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Backing Up a Train
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<P>A couple of years ago I was personally on a reverse move of almost 20 miles on the Amtrak's eastbound Empire Builder. If any of you recall, as it made the national news, the Builder hit a snow bank in a blizzard east of Williston and annulled at Minot. The rest of the story was that after hitting the snow bank we were instructed by the dispatcher to back up all the way to Williston. The conductor with a flashlight stood at an open door of the rear car and directed the movement. With basically whiteout conditions, he couldn't see much, but traffic at crossings was not a problem since no one was out in these extreme conditions. After sitting at Williston for over 2 hours the BNSF snow removal crew arrived from Minot. Members of the crew boarded our train to deadhead back to Minot. They told us that the drift was over a 1000 ft long and as high as 20 feet. With the strong winds a cut had been filled quickly with the blowing snow. After arriving in Minot, the train was annulled and Amtrak put us up in motels for the night.</P> <P>Another reverse move I was involved with was at the Sacremento convention of the National Railway Historical Society. Our feather river trip that was supposed to be pulled by 3985 but had been substituted with a lone UP diesel. On our return trip vandals had stacked rocks between the rails at a grade crossing and the fuel tank of our locomotive was ruptured. A crew member was able to drive a wood block into the hole stopping the large leak. We were then instructed to reverse move to a yard about 3 miles back to exchange engines for the remainder of the trip</P> <P> </P>
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