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Ice

To: brhslist@egroups.com
Subject: Ice
From: qutlx1@a...
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 22:40:14 EST
Is there anything natural known to man harder than frozen earth or water? If 
you've read Stephen Ambrose recent work "Nothing Like it in the World" you 
are familiar with how the U.P. laid rails on the frozen Missouri to operate 
trains over.
One night working Eastbound on the C&I w/f we stopped on the main at the East 
end of Waterman to s/o an mty 40' box for seed corn loading at DeKalb Seed. 
Don't recall the month but there was plenty of white stuff on the ground. The 
mainline switch wasn't too difficult as train movements keep mainline 
switches relatively clean. The switch off the passing trk to the backtrack 
took a good deal of digging and sweeping to get thrown over. Now as we shoved 
back in the dark toward the loading dock the snow definitely was rapidly 
getting much deeper. So we flagged the movement to a stop. Walked ahead and 
beside what grew to be a six plus foot drift next to the building and on top 
of the rails. Knowing that 20 tons or so of mty boxcar would crush the snow 
and the end of the car would act as a plow we again signaled for the move to 
continue shoving west. All went well for a few feet as the car plowed a path 
through the drift. But then the West end of the car began to ascend to the 
point that the angle left no doubt that the West wheels were no longer in 
touch w/the rails but were supported only by ice/snow.So the stop sign was 
again waved by the lanterns.A quick conference determined that leaving the 
car resting at the 30 or so degree angle wasn't wise so a go ahead slow sign 
was issued. The car was ever so slowly pulled east until it again was level. 
A walk around was performed as best as could be done in the deep snow and 
using lanterns to determine that all wheels were back on the rails. A hand 
brake was secured and car left for another and warmer day/night.
Leo 

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