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The north end has been its usual messy affair, with relief crew upon relief crew called to take the trains to their destinations. The situation has eased up somewhat, with trains requiring only one or two relief crews instead of the customary 4 or 5. I still am amazed that none of the high level managers are really doing anything about this. If I were in that situation, I would be either screaming up a storm, negotiating an alternate routing for the trains, or perhaps entering into some kind of haulage agreement. In any case, nobody seems all that concerned. I guess if everyone is happy, then so am I. OK, now I can get down off my soap box and talk trains.
There have been an inordinately high number (so far) of unit coal trains coming out of here lately. I guess there must be some big tax refunds coming to some people, because they have been moving those dinosaur turds like they are going out of style. For instance, in the past 2 weeks we have given birth to 3 boat trains (780 symbols). These are usually land barges of the highest degree, being 120 cars long and usually falling somewhere in the 14,000 to 15,000 ton range. Usually these trains are powered by 4 or 5 big motors and once out on the road they take on the characteristics of high speed glaciers (race glaciers if you will).
I was looking on the loading sheet and I noticed another one of these glaciers ready to load at Hawthorn Mine (127 cars!). Coupled with the fact that there were also 100 Cayuga cars at Hawthorn, I would venture to guess that Hawthorn must have some kind of special going on. You know, like buy one ton get one ton free, possibly get a free oven mitt with a fill-up (of course, that would be the one I prefer, but that's just me).
Also making frequent sojourns north lately have been IMRL coal trains (785 symbols) which in the past were always Muscatine coal but I see this last one left with 102 for ADM, so go figure. Again, all of this tonnage makes things interesting on "The Little Branch That Could". The other day I had one of those boat trains at the hill getting ready to go. Now these trains are called boat trains because, mysteriously enough, when they arrive at Chicago they are loaded onto barges and delivered in that manner. They go right to Cal Park, so once you get one moving, it's a straight shot north. Getting them moving is the tough part. So I have this pig at the hill ready to go and I'm listening on the CSX, and I am slowly coming to the conclusion that this train is going against a lot of opposition and he has a snowball's chance in you know where of making it north. But I figure I'll take a chance on the CSX and see what happens. So I call him on the box and give him the dope on this thing.
OK, he says. Bring it on! What??!?!? OK! So this train gets out there and begins migrating north. Well, come to find out later that the CSX gets paid to move the trains based on ton miles, and the more tons they move, the more they make. So in pretzel logic fashion, the heavier trains usually get a better ride than the lighter ones all things being equal. Now once they get to the UP, it's another story. It seems they really don't care about tonnage. Speed seems to be the factor: how fast can they get off the railroad. One nice thing about the boat trains is that they are a straight shot north on the UP and he just lines them up and they are gone.
The division has been tight lately, with all of these unit train moves. Not horrifically mind you, but enough to make things interesting. Like I said, the mines have been going full bore and so have we. Most of the traffic has been coming out of Hawthorn and Farmersburg mines lately. The Gibson trains have been moving again with great regularity, usually on 100 car sets. I think this past week we have had something like 4 of them come out of Farmersburg destined for the ISRR at Beehunter for movement south. The coordination of these kind of moves is the tricky part, because when they leave Latta there is no siding big enough to hold them, so they HAVE to move.
Sometimes, the ISRR runs into problems and cannot meet us there at the required time, so things begin to back up and then the world becomes less fun. The other day I had the ISRR coming to me with 4 units, and the Gibson empties and some high cars. So what they do is cut the empties off on the main, continue on through with the high cars towards Rincon, then return with light engines to get any other cars to go south. So what will sometimes happen is one of the road switchers will grab the empties and shuttle them back to Latta, the Farmersburg train will then go south, cut off the train and sit on the Hawthorn leg at Beehunter. The ISRR will return, grab the loads, and depart. Good enough, when it works that is.
So here comes the ISRR with his 100 Gibson empties. He comes up to Beehunter, cuts off the train with his high cars and proceeds to depart towards Rincon. OK. Now the road switcher arrives, couples on to them and departs to Latta. OK. Now here comes the Gibson loads. He gets to Beehunter, cuts off the train, and ducks into the clear on the Hawthorn side. Great. Now the ISRR calls. Seems the power went belly up at Rincon and they don't know when they will get back to Beehunter. Great (that was the sarcastic great).
So here I have this glacier on the main blocking the whole world and they have no idea when it will move. Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that I had a 240 at Latta getting ready to come south. Not in the immediate picture but once a train stops and sits for a while it begins to cause problems. So I decide to break the news to the crew at Beehunter.
"CP Indiana Dispatcher to 59's train the CP 5789, over."
"CP 5789, over."
"Well, just got a call from the ISRR and I guess that power that was coming to get those loads went belly up. They probably won't be back there for a couple of hours if we're lucky, over."
There was a long silence. Happiness was NOT flowing freely in that cab to be sure.
"So we're going to be here for a while. over."
"Well, I had one other idea. We could shove them to the Spencer and let the ISRR deal with it later, over."
This time an almost immediate response.
"OK, let's do it, over."
"All right. Let me do some negotiating and I'll be right back, over."
"Roger, standing by, over."
"Thank you. CP Indiana Dispatcher out."
So now the fun begins. I can't let this crew just sit idle while the ISRR WG-1 awaits repair. So I call the ISRR dispatcher in Carthage, Missouri. He balks at the idea, since that would box in his crew at Rincon. I tell him I can't have my crew sitting at Beehunter twiddling their thumbs either. He says he's working on getting some power to come up from Petersburg to get the loads, but that would still be a few hours. Not good enough, I say. Well, that's all he can do for now. OK. Fine.
About this time that road switcher that pulled the empties back is at Latta and calls me wanting to know how the loads are doing since he has to go back down to Linton and get Miller Creeks from the INRD. I tell him the story and he says OK, we'll shove those cars south of Beehunter to clear the plant and let this 59 out. OK I say, sounds good.
The other problem I have is that now the main is still blocked and 240 will need to migrate south towards Bedrock. HMMMM. Well, if he's going to send power from Petersburg, let's shove them to the Petersburg sub and do him a "favor". OK. let's do that. I'll have 59 get back on them, go to Elnora, cut off and clear the plant. Next, the road switcher will come in behind and shove them to the Petersburg and the problem will be solved.
So, I call their dispatcher back. Look, I'll do you a favor this time and shove them to the Petersburg so you can get them in a timely fashion. He says OK, but he's not really happy. Oh well. So we execute the plan and get the main clear. So everyone gets back to Latta and 240 is ready to go south. He caught a little delay but nothing too bad. OK.
At about this time the ISRR calls me and tells me he's ready to come to back from Rincon! Well, do I have news for you! I tell him to stand by and get my 240 moving south. So he's rolling across the Indiana countryside happy as a clam because he knows I'm putting the screws to the ISRR big time. So he shows by Elnora and I call this ISRR. I tell him about the cars being on the Petersburg and, to top it off, the crew cut about 3 grade crossings so he's going to have to put the train back together again. I did not receive an enthusiastic response but hey, that's the way it goes. So I let him migrate south. As he's going through the switches at Elnora his unit goes belly up again! I'm sorry, but I just had to laugh at that one. It's a good thing that they died on their railroad and not mine. I have been on the receiving end of too many of those kind of situations and it sure is good so be on the giving end for a change.
The south end has been it's usual obtuse self. Trains have been moving with better results lately and that has made life a little easier for me.
The other night I was talking to the dispatcher while clearing up a train and I asked him where Sam has been. Sam was holding the afternoon trick on the CF. Well, he bid to another desk with better off days he tells me. OK. He goes on to tell me this story.
Now Sam is a wily old guy and has been around the block a few times. So the manager is walking around the "Circle of Doom" giving efficiency tests. This involves spot checks on your work and maybe a quick rules quiz. So he comes up to Sam and asks "What is the current managers circular?" Without missing a beat, Sam replies "Number 265". The manager is impressed. "Very good", and begins to walk away. He stops, looks at Sam and says "Wait a minute. Let me see the circulars book". So he looks it up. The current one is 206. He looks at Sam, Sam looks at him, and he just shakes his head and walks away. Two poker players trying to out-bluff each other.
Well, we've been dispatching the INRD for about a week now and I'm still alive thank goodness. It's been a real learning experience to be sure. We had taken our over the road trips about a month ago and now it comes time to use that knowledge and I'll tell you, things got real interesting. We were told there would only be something like 12-18 warrants per day. Second trick alone had 20! Couple that to the 20 or so we issue to our trains second trick and poor RLK looked like the floor of a taxi cab at the end of the night. I came in to assist him one afternoon and the phone and radios did not stop once from 1600 until 2000! Four straight hours of sheer terror. Not really a fun way to live. But I can't complain. They're going to add jobs here so I'll own a job out of this. Kinda nice. The talk is the desk might even be split with two dispatchers on first and second trick. Now that would be nice. But as with any talk, that's all it is and I'll believe it when I see it.
Power:
Hawthorn power: Rotating CSX units, so it changes daily...usually GP38's and GP40's
Maysville power: SOO 4603 - SOO 4648 - SOO 4443
Farmersburg power: CP 5789 - CP 5744 - CP 6402
Van Yard Engine: SOO 4442
Roadswitcher power: SOO 2036 - SOO 4445 and others
XL power: CP 5797 - CP 5411
Kindill power: SOO 4445 - HATX 402 - SOO 2041
Free Agents: CP 5409
INRD Power:
GE power: BLLI 1803 - 1735
CSX Power:
T501 Cayuga power: Rotating daily as noted above....
T540 Merom power: 2 GP40's with 2 road slugs in the middle
CR Power:
TH Switch: 7931
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Editorial content (C) 1998 Mike Dettmers
