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)
Deer do tend to make a heck of a mess to semi trucks. About 10 years ago when I worked on them, had one that came into our shop after plastering one in ND, making a mess of the drivers' side of the tractor. No real damage, other than we had to straighten the front bumper a bit. We had to pull it outside after about a half hour, the smell made it's way to the front office (this was in middle of winter). We kidded the husband and wife team for a bit, the wife was driving at the time. With all the fiberglass on semis now, a simple deer hit can result in a full radiator pack changeout, front end is not as strong as when you had those big Texas bumpers on the older trucks....
Pretty quiet on the train front this weekend, though St Gobain Container had extra cars on site due to the holiday. Noticed CN is using a widecab SD70-type engine on the Vulcan gravel trains, usually pointed north. It's not an SD45, but it's got flares.....
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
About a year and a half ago, a great-nephew of mine was driving from Baton Rouge to Memphis--and hit a deer on the Interstate. I never did hear just how the whole thing came out, but he was, for a time at least, without transportation.
Johnny
CShaveRR Perhaps the biggest thrill was humping (halfway-humping, anyway, so power could handle them) a block of nine cars--five RBLs for spacers, and four depressed-center cars, each with at least ten axles and weighing at least 280 tons. The loads were huge engine/generator sets--probably slightly wider than the 10'8" clearance gauge and at least as tall as an auto rack, each shrink-wrapped in white opaque plastic. Once the Clearance Bureau okays them, they will head west out of here to San Diego. The UP will handle them as far as Barstow.
Carl, I saw your loads today going west. I was off duty and we went over to Boone to get some groceries. The train was stopped at the yard office for the crew change.
It wasn't the loads or the depressed center flats that first caught my attention. It was the two flats (there were more, but I couldn't see them at the time) loaded with Abrams tanks right ahead of them that I saw first. Then I saw the shrink-wrapped loads.
When we came out, it was still there and left town at the same time we did. I didn't waste any time getting home, but didn't break any traffic laws. With the new high bridge, it doesn't (usually) take very long for the westbounds to get to Ogden.
We pulled up to the First Street crossing just as the gates came down. Watched a local guy go around the gates before the train came. When it went by it had four cars of Army vehicles, one armored recovery vehicle and seven tanks, then the nine car block. Something you don't see every day. Then we went home and I mowed the lawn.
Jeff
One of IC's SW7RMs got loose and was found in Neenah, WI today by yours truly.
Finally had a camera and time trackside. CN cooperated and sent 5 trains my way in just over an hour. Not too bad! Most of the rest of the shots are engine roster type shots...so I won't bother to post them, but the switcher was different. I wonder where it's going.
Dan
CShaveRR One thing we're seeing over the past couple of days is embargoed traffic with Mexico destinations. With the Rio Grande at historic flood levels, not much can get across the border. I guess a second tropical storm (Bonnie?) has hit Mexico after Alex dealt Texas and Mexico a good blow.
One thing we're seeing over the past couple of days is embargoed traffic with Mexico destinations. With the Rio Grande at historic flood levels, not much can get across the border. I guess a second tropical storm (Bonnie?) has hit Mexico after Alex dealt Texas and Mexico a good blow.
"Tropical Depression Two" never reached tropical storm strength, so the name Bonnie is still out there, waiting for the next tropical storm. If this hurricane season lives up to expectations, the wait shouldn't be long.
Willy
CShaveRRWe have an archaic payment system of "miles", which seem to be documented more closely than days (or hours) worked, etc., for vacation eligibility. For what it's worth, today was the day that I passed one million lifetime miles.
DeggestySay, Carl, how many miles do you travel in a day in your tower?
- Paul North.
CShaveRR We have an archaic payment system of "miles", which seem to be documented more closely than days (or hours) worked, etc., for vacation eligibility. For what it's worth, today was the day that I passed one million lifetime miles.
In the near future I may get the opportunity to start keeping track of my "mileage" starting at 1, I will know more by the next two weeks.
Ditto what Dan said- also, let me know if that perishable will be hitting CR during daylight hours this weekend. I actually have some free time to get trackside for pictures.
