Maybe we should have a humorous story of the week?

Question

One thing I have always noticed about railroaders, when you get a group together someone will start with a funny story and guys will be laughing and adding their own. Maybe we should start somethign like that here. It's hard to post one in the question because of the length limitations but plenty of room in the answers part. I wont pick a best answer, just leave it up to voters. I'll start with a short one: A brakeman I know called the crew office and said he didnt have any money to eat at the restaurant at the away from home terminal, he couldnt afford to go to work so they would have to lay him off. (it didnt work, they made him go anway)

Answer 1

To keep the censors at bay, the answer to your question is:

Well...   let’s see...   gotta keep it clean...  OK.  Here ya go...

Once upon a time we had “real” crew dispatchers.  When ya went to work at the yard office or roundhouse, there they were, right behind the glass with all the tags.

Mary (Can’t remember her last name, though I always thought I’d never forget it) was an engine crew dispatcher as well as an extremely attractive woman, in the opinion of many.  Very many.  Most.  Pretty, she was a large woman, too.  Not heavy or over-weight, just a large, very well proportioned person.  I’ll not use the term “Amazon,” but you get the idea.  A good 6'2" or so...  

But, her most alluring quality, that had nothing to do with appearance or clothing (or even lack thereof in comparison, I’d imagine) was her VOICE.  On the telephone, it was a sultry, steaming drive ya out of your mind, sexually dripping........  (Sorry, but I’m old and feeble now, and memories are all I have left)...  

Sigh...

This wasn't an affectation, it's just the way her normal speaking voice was.

The truth be told, though, more than one of us (most) had a damned hard time tryin’ to convince our wives or significant others, when THEY answered the phone at 2:40 am, that the voice on the other end REALLY DID belong to a crew dispatcher...  it got ugly for some, fo sho...

And ya know what?  Even if no-one on the board, even if on Christmas morning, I'll be darned if she never failed to find someone to work...

Addendum:  Yes indeed, Andy my man, Mary worked in Roseville...

Answer 2

This is a good one.Years ago as a young brakeman I was working a Vallejo Calif local on a 7 day stand.We had an extra conductor that had just boomed down from Eugene Or.We were in the general Mills cereal factory.We gathered up the empties and were gonna go out to the little yard and get rid of them and get the spot cars.The conductor told the field man and i to stay put he'd go get the cars.We spotted the plant and left.To our surprise the conductor blind shoved 30 cars into a track that held 22.Vallejo used to be where the old railroad ferry loaded in the old days before they built a bridge.The trainmaster a fine gentleman by the name of Max Howard came out.We all got a good ripping,The hoghead had more seniority than god and had worked that job for 15 years.When Max asked him why he let that conductor shove all those cars into the track knowing they didn't fit the hoghead told Max he wasn't paid to think just to take signals and if they wanted him to start thinking they could d**n well up his pay.I made the mistake of laughing.I honestly tried not too but no luck!I got another ripping.Nobody got fired.Can you even imagine what would have happened in this day and age if you did that?

Edit Bob Mary was at Roseville right? If so i remember her!OMG Sighhhhhhhhhhhh

Opps i just realized i left out that he shoved the cars into the water as the tracks just dead-ended right at the waters edge

Answer 3

I haven't collected very many stories yet, but I do have a few good ones.

I got called one morning to go and get on a train that had been tied down in a siding (in West Texas near Alpine, Texas) the night before.  It had snowed the previous day, before the train was tied down.  As I was walking and knocking off hand brakes, I noticed the previous conductors footprints, and next to them were the prints of a mountain lion.  They were about 5 inches across, it was a big cat.  It's impossible to tell if the cat was following him, or if it came along later, but either way, he didn't miss it by much.  Now when I have to walk a train at night out there, I shine my lantern behind me every few seconds, and carry a big stick (as if it would do any good if that cat had bad intentions).

Answer 4

The boys have already covered this one pretty well. As usual, I got here late. Just let me add that I had to laugh at myself today. On a stretch where our track parallels a highway, I was looking at the auto traffic, just for something to look at. Here comes a State Trooper towards me. Talk about instinct. I caught myself looking at the locomotive's speedometer.

Answer 5

I work for NS and at our yard we have 12 receiving tracks.  Several years back we had a guy who was to shove RT08 from the south end of the yard to a long coupling.  As he rounded a curve in the middle of the receiving yard he saw the cut he was to be coupling to.  He hits the radio and belts out "stop all movement, stop all movement, there are two trains in the same track!"  He had totally forgotten that he was to be shoving to a coupling and not a clear track.  To this day he is know as "Two Train" .

Answer 6

The speedometer story reminded me of this one:

We were putting AEM-7s in service on Amtrak in the Northeast Corrridor.  Before they did revenue service, we would run a test train.  This time we were running light, paralleling I-495 south of Philadelphia, doing about 80 mph.

We look out and sees Mr. hotshot sports car guy, running right with us along the road, playing "Quien es Mas Macho".  The hogger sees the ersatz Mario Andretti, gives him a horn blast, and throttles up to 123 mph (on 110 mph track).

The look on the guy's face was priceless, as we left him in our ozone dust.

Answer 7

When my sister was a child she used to wake up in the middle of the night and if she heard the trains going by she thought that it was so quiet she could hear the world going around.  When I got married, I moved to Cheyenne Wyoming and I lived less than a block from the changing yard -- I could see it out my kitchen window.  Anyway, I called her up one day to let her know that not only could I hear the world going around,  I could hear them changing the batteries.  ;-)

Answer 8

Sadly I have nothing but MODEL railroad stories, but...

Skidderback's story hits a nerve... I wonder if "Mary" had a daughter??  When I was flying with the Navy in the late 80's the VOICE of Air Traffic Control at NAS North Island was a SWEET Southern voice just dripping with LUV, Flirtation, and possibilities... She also turned out to be "Amazonian" in stature.

BUT, she would be a WELCOME voice after months at sea... and was ALSO terrific at her job !! I remember a few times she brought us in on a GCA (Ground Controlled Approach) through marine-layer fog that SHOULD have shut the runways down.

Answer 9

He must have suffered a moment's relapse, because when room service knocked on the door on his wedding night, he jumped out of the fourth floor hotel window.