Is it time for another round?

Question

of humorous tales? I'll toss in a brief one.

Not long ago, a switch crew was in the breakroom at lunch time, the trainmaster walked in and said, "Fellas, I have some sad news, Bob Jone's wife called and he had a heart attack and died this morning" Bob was the regular foreman on the job and was on his days off.

Stunned silence at first, then the usual "wow thats such a shame, work all your life for this", and "just goes to show you never know when your time's up" etc.

Everyone was kinda quiet and down for a bit, then one of the guys perked up and said "hey, that puts me on days!"

So much for extended mourning on the railroad.

Answer 1

Guys this is not a rail story, but this happened to me while I was working as a Mechanic for a Goodyear Tire and Auto-Service here in San Jose.

So on this fine June afternoon I am on the Lube Rack doing the LOF Services for the day.  Most of the day had been pretty routine and most of the work was gravy.  

In the late afternoon I hear this horrible sound of metal on metal.  I finished my jobm and was wiping my hands as I came out of the shop to see what all the hub-bub was about.

As I walked out this gold Mercedes E500 comes bailing into the shop's lot, with all the sound of a Banchee with her tail on fire.  There was this huge plume of smoke that followed this car down the street.  

At this point my boss comes out of the office because he heard the noise and smelled the smoke.  One of the other guys comes out of the shop with an extinguisher and gives the no burning wheel on the driver's side a good shot.  Between the smoldering rubber remains of the tire and all of the suspension parts, I could tell this was going to be a bill.

Not to be nasty, but this particular customer was Indian, (India), and was very "upset" with his recent service at Mercedes.  My boss informed him he was welcome to leave the car there, but it would have to remain outside until the front end cooled off and we could have a look.

So they agreed and went about their way.  That night I got out a floor jack and slid it under the cross member and we pulled the car into the shop to secure it.  I went ahead and aligned it on the lift, and took an extra 20 minutes off the clock to have a look at the extent of the damage.

Needless to say everything on the drivers side was completely trashed.  I had to torch the bolts off the hub to get what remained of the aluminum rim off.  When this happened, the hub literally fell off the spindle.  Hmm, thats interesting.

Now for those who are not familiar with some parts here, let me explain a few things.  The wheel is connected to a part called the hub.  This part is connected via a lock nut and bearings to the steering knuckle.  The spindle is part of the steering knuckle, and all of the brake hardware is mounted to this part.  These parts are then mounted via, upper and lower control arms to the frame and so on.

All of these parts have rubber bushings that absorb the road vibration and allow the suspension parts to do their respective jobs.  

All of these parts on the driver's side of the vehicle were scrap.  This included all of the heavy parts.  Yeah, uh DONE!

So I buttoned it up for the night and went home.  My boss said that was going to be a pretty ugly bill, I told him I would have the parts list ready by open time, so I would get there about an hour early and get started.

As I tore into this stinking mess, the parts bill just kept going up, and up.  In the day light I got my first good look at the steering knuckle.  The spindle had one complete twist in it and had sheered at the threads for the hub nut.  The outer beaing was completely welded to the outer race which is pressed into the hub assembly.  The inner bearing was welded to the spindle.  The upper control arm was salvageable, and just needed a new upper ball joint and frame bushings.  The lower control arm was cracked half way through and bent backwards towards the fender-well.

The brake rotor, was completely non-existent, the associated caliper, history and twisted around the suspension spring.  All of the rubber and grease, burned into ash.

So the customers get there about an hour after we opened, and are handed, not an estimate, but the bill it will cost to do the repair.  The customer gets very upset and starts yelling in the waiting room.  OOOPS, mistake, my boss was from New Jersey.

My boss promptly comes out to the shop and tells me, "Hey, get that @#$%ing thing off my lift, and drag that junker to the lot!"  

"You bet!"

So down she comes, the whole time they are still inside throwing a fit.  So may partner and I slide the floor jack back under the car and out she goes.  By this time the customers spy us taking their "Piece of German Precision Engineering". and sharply letting the jack down with a good slam.

So what's the punch line to this story?

The whole argument was about the repair and how this guy thought it should be repaired.  He wanted to know:

"Can you weld it?"

When my boss told him "No", it was not because we did not have the equipment, it was because the damage was too extensive and the liability too great.

Needless to say we did call a wrecker for him, and had the vehicle taken to Mercedes with all of his parts he wanted welded.

Boy, some days you just get the best of the best!

"Can you weld it?"

Answer 2

Sheesh Rango that sounds just like a rail! They probably fought over who got his locker too lol.

Ok maybe this is a good time for the 83 mph ride on the perishable train as in hindsight it's kinda funny now.

I got out on a perishable train up the Cal P in California one night with a crazy person whose nickname was the Silver Bullet. Perishable trains were a hot train back in the day so this engineer had the overspeed capped off and was doing his best to scare me into heart failure.We had a bunch of SD-40's and he had us going 83 mph and was mad it wouldn't go any faster! The ride was so rough you couldn't stand up.My head was banged off the window a few times.Honest to god i thought we were going to die at any minute.Anyways...when you come into Sacramento you have an automatic interlocking for the Sacramento Nothern railway.You would always get a flashing yellow til the circuit checked out and then it would clear.We blow by the flasher and get a hard yellow.Wingnut says to me "it will go green in a second".Well guess what no clear signal.We get about a quarter of a mile from the yellow and he says OH S***!!! this isn't good.He sets full service and slaps the throttle off and right to full dynamic.The slack is beating us to death and all of the sudden we get a green.He dumps the dynamic and kicks the air off and starts back for run 8.How we stayed in one piece i don't know to this day.After the interlocking you come down around a sweeping turn to the I street railroad bridge which is(or was) a 10 mph bridge over the Sacramento river.This nut is picking up speed again! I never wanted off a train more in my life.I couldn't stand it anymore and i tell him Howard don't forget the bridge is 10 mph.He says don't worry i have it under control.About this time the caboose calls to ask if everything is ok up there.I wanted to grab the radio and tell them H*** No but the ride was so rough i was scared to stand up.Howard tells them to just hang on and all will be fine.He set full service again and back to dynamic we go.Not sure how he did it but we got down to 20 for the bridge.He looks over at me and says ..see? under control Andy so just relax and enjoy the ride.I told him relax?how can i relax when i have so much seat upholstery sucked up my butt i'm getting stomach cramps?He just laughed.We got to Roseville and i wanted to kiss the ground when i got off the engine.

edit I don't know why we didn't bird nest any traction motors either.Does anybody know?

Lol good one Bob That would get you the firing squad at dawn now

Answer 3

LOL...  That's great!  Yeah, leave it to a snake to find the silver lining...

The early summer of 1976 found me working as a hostler in Roseville, California.   I was working the “pull up” job one afternoon.   This entailed walking down to the locomotive service facility receiving yard, knocking the brakes off of consists, sometimes doubling them together, then running them through the wash rack, and on to the drip pads.   There, they would have their trip reports checked for any defects noted by the engineer on the previous trip.   There were chemists on duty in the lab to check oil samples taken from the crank cases, and the laborers would have the first crack at cleaning the cab interiors.  When inspection was complete and a track at the pit opened up, you'd then move them from the drip pad to the pit track.

At the time, the Local Chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers was a man named Perry Plantz.   I had pulled the engines on both of the drip pads up onto two of the five service tracks, and was headed for the receiving yard to pull up two more consists when I ran into Perry, with his 3 and ½ year old grandson, Justin.   He told me he wanted to give Justin his first ride on a locomotive, against the rules of course, and the three of us headed for the receiving tracks.

Now, the lead to the drip pads ran by the enginemen’s crew dispatchers office, which also was the offices of the two, sometimes three, Road Foreman of Engines headquartered there, right outside their window, through the wash rack then onto the drip pads.   At that time, one of the RFEs was a man named Ken Carstensen.  

This was a good engineer, a fine officer and a true gentleman.  If you earned yourself his displeasure, he would definitely let you know you had done so, remove a chunk of your rear end of a size commensurate with the offence, then the matter would be closed.  You can’t get any more fair than that and, the truths be told, but with the inevitable exception here and there, most of the old school SP officers would fit into this paradigm.

Perry and I helped each other prepare the engines for movement, then I lined him up one track of the wash rack and he and Justin took off.  Then I lined the switch behind for the other track and brought my own consist up.   By the time we got off our consists and the three of us met up, Mr. Carstensen was seen walking our way.   It was quite obvious someone had in fact earned his displeasure.

He spoke to me first, since I was the pull up hostler on duty with the other pull up hostler at beans, and began excising the aforementioned chunk of rear end.   It seems that the first consist had gone up the lead by his office and through the wash rack at an unacceptably high rate of speed.  

Of course I had to defend myself, and I told him, simply and safely pointing no fingers, that I was not on the first consist.

Kenny then turned to Perry, the next obvious choice for the person behind the throttle, and started his verbal gluteus maximus surgery anew.   Perry  very quickly informed him that he wasn’t running the first consist either, pointing down to Justin, who was standing between them.  Kenny looked down, and there was little Justin, his big brown eyes open wide with all the excitement.   Ken, still looking down, put his hands on his hips, and trying to contain his laughter, said to Justin, “Well, d**n it Justin!  You’re just gonna have to slow down!”

Message understood, Kenny turned and walked back to his office.

Like I said, an officer and gentleman.

Answer 4

Only way to advance in some companies .

Answer 5

I remember hiring in thinking "I'll never keep up with all that, that's just not who I am". 5 years later and I know exactly when all of our old heads retire and where that puts me on the seniority roster. Sad but true.

Awesomw story though.

Answer 6

Forgive me if I've told this one before. I don't remember if I have.

At the Dilworth, MN yard office, hundreds of guys pass through there every 24 hours. Train crews coming and going. There was always rumors floating around about this and that. Rumore about everything. Rumors about rumors. Well, BNSF decided these rumors could be counterproductive and put in the wires for a direct link red phone - a rumor hot line to varify truth or fiction. The wires were still hanging out of the wall before the phone itself had been installed. Two guys sitting next to me were talking, and one said, "Their going to put in a rumor hotline right there on the wall." The other guy said, "Yeah, I think I heard that."

Rango. I try not to laugh when someone elses misfortune is apparent. But I really had to repress myself with, "that puts me on days."  I could see that scenerio so clearly in my mind.

Answer 7

Interesting story, thanks for sharing....I think.