Smoke, sparks, fire & scary noises.

[Randy Stahl]

I just got my BA-6 from the RR retirement board, as of june I now have 240 months on the railroad. Today I feel old. I thought I'd share some of my memories of the last 20 years.
It's been a rough week, this week I have been working on problem locomotives. the ones that fail with the same cause over and over. The W.C. 6593 caught fire Sunday while I was testing it (at least the problem presented itself) it wasn't a major repair and as far as I know the engine is running fine today. Well goota go to work....
Randy

[TrainFreak409]

Man, they got you good. Who knew railroad technicians could pull of such a wonderful prank? How did that make you feel?

[8]TrainFreak409[8]

PS. I wish I had some interesting stories to tell

[Randy Stahl]

When I started my career on the railroad I was an 18 year old kid. I knew alot of Railroad people and decided I wanted to be a locomotive electrician. To me they seemed like the guys eveyone went to with a problem, it didn't matter if you had locomotive problems or woman problems everybody went to see the electricians. As a brand new electricians helper I was assigned to stick with a journeyman, the first order of buisness was to get the new kid on track with the whole RR safety thing, so I was told story after story about how other railroaders were killed or maimed. I was terrified . By the end of the first week I had learned how to clean parts and I was glad I didn't have to work on any locomotives, I thought I could just clean parts forever and stay alive. The scariest story of all involved the Fairbanks Morse switch engines, I was told how some poor electrician opened the main electrical cabinet and a blue ball of fire came uot of the cabinet and snuffed him out right in front of the engineer, so the very next week I was asked to assist with a FM I was ready to meet my maker. About 11:00 PM we walked out to the service tracks, I could see the ominous Fairbanks, guys were working on the engine getting it ready to go to work. As I got up to the locomotive I was remembering the terrible stories,( I really didn't want to go near it) As my coworkers began cranking the engine over the engine started to come to life when suddenly KABOOM all hell broke loose , I took off running like the world was ending, I ran until I realized I was the only one running away. As I turned back toward the locomotive my coworkers were rolling around on the ground laughing, I was set up! The locomotive was behaving normally.
Randy