Karl,
To answer your question. I was a student engineer starting in Jan. of 79
working with Leroy Swan. I had made a few trips with him to Savanna before
making my last trip on #5 and #6 to Galesburg. Not much happened the first
month as a student. Students usually ( depending on who your Engineer was)
never began running until after they came back from the training center (in
St Paul at that time), so you watched what the engineer did and followed
along on your map of the C&I to learn the territory.
I can't find my timeslips for these trips on Amtrak, but we did have two
SDP40F's on both #5 & #6. The trip to Galesburg on #5 was in darkness and was
uneventful as I recall. Upon arriving in Galesburg, we were bedded down in
another fine establishment (Roadstar Inn) that the RR always sends their
employees too. I remember waking up the next morning and calling the crew
office on the status of #6, only to be informed that it was running a couple
of hours late due to the heavy snows.
I finally got the call for #6 and when I get to the depot I'm going home
with Jimmy Owens, one of the fastest (if you believe the rumors) runners on
the Mainline. We climb into the cab and it isn't long before we depart
Galesburg and Jimmy has them up to speed. With my camera in hand I took
pictures of this trip as best I could. With the way those SD's rocked at
speed it's a wonder how we never left the rails. It was quit a sight to come
rolling into a town after the plows had been over the crossing and hit a snow
drift at speed only to have all the snow from both lanes fly up and
completely cover the windshields. When this happened any sunlight that
filtered thru the clouds was now blocked and the cab would go dark until the
windshield wipers could catch up and clear a spot to observe the track
ahead. To make matters worse, this snow also clogged the horns and it wasn't
to long before they were inoperative.
Being the student you were low man on the crew totem pole, so you got the
jobs no one wanted. I got the privilege of climbing onto the nose of our
locomo - tive to clear the snow from the horns while we were being held at
Montgomery for traffic. Colder than the proverbial well digger's *** and here
I go hammer and fusee in hand to clear the horns. It didn't take me long and
I was back in the cab, but it took longer to thaw Me out than it did the
horns. The rest of the trip was uneventful and I left for 3 weeks of
training in St. Paul the next day on the Builder.
Gary O.
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