive extends for several feet in front of the cab (there’s a whole little room in there), the nose on the Whirlybirds was flat.  Very flat.  And while the windshields on a typical locomotive do not give the cab’s occupants a forward view around the nose much closer than about 20 feet in front of the train, the Whirlybird windshields, with no nose up front, were the leading face of the unit; large and panoramic, with a sweeping view that placed the whole world right there in your lap at 80 mph.. leaving engine crews with a phantom-feeling of exposure and vulnerability.  Just a weird duck all around.

 

 We left Evanston, Wyoming at around 10:00 AM, westbound to Ogden, Utah.  You may notice on weather reports sometimes that Evanston is the coldest spot in the country.  They’re right.  On this morning the temperature was probably around zero with winds gusting to 70 mph or more in bright sunshine.  When conditions like that arise, the semi trucks on Interstate 80 usually stack up in Evanston rather than to fight the raging winds across the edge of the Wasatch run.. but not the trains.. they just keep rolling.. and on we went.. with a Whirlybird up front.. Unit #34.. Dad at the throttle with fireman George and I in the left seats.  I was only 12.

 

 In hindsight, it cracks me up when I hear warm climate folk speak about powder snow.  The ski reports in California like to call it “packed powder”.  What.. huh??  No such thing.  At that point they may as well call it slush.  Real powder snow has a consistency similar to that of tiny styrofoam packing beads.  Each flake frozen and suspended individually.  It is impossible to pack it into a snowball as the snow will simply puff from your hands like fluttering pillow feathers.  Now, combine a vast abundance of that type of crystal-dry snow with a 70 mph wind on a clear day you get what I like to call a “sunny day blizzard”.

 

 As we progressed across the open, rolling plains of southwest Wyoming, the lightweight engine swayed through the wind on its truck springs like a boat on high seas with sweeping snow glancing over the surface of those gaping windshields in a granular manner much like dry sand in a desert dust storm.  The visibility was zip; though each time we would pass into a brief lull in the wind and its horizontal-blowing snow, a brilliant daylight would open up to expose nothing but a bright, white carpet in front of our flat, speeding nose; the tracks completely covered.  A short distance ahead would be the next torrent of snow barreling across the tracks from left-to-right.  We would enter into each one much like hitting a waterfall on a bicycle, and emerge out of each one feeling the rear-pull of the wind rippling the cars behind us, causing a whipping motion up front in that tin-can-excuse for a locomotive.

 

 As an excited youngster I felt invincible on this massive sled of steel-- though to the experienced engineman this escapade was a becoming quite removed from anything resembling a safe and sane experience.

 

 No one on that train ever forgot that day.  Just when we thought we had it bad on the point, my uncle, a brakeman, my dad’s brother, was back in the crummy.  He called up front on the radio.  Though his voice sounded troubled, the ridiculously loud engine fans had kicked on and, in addition to the deafening roar of the outside wind, it was impossible to hear a word of what he was saying.  A few miles later he made contact again and finally conveyed that the wind was tearing the caboose’s roof away and that they were freezing their tails off back there.  I remember my dad hanging up the microphone and kind of getting a chuckle out of it saying, “What does he think we’re going to do.. stop and fix it?”, so he called him back and laughingly told him to stuff a seat cushion into the hole.

 

 Upon our arrival in Ogden we found that the “hole” was actually about half of the roof forward of the cupola, and the caboose interior was loaded-- no, make that packed-- with snow.  Much worse than we thought it would be.  Just a bad day for all involved.. though quite memorable for a wide-eyed kid on one hell of a ride.

 

 In the end, as I recall, I  think the general consensus of any engine crew who were ever begrudgingly forced to lay a hand on a Whirlybird would agree that the whole project would have been much better served if these units had instead been relegated as hostler goats in some distant Soviet rail yard or, better yet, sunken somewhere as an artificial reef.  I don’t think they were around for very long.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Based on the description of the cab, I would guess that the locomotive in question was a U50. 

[BaltACD]

[Mookie]

That is still one very big engine....

[tree68]

Mookie

That is still one very big engine....

Like the DD35(), DD40(), and C855, it was really two locomotives on one frame. 

[Sonofahoghead]

BaltACD... yep, that's the one.  Thank you for posting the picture.  It was so far back in memory that I don't remember it being that long and solid-sided of a unit.  Maybe that's why it was catching and reacting to so much high crosswind on the morning when I rode on it.  What I do remember for sure is the that old man and others on his route absolutely hated it (for whatever reasons) and wished it gone... though perhaps my story gave it less credit than it deserves as maybe it performed better on other routes.  Thanks again for posting the picture!

[Sonofahoghead]

CSSHEGEWISCH.. yes, after researching the designation number you mentioned, the U50 is indeed the unit in question.  I have read up on it a bit and found that the SP was not much satisfied with their three U50s and largely kept them sidelined, but that the UP had twenty-three of them and were probably hence compelled to make more consistent use.  Thanks for the info!

[BaltACD]

tree68

 

Mookie

That is still one very big engine.... 

Like the DD35(), DD40(), and C855, it was really two locomotives on one frame.  

And in looking at the picture of the locomotive it should have been named the BB+BB 50 - as their appear to be two 4 axle trucks under each end of the carbody.

[tree68]

BaltACD

And in looking at the picture of the locomotive it should have been named the BB+BB 50 - as their appear to be two 4 axle trucks under each end of the carbody.

I could look it up, but off the top of my head, the U50 with the four B trucks was the U50B.  Some later versions had two C trucks - and thus came the U50C

If memory serves me correctly, the B trucks may have come from ALCO's.

[seppburgh2]

Thanks for sharing!

[NorthWest]

The four-trucked B+B-B+B units were simply U50s and had trucks reused from UP GTELs. This supply ran out and GE used C-C trucks for the U50Cs. Neither class was completely succesful.