This should be of interest to Q fans, and is forwarded
with the permission of the person who posted it to the list
and Jack Haley, the author of the story.
Wes Leatherock
wleath@s...
On Mon, 22 Oct 2001, "Donald E. Harper, Jr" <harperd@t...>
wrote:
> All
>
> Jack Haley is a friend and former Galveston RR Museum board member and the
> instigator of the new model railroad. He is also the owner of all the
> locomotives and rolling stock in the display cases on the wall opposite the
> model railroad (for those of you who have visited the Museum) and the
> attached write ups refers to his finishing the discussions of the
> locomotives that are not yet on display. Jack worked on the UP, as did his
> father and grandfather. I thought you would enjoy this story (he has a
> million of them).
>
>
>
> Don Harper
> Texas A&M Marine Lab
> 5007 Avenue U
> Galveston, TX 77551
> 409/740-4540
>
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> Finally getting a "breather" this weekend, I went to bed early last night,
> got up at 4:00 am and spend three, quality hours in order to finish the
> attached write-ups.
>
> Now, I will share one story that you may want to incorporate some place
> (Dundee will love this story). I will entitle it "A head brakeman's TKO".
>
> In 1956, I was laid off the UP. I believe it was due to a steel strike. I
> immediately contacted the Lincoln, Nebraska Superintendent of the CB&Q for a
> job, as I was an "experienced" trainman. The Super, Ted Johnson, said,
> "Haley?....Haley?, are you any relation of Ed Haley?" When, I responded
> affirmatively that Ed Haley was my father, I was immediately hired and went
> to work out of the five way, Lincoln hub, without any student trips!
>
> [Johnson and my father had "checked cars" together for the Missouri Pacific
> in the Omaha yards in 1923 before they went their independent ways on the
> CB&Q and the UP, respectively.]
>
> The "Q" locomotives had spacious cabs. The head brakeman had the equivalent
> of a suite compared to the tiny little seat behind the fireman found on all
> the UP engines. I was really enjoying my new quarters on a sunny July day as
> I leaned out of the cab on the fireman's side of CB&Q Northern (fifty-six
> hundreds, as a UP man would call the "Q" Northern's).
>
> The "Q" engines had a distinctive feature that I had never seen on a UP
> locomotive. The whistle could be blown from either the engineer's or
> fireman's side. I guess this was so that if the fireman saw something
> alarming he could sound the whistle alarm from his side. At any rate, I
> thought, and still do, that this was a good feature.
>
> The standard engineer's whistle cord was attached to a long bar that was
> normally, nearly flush with the ceiling of the cab. This bar was about
> three feet long and extended (arced) downward at an angle about 45 degree
> form the its resting horizontal position when the "hog head" pulled on the
> whistle cord.
>
> On the UP engines, with which I was familiar, the whistle cord was solely
> possessed by the engineer but on the "Q" engines the exact same mechanism
> was also on the fireman's side. What I did not realize, however, was that
> there was only one steam whistle valve. To actuate this valve from the
> fireman's side the fireman's whistle cord and bar were directly connected to
> the engineer's bar via, what I will describe as, a torque bar between the
> left and right side of the cab. Therefore, when the fireman blew the
> whistle, his whistle bar as well as the hog heads whistle bar extended
> downward through the aforementioned 45 degree arc.
>
> I must add one more prerequisite to this story. The "Q" hog heads when
> "leaving town" has a tradition of not sitting in their seat, but of standing
> up behind their seats until they got the throttle and stroke lever
> positioned "just right" to get the consist rolling. I always thought this
> was rather odd but then us UP guys always thought the CB&Q guys were odd.
> Any way, I was just glad to be back working.
>
> On this day as we were departing the Lincoln yards, there was an area where
> we passed directly adjacent to the UP yards and as we approached these yards
> I spotted some of my UP buddies working one of the yard engines. I wanted
> them to know that I had immediately found work on the "Q" and as we passed
> them, I leaned out of the cab and gave a hearty wave with and a "thumbs up"
> with my left hand and with my right hand I grabbed the fireman's whistle
> cord and gave them a loud "toot, toot, toot, toot!" I knew that my buddies
> would really be surprised that I could blow the whistle from "my" side.
> They waved back an I felt really good -- for a few seconds.
>
> At first, I did not know what my fireman meant when he said, "My God! You
> have killed him." When I looked at the engineer, the hog head, who had been
> standing up behind his seat in the aforementioned "Q" tradition (a really
> dumb thing to do) was slumped over his seat nearly unconscious and his hat
> was laying in the coal dust on the floor of the cab. The fireman jumped to
> his rescue and fortunately was able to revive him. (I just wanted to jump
> out of the engine.)
>
> As the hog head was standing up "working" his beloved throttle and stroke
> lever, I had cold cocked him. (If he would have been sitting down, his head
> would not have in the area of the motion of the whistle bar -- he should
> have been.) With each toot, I was repeatedly hitting him in the head until
> I knocked him goofy and he collapsed over the back of his chair. When the
> fireman got the engineer back into his seat and he came to and was able to
> regain control of his locomotive's cab, he was highly, I mean highly, pissed
> at one UP "ass whole", who he suggested go back to where he had come from
> before he killed someone. ("Q" men never paid us UP mean the respect we
> deserved. I don't know why?)
>
> We were on an over the road local with a lot of road switching ahead of us
> and the day had just started. We worked until after dark. I ran, I mean
> ran, for every switch all day long to keep the hog head form having to work
> brakes and especially the reverse lever, in order to appease him and attempt
> to at least gain some creditability as good trainman, if not a good cab
> companion. No real damage was done accept for a huge welt on his scalp and
> a very dirty cap and I believe we did have a beer together at the end of the
> day. But, I never, never, touched a "Q" whistle again.
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