About the Author J. D. Santucci (a.k.a. "Tuch") began his railroading career in 1978 as a trainman on the Missouri Pacific. After a round of lay-offs in 1985, Tuch embarked on a railroad odyssey, working in many different situations for different roads. This column tries to explain some of the nuts and bolts of the job and also demonstrates what we have to deal with on a regular basis within and without the industry. Tuch currently works through freights out of Chicago for Canadian National/Illinois Central. ©1999, 2003-2007 JD Santucci. Logo ©2002 The Railroad Network. By J.D. Santucci

November 10, 2003
I had another column nearly finished and was going to run that one this time, but as it happens in the rail industry, the exigencies of the operation dictated a change. Today's journey would seem like it was gleaned right out of an episode of "The Twilight Zone."

There is truth to the legend of a full moon creating strange behavior in people. Full moons also seem to wreak havoc in other ways as well. I have known many police officers, firefighters (I come from a family of them), paramedics, doctors, nurses and even a couple of shrinks. They all tell stories of people's weird behavior and strange events that seem to run concurrent with the cycles of the moon. I've had a few friends over the years that also seemed to get a little squirrelly at full moon time as well. As for railroaders though it is hard to tell; we are already a little off center anyway.

On Saturday, November 8th we had a full moon in our evening skies. There was a total lunar eclipse that took place as well. At 1918 hours Central Time here in the Chicago area, the moon was completely cast in the shadow of mother earth. This is actually a phenomenon that occurs every twenty-eight days but is not normally visible, particularly to a large percentage of the population on a regular basis. I know it has been quite awhile since I have witnessed one. The last total eclipse I can recall observing occurred the night before I took the first of my two final examinations for promotion to Locomotive Engineer in July 1981. I passed that exam along with the other one the following week and the rest, as they say, is history. Hmm, perhaps that correlation between strange behavior and full moons is much closer to me than I think.

In Italian, the word luna means moon. Perhaps it is from luna that the word loony evolved. Maybe my ancestors correlated weird behavior with the lunar cycles. Now unlike Gus Portocolus the character from the movie "My Big Fat, Greek Wedding", I cannot and do not try to determine the origin of every word in the English language. For the handful of people that did not see this movie, Gus had what seemed to be a rather unusual hobby of finding the Greek origin for virtually every word or name in the English language. He tied every syllable or name ever spoken to a word derived from the Greek language. I think Gus had far too much free time on his hands.

In any event, with both a full moon and a total lunar eclipse, it seems like my tour of duty this evening just kept getting stranger as the night progressed. The railroad gods just loved this one, perhaps the full moon is their fuel and the eclipse is the octane booster or better yet, nitrous like the drag racers use. And the entire chain of strange events all started with the coffee.

One of the Trainmaster's finished the last of a pot of coffee in the A Yard office and was kind enough to make a fresh pot. Somehow though, he didn't seem to get the fresh grounds into the filter. Instead most of the grounds wound up in the finished product. So when this pot finished brewing, it was akin to a jar of crunchy style peanut butter. Not being one to want to chew my coffee, I had to pour it all out. My Conductor, Gary McMaken, started yet another fresh pot, carefully pouring the package of grounds inside the filter.

So now with fresh, "creamy style" coffee in our thermos bottles we were transported out to our power, the CN 4031 and GTW 5848. Upon boarding the CN 4031 I noticed it was rather chilly in the cab and that the forced air heaters were not operating. I also discovered a work report that stated the heater on the Fireman's side was not working at all and that the one on the Engineer's side kept tripping the breaker and shutting down. This is never good, especially when the weather guessers are calling for temperatures in the high teens to lower twenties. Two electric side wall heaters and one forced air heater that only works when it is in the mood will not do this evening. So a call to the Markham General was initiated and when all was said and done, we put this power onto the pit where it could be taken for service. We were then transported to another set of power.

Our new power would be the CN 4017 and GTW 5830. I thoroughly checked out the heaters on both of them before anything else. They worked as designed. I even caught a break as they were not due a daily inspection. However, I noticed the end of train telemetry box on the 4017 was in an error mode. Every screen on the box had what looked like an "E" on them. I rebooted the box and this problem cleared up. Once we were finally ready to go, we received permission to head over to F Yard to get our train.

As we doubled up the train I discovered a problem with the counter on the telemetry head box. It wouldn't work. I had this unit as my leader going north this past Monday and it worked, albeit way inaccurate, but it worked. Tonight though there was nothing; just a beep whenever I hit the button to start the counter and a blank screen where the counter displays.

The next "Twilight Zone" event occurred while we were doubling up our train. For whatever reason, our second track was not in one piece. There were cars at the north end of track 20F and cars at the south end of 20F with a gap in between them. This track was supposed to be all coupled up but wasn't for whatever reason. To save some time, the Trainmaster picked up Gary and drove him back to make the coupling between the two cuts of cars. Here is where the failure to do what should have been done actually played in favor of the Canadian National.

After coupling the two cuts up and removing handbrakes and yard air from the cut at the south end of 20F, Gary noticed two cars that should not be in our train, or at least not in a block that would be transported north of Riverdale anyway. There were two gondolas loaded with prefabricated switch panels. These panels are switches that are built at Lewis Rail located within Markham Yard and then transported to a location where they will be installed on some railroad. Gary observed that they appeared to be too high to be taken to Glenn Yard. These cars were located in a block of cars bound for Fond du Lac, WI. The FDL block is normally the rear block of our train. This block connects with a Wisconsin Division train at Glenn Yard. Upon further review it was determined that both of these cars had dimensions in excess of seventeen feet above the top of the rail. This meant they would not be going to Glenn Yard.

All