Good morning and Happy St. Patricks Day to all. Im having some Camerons Highlander Grog coffee (yeah I know, girlie coffee) and recovering from yesterdays local trip, during which we stalled and died on Steelton Hill outside Duluth, MN. I worked an Extra Shover job, which seldom shoves anything, anywhere. What they do do is shuttle back and forth in the Duluth-Superior terminal, transferring cars between different railroads and yards. Problem is in our terminal, traffic is so congested and yard space so sparse that trains sit everywhere, jockeying for space on the various mainlines. We went to work at 0815 yesterday and were supposed to take about 150 cars up the mountain to DM&IRs Proctor Yard. Problem is, there were so many trains heading north to Canada and south to Stevens Point and Chicago, that we couldnt get out of Pokegama Yard. Finally, several hours later, we attached the Shover and headed off for Proctor. The next few hours were very tense. I generally hate going to Proctor, on account its a very inefficient yard, on top of a huge hill , crawling with officials and wannabe trainmasters. I dont know why, but we were followed around the yard all afternoon by a certain Trainmaster I wont name. Evidently, he had nothing better to do than drive his vehicle around and watch us to detect life-threatening rule violations, such as not wearing ones safety glasses or not saying Over after radio transmissions. We got the train yarded, ran all five units to the roundhouse and cut off the two ancient motors they gave us to run back down the hill, a CN SD40-2 and a Bessemer & Lake Erie Tunnel Motor. By the time we got our outbound train doubled, air tested and ready to depart, we were already on short time. We ended up dragging 140 cars and 12,500 tons out to Proctor Junction to wait for Q119. They should have relieved us right there, but they didnt. Instead, they pushed us out of Proctor with barely forty minutes left to work. I dont usually get nervous running, but being under the gun in terms of time and distance requirements, coupled with the steep grade, heavy train and elderly power had me on the edge of my seat. I set air coming out of South Nevada, where the mountain drops off toward Nopeming Junction. The train behaved at first, then started really coming after me. I resisted the temptation to panic and set too much air. I finally found balance with about eleven or twelve pounds drawn off the Automatic Air Brake. Eventually, the train started to slow and I decided to get out of Dynamic Brake and pull her down the rest of the way. Only by then, I realized that the lead unit had a leaking maintaining feature on the Automatic Brake. That means that, even though the train line was closed off at that point with air set, except for the maintaining valve, desired train line pressure was not being maintained in the brake pipe, allowing the brake pipe to lose pressure. To a layman, that means that the train brakes eventually set up harder than I intended. I pulled the train as hard as I dared, but we eventually stalled on the side of the mountain. Shortly thereafter, we ran out of time to work! Eventually, management got the Shover crew near us, but they had to walk nearly a half mile down the tracks to reach us. They boarded and we all headed down the rest of the hill toward Pokegama Yard in Superior, WI. Many thanks go out to the Shover crew, who got us off the hill safely and much quicker than I thought possible.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 15:36:59 +0000
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