As a pretty firm rule road crews would walk their trains in the initial
terminal before departing (at least on the Aurora Div when Carmen didn't run
the initial air test). This applied to Cicero,Eola,Sv,Mendota,etc. Generally
while the head man brought the units from the house the rear man walked up
one side and then to the w/c on the other just looking things over and
knocking off handbrakes.
One day at Sv we were ordered for an extra long local east and the yard
engine crew assured us the only handbrakes were on the rear car next to the
w/c so Zab and I voted for a ride to the w/c instead of the walk down from
the yard office. We found the brake on the car and knocked it off and placed
one on the hack. Jerry tied onto the head end and pumped air but before we
could try the brakes "farmer" asked us to shove back in the clear to allow
somebody to pull into an adjacent trk. So Jerry shoved back and then after
the other guy had cleared at the East end he pulled up onto the lead in front
of the yard office.We couldn't get enough air to set the brakes so Zab and I
started walking up looking for a broken air hose or bad gasket in a glad
hand. We found 6 cars on the ground w/partially broken trainlines. We
couldn't tell for sure if they were on the ground before or after our little
shuffle to clear the other guy. If we had walked the train we would have been
able to clear that mystery.As info we never heard another word about that
little mishap either. Leo
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