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A few days ago I came across one of the old RR "Safety Films" on U TUBE..it was Santa Fe teaching switchmen how to get on and off moving equipment...Imagine that today...When I started as a brakeman that was one of the first...and few things anybody showed and told me how to do...
It used to be the mark of a good brakeman was how fast he could get on and off....And the pride of some engineers was to see how fast they could get going to try out the rear end's skills.
There is a story in one of the OLD Railroad magazines complete with an illustration of this conductor who had gone into the station eating house while his crew did their work and he came out with a piece of pie balanced on one hand and his umbrella in the other and, it was reported that he got on with no trouble at all. There was a "blow by blow" description of his antics, but I don't recall the details of how he did it well enough to describe it here.
The fastest "get on" I ever saw was one day at the Langdon depot the north local had done their work and the rear brakeman was standing on the platform visiting with the agent as the train pulled out...I don't know whether it was deliberate or not, but that hoghead had a good "wheel on em" by the time the waycar came by...I thought...this guy ain't never gonna make it...He did something I never saw anybody else do, nor did I ever try it myself.
He started running when the waycar was about 2 C/L away and was just paralleling his train and as the rear end of the W/C got to him he just turned...didn't grab the grab iron...but just jumped on. He acted like he did it all the time, but I never saw anybody else do it that way.
Pete
-----Original Message----- From: STEVEN HOLDING <sholding@sbcglobal.net> To: CBQ <CBQ@yahoogroups.com> Sent: Thu, Jan 24, 2013 9:23 pm Subject: Re: [CBQ] Emergency Waycars Leo
It was even more scarey for some one to do that that was not a train crew but a dispatcher on a road trip. Aurora was not bad as you were on a platform but other places it was Ballast. But most crew changes were done on the fly with only a couple minutes stops at best. Even the engineers telling the outbound how the motors were running. Steve in SC From: "qutlx1@aol.com" <qutlx1@aol.com> To: cbq@yahoogroups.com Sent: Thu, January 24, 2013 8:08:57 PM Subject: [CBQ] Emergency Waycars John you have brought to mind a situation related to all waycars, at all crew change points. I'll use what I experienced to describe.
Once pool waycars came into being, the old process of having your occupied waycar tacked onto the back of a stopped train by the yard engine, went away. Now you stood at track side while watching your train pass by and then swining onto the rear platform at "slow" speed with grip in hand.
Looking back 35-40 years (am I really that old ?!) I can't imagine today standing next to a rolling train on uneven ballast at the Milw xing on the west end of Savanna yard, in the dead of night,with no yard lighting,and nothing but a latern for illumination, swinging aboard a waycar ! Not to mention that the Condr on the other side might well be in his 60s ! We did this 365 days a year,rain or shine,snow,ice,blowing wind,etc,etc,etc.
And no one got killed or cut up ?!
Leo
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