//will be scrutinizing all posts by Dan, trying to figure out what he's up to...
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Congratulations on the million mile mark.
That mile calculation system is both archaic and arcane. In Irricana there was a situation my Dad never could figure out, but he never asked anybody because he didn't want to look like he was causing anybody any trouble.
Irricana was a "Division Point" because it was the junction of the Langdon and Irricana Sub's. (mostly abandoned in the early seventies) This meant that the train crew received the equivalent of twenty minutes worth of miles the moment they arrived. Depending on the line up of the consist and how much they had to shuffle things around before they could spot cars at the elevator's, they got more miles if it took more than twenty minutes. If no switching was needed they still got the twenty minutes, and the train stood there. The crew and my Dad just had a nice chat.
Being a branch line, the NB trains arrived any time between 11:30 and 2:00 depending on how long it took them to get out of the yard in Calgary and how much switching they had to do before they got to Irricana. But here is where it got strange. It apparently was to the crew's advantage to leave Irricana and go 5 miles further to Beiseker to take beans, and earn even more miles. Dad never could figure out how being stopped in Irricana or Beiseker should make a difference.
Except for Irricana's Division Point status, both towns had two elevators, one back track and a manned station. And from the local residents we knew that one town had no advantage over the other from a culinary standpoint. This secret bit of knowledge seemed to be passed down from crew to crew as it never changed the whole time we were there. Very peculiar, and the reason probably lost to the annals of history.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
Bruce,My guess is it has something to do with mileage from a home terminal or something going back to the days of steam. But that's just me.
Back from a written test a couple of hours ago. Went pretty well...got "field trips" planned for at least two days this week, then maybe one more, then maybe a phone call...we'll see...
How much extra pay was involved? Since they were running thru a division point, it could be a penalty payment for doing it. At Boone, we can change out anywhere within the Boone Switching limits. If engineers go outside of those limits, which occurs every so often, it's a claim for an 8hr penalty pay. It's one of those things that may not be paid right away, but eventually does get paid.
The conductors signed an agreement that allows them to go 25 miles out from the crew change point to get trains. They get 4 extra hours pay, no matter how long it takes.
Either one is only good when you are ordered to do so by the dispatcher. If you do it on your own, which happens once in a while, there is no claim. (To be nice, sometimes we'll offer to go a couple miles east of town to get a crew off. Usually it depends who the inbound crew is. If one of the crewmembers have in the past refused to come get us off, they're going to sit until they make it in, unless ordered to go get them.)
PS. I was going to write something else, but the wife wants to go see a train. Gotta go, never argue with the wife.
jeffhergert PS. I was going to write something else, but the wife wants to go see a train. Gotta go, never argue with the wife.
Carl, I have a slightly different mileage scale than you, but I figure I am either coming up on, or have passed, 400,000 miles driving truck. Another four to five years, and I can join the "million mile club".
Was at MillerCoors in Trenton, OH, last night, saw some taggers had a ball with a CSX plug-door box, sadly, no camera in truck this trip. Today, caught the back half of a southbound stack train headed for Cincy at Eaton, OH, then a few CSX jobs at Danville, IL.
Well, Uncle Milty is on the radio right now, so time to sit back and enjoy the comedy.......
CNW 6000My guess is it has something to do with mileage from a home terminal
Dan, I believe you got it. I got out my 1964 Alberta Division ETT and added things up. Irricana was 46.8 miles from Calgary and Beiseker was 52.1. So right in between you have that nice round 50.0 number.
What Jeff said got me thinking about terminals, division points, crew change points and home terminals. 1964 was the last full year that mixed trains roamed the grain branches of Alberta. That was a different world and definitely a different way to run a railway. And yet you would get fairly senior men on those jobs because they liked the regular work schedule and the same days off each week. I will give you an example
On Monday morning Mixed Train 712 left Calgary on the mainline for 10.2 miles before passing a Division Point at Shepard, left the mainline and went 10.4 miles to the next D.P. at Langdon, and on to Irricana. It continued up to East Coulee for a total of 114.9 miles of work that day. On Tuesday Mixed 714 left East Coulee, passed a D.P. at Rosemary and continued on to Bassano, back on the mainline, for a total of 70.9 miles. This looked like the shortest day of the crew's week but they had to switch a coal mine at East Coulee before they could hit the road. Wednesday they made a round trip from Bassano to Rainier, Mixed 716 & 715, traveling on the mainline to another D.P. at Cassils 24.1 miles east of Bassano, taking the Cassils Sub. to Rainier for a total of 94.6 miles.
Thursday Mixed 713 left Bassano up the Irricana Sub. to Irricana and then from there back to Calgary and home, for a total of 119.3 miles. Four days on the road, and with the exception of Drunheller (Monday) and Bassano with about a 1000 people each, they didn't go through another town of more than about 250 people.
Amazingly, with only a couple of several month breaks, the same man was conductor for the whole eight years we were at Irricana. It seemed the trainmen would stay on for several years at a time, with two of them working as conductors on this job as relief in later years. The engineers would rotate in and out for several months at a time. Only the firemen seemed to change regularly as they earned enough seniority to become engineers. One of those trainmen who became conductors would ask after my brother and me every time he saw my Dad until both of them retired in the mid-eighties.
In the 21st Century with the obvious exception of the two short mainline segments I mentioned, and a 36.5 mile portion of the Irricana Sub. from Bassano to Standard, every foot of CPR track that four day odyssey traveled is gone. And the Atlas Coal Mine at East Coulee is now a major tourist attraction.
It truly was another time.
In this morning's Tribune, Jon Hilkevitch wrote a column about rail crossings around Chicago that have had multiple car-train accidents. He writes,about the Nagle/Norwest and Avondale crossing.
In only the first three minutes that your Getting Around reporter was on the scene Friday, vehicles were observed stopped on the tracks waiting for a red traffic signal ahead to change. The situation repeated a half-dozen times in an hour, occurring under a bent, rusty sign posted over the crossing that warns, "Do not stop on tracks.
Just wondering.
Good Morning Gang,
Been awhile since I popped in here, so I thought I'd stop and say "Hi!"
I got out on Saturday and did a bit of railfanning. I even managed to bring out the film cameras. Since we've had a wet spring and early summer, it's actually on the greenish side around here. I decided that using some of my remaining Kodachrome could be invested in catching the "greens of summer."
Most of my remaining stash has been earmarked for other activities. I'm attending a yarn festival along the Hudson in October with my girlfriend, and so some of the Kodachrome will definitely be used for my first NE autumn. Additionally, one roll will be saved for the g/f herself. She's a redhead, and despite what Paul Simon said, Kodachrome is all about reds not greens.
I'd also like to use some of it in a vintage camera chasing ALCos. The original plan had been to shoot the A&M, but with trips to NYS in August and October, I don't think that'll be possible now. I did see that there are a lot of ALCos in NYS, though (see my other seperate post), so I'm hoping I can catch some of them. I really need to find an Argus C3 or a Kodak Retina or something along those lines soon, though!
Hope you all have a great week!
-ChrisWest Chicago, ILChristopher May Fine Art Photography"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration." ~Ansel Adams
CShaveRRsome of these guys hear what you say, but they sure don't listen to it
I found this when I was working as an accountant as well. I think it is the difference between knowing how to do a job and understanding why you do a job.
I realized early on that I could get all rev'ed up about it, but I think I found a better way to deal with it.. When things would slow down a bit, I would get them away to a quiet location and tell them anecdotes about why certain things got done in a certain way. I would use simple examples and then sort of lead them to the big problem that had just happened. If you could get the light bulb to just flicker it would get brighter later.
My father was a great story teller and I think that style worked well for me over the years.
One of these days we'll make it back that way, Carl. Unfortunately her schedule has her tied down pretty thoroughly, so she doesn't have much of a chance to venture out of her neck of the woods right now. That just means that I get to travel east and spend time exploring new parts of the world and filling in some of the huge expanses of white on my Counties Visited Map.
Congrats to you and Pat on your bike adventure! Sadly, I have yet to get either of my bikes out and tuned up this year. This week is kind of booked solid at the moment, but hopefully next week I can actually get them out, fix them up and start riding again. The scale tells me that would be a really good idea for me.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.