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The north end has been the usual pain in the gluteus this past week. One of the high water marks was the IHB's Closing of the Door Incident. Now I thought I was the only one blessed with this bad luck thing, but as it turns out I am in good company.
The Incident unfolded in an innocent way. I was piloting the good ship Latta and all was well. Trains were moving with some resemblance of order, the work was being accomplished with a certain degree of proficiency, and I was in general a happy kind of fellow. Not as happy if I would have won the Powerball or something like that, but nonetheless stills pretty much OK.
So I'm sprawled out in "The Chair" ingesting Twinkies and Ho-Ho's and pretty much taking in the subtleties of life when my phone rings. So I answer in the customary cheerful manner. It was the UP dispatcher in Omie-haw. He was somewhat agitated.
"The Harbor isn't taking your train."
These were the first utterances out of his mouth. I still didn't know who it was. Maybe it was the IRS looking for me by using trickery and deception. Maybe it was Ed McMahon presenting me with the Publisher's Clearing House check and was just having a little fun. As my pea sized brain processed the information and was contemplating a response, the man from Uncle (Pete, that is) repeated himself.
"This is the UP dispatcher in Omaha. The IHB says they won't take your Z452 (the CSX and UP symbol for a 241). He's sitting on my main at Beecher. Get a recrew."
Now the brain and its one cell fire up. THIS is something I can understand. But wait, Batman. Something is amiss in Gotham City. I had talked to the third trick guy and he assured me the train was OK. Now this thing is dead in the water. So I inquire as to the circumstances surrounding this unfortunate demise.
"Well, it seems those #$@%* at the IHB decided they had too many trains and are not accepting any more until some of them leave their rails. How's that for some %$#@**! It must be nice to just be able to say no and close the door like that."
Geez, I hope he doesn't kiss his mom with that mouth. But on the other hand, he's right. I don't know of any other road that will just shut off traffic like that without so much as a warning.
"So how bad is it?" I inquire.
"Well, I have 7 of my trains waiting in line and now I don't have anywhere to go with them. The CSX has something like 7 also in line, I have 2 GTW's waiting, and your north guy. Not a pretty picture."
"Yea, sounds kinda messy."
"Oh, and that isn't the half of it. The Corridor Manager keeps on calling the trains. I have something like 5 more inbound and now I start looking for places to hold them. I am about two trains away from being completely sewn up. But hey, sew me up and I can go read the paper, right?"
"Sounds good to me!"
"So what do we do with your train?"
"I say dump it on the Harbor."
"I tried that. They say absolutely no way."
"OK, where can you put him away where he will be out of the way for a while. I don't have a rested crew for about 4 hours, then the 2 hour call, and then something like 3 more hours for the taxi ride."
There was one of those frustrated pauses.
"OK, I'll take him to the Rock Pile in Thornton. Send the recrew there."
"You got it."
Imagine that! Being able to just say no to all of the other railroads. Well, my curiosity fires up and I decide to call the IHB to find out the real poop. Sometimes these things are infighting between the other roads and we get caught in the middle. As I am attempting to get through, I talk to the planner on the block line and explain the situation. He now enters a low to medium orbit. There was a more or less consistent stream of expletives coming from his mouth. Gee, maybe he worked for the UP as well. There were references made to their mother's sexual preferences, their bodily orifices, something about having intercourse in the gluteus region, and so on. I think the average reader of this column now can sort of get the general picture.
Now this is over the block line so it gets out to anybody on the line, specifically Van Yard, the Division Manager, Latta Yard's crew room, and so on. Well, I can't get through to these fine folks so I go about my business with the intent on calling back later. About an hour later I finally get through and attempt to ascertain the exact cause of this train's motion problem.
"I already told you guys I have tracks out of service and can't move anything until some of these guys give me track back. Call back later."
And with that he hangs up on me. I guess it's the IHB's brand of railroad sophistication that really turns me on to them. Yup, the Incompetent Hauling Baboon strikes again. And they really know how to screw up a movement. But then again they have had plenty of chances to perfect their technique. And perfect it they have. Come to find out later that our Planner got into a REAL good "discussion" with their chief about such matters as operating practices, liability for late trains, and so on. Of course this kind of frosts my cake since he never mentions this to me so when I call their chief innocently looking for some time frame for movement, he bites my head off in a relatively efficient manner (at least they could do something efficiently). If it sound like I'm picking on the IHB, I guess the part that really disturbs me is that they are a micro speck and yet they try to carry on with the arrogance of the bigger roads. I hope the CP moves off the Harbor and on to, say, the J or the Belt. And I would like to see other roads do the same as well. Maybe then biting the hand that feeds will be a thing of the past.
The coal traffic has slacked off a bit, which is sort of nice since it gives us some much needed relief. It is the transition from the winter heating season to the summer cooling season that makes for this down turn of sorts. The XL has been running like usual, but the Maysville Turns and the other odd turns have come back down to earth.
However, to make up for this we now get the "Bomb Train". This is a series of moves from Seneca NY to Crane via Conrail and the Soo Line of explosives that were stored at the arsenal at Seneca. Turns out, Seneca is closing and Crane gets the nod for storing these goodies. The trains consist of 20 to 50 loaded COFC cars. The Conrail delivers them to us at Preston and we take them to Crane for unloading. The power is sent back to the Conrail right away. The loads typically arrive on Saturday, and the empties depart on Wednesday. We have seen 2 of these moves so far, with a total of 6 expected. It's kinda neat to see blue SD60Is come by the tower.
There is also a certain sense of, oh, shall we say, nervousness. I mean, when the billing for EACH car is about 4 pages long and talks about such things as Mass Explosion Hazard, Imminent Danger Due to Metal Shrapnel, and so on, I become just a little concerned. I haven't seen anything like Danger: VX or some other kind of chemical weapon so I feel a little relieved that it will only level the tower from the blast and not kill every living thing in a 5 mile radius. And as these containers roll by, I'm sort of glad that they're going somewhere far from my "Closet in the Sky".
In other news, the coal traffic to the Belt at 80 th Street has been doing relatively well, as well as the traffic to the IMRL. We have run several of the Muscatine 785 symboled trains. Actually, these symbols really don't mean so much any more as to final destination as they mean to railroad. And these trains are big and heavy, which makes for some interesting times on the Latta Sub.
But otherwise the week has been somewhat quiet. I have been working a 3rd shift vacation vacancy, and the Hoot Owl Shift is most definitely for the birds (nice pun, hey). I have been so out of whack with sleep and so on that I haven't had time to do much else. But tonight I took the old lap top to the Pizza Inn on Davis Avenue and decided to catch up on a little work. Thankfully the place is really dead and they don't mind my incursion into their establishment.
One of the danger zones on this sub is between Crane and Bedford. This area is mostly rock, and when it rains the water can't soak in like normal ground. Instead, it tends to run off the cuts and down the embankment towards the White River. Our customary procedure is to monitor the rainfall closely, and if we get more than about an inch or so we call out the track inspectors to patrol for washouts and so on. So just this last Tuesday it rained like a banshee, and I was concerned about runoff in this area. The storms were more or less localized cells of activity, and so it's hard to predict if the area in question got the rainfall necessary to be a problem.
Now, I have this 636 Sutherland to Louisville potash train coming into Latta with something like 124 cars. He has to reduce to 55 potash and then migrates south. So he reduces nicely and then requests a ticket south. The Safetrans CDRC II chimes to life on the Latta base.
"CP Indiana Dispatcher Latta Radio, over."
"Dispatcher, this is the CP 5414 ready for a ticket south, over."
"Roger, CP 5414 South ready to depart Latta. Say, before I give you the ticket can I get a markup, over."
"Roger. We will be departing Latta with 55 loads, 0 empties, 7050 on the tons, and you can show us about 3000' long, over."
"55-0-7050 and 3000 on the footsies, over."
"That is correct, and ready to copy, over."
"Make it track warrant 7014, May 20 1998, to CP 5414 South at Latta. Check line number 2, proceed from South Yard Limit Latta to CSX Connection Switch Bedford on Main track. Track warrant 7014 is issued with 1 line checked, line number 2, dispatcher MRD, over."
"Track warrant 7014 May 20 1998 to the CP 5414 South at Latta. Line number 2 is checked, proceed from South Yard Limit Latta to CSX Connection Switch Bedford on Main track. 7014 is issued with 1 line checked, line number 2, MRD, over."
"Track warrant 7014 with 1 line checked, line number 2 is OK at 618, MRD, over."
"7014 with 1 line checked line 2 OK 618 MRD, over"
"Roger, and when you get past Elnora if you could please give me some track back I have a Maysville that would like to come north, over."
"Roger, give some track back at Elnora, over."
"That is correct. Also, be on the lookout between Crane and Bedford for the possibility of water on the rails and be prepared to stop short, over."
"Roger, be on the lookout between Crane and Bedford for water and be prepared to stop, over."
"That is correct. Have a safe trip. CP Indiana dispatcher out."
"CP 5414 out."
So this guy begins the trek to Louisville. He has something like 7 hours to work and the world is looking pretty good. So I go about my business. About 2 hours later the Bedford radio comes to life. Gee, I wonder, that 636 really made some good time. So I answer.
"CP Indiana Dispatcher Bedford radio, over."
"Dispatcher, this is the CP 5414 South. We're at milepost 249.4 and we have a tree across the rails. It's a pretty big one, maybe 2 or 3 foot in diameter and we can't get by it. What do you want to do, over?"
I look at the milepost. He's past the last siding and really in the middle of nowhere.
"Roger, understand you have a big tree down across the rails at milepost 249.4. Is that correct, over."
"Yes, that is correct, over."
"Can you use the unit to push it out of the way without damaging anything, over."
"No, the tree is actually lying across the top of Doman's Cut and is about 8 or 9 feet in the air. If we attempt to move it will come into the cab, over."
"Roger. OK, hang tight while I get the section notified and see if they can get out there in a timely fashion, over."
"All right, we'll wait here, over."
"Thank you. CP Indiana dispatcher out."
"CP 5414 out."
Geez, if it isn't one thing it's another. Call the Communications Control Center and inform them to get the section and their chain saws out of bed and go whittling. So I guess I felt good about giving them a heads up but now the problems begin. Why can't anything be easy?....
The south end has become congested again, as the CSX has been rerouting trains from Cincinnati to Louisville because of track work. Oh joy! So now we play the nightly CSX-NS Move-A-Train Sweepstakes. Behind door number 1 we have the NS not really wanting to waste a yard crew to make up this 241 train. Behind door number 2 we have the CSX not wanting to move anything over 1000' long since it makes meets hard to deal with. And behind door number 3 we have a Latta Sub Planner that needs the train in Latta for the power. And guess who loses on this deal? I should just buy a shirt with a big target so everyone knows for sure who to kick when things go bad.
The INRD has been settling in rather nicely. One nice thing is that their jobs are really predictable and easy to understand. They really don't change too much from day to day. The problem is that they really don't have any sidings of any appreciable length to meet trains, so moves go from yard to yard and that's about it. Couple that with the 10 and 12 mph slow track and moves take forever to complete. Otherwise, though, I have no complaints.
Power:
Van Yard Engine: SOO 4405
Farmersburg power: CP 5797 - 5860 - 5722
Maysville power: SOO 4648 - 4445
Kindill power: SOO 4601-4603-4442
XL power: CSXT 8144 - 8360 - CP 6409
Road Switcher power: SOO 4509 - 4443
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Editorial content (C) 1998 Mike Dettmers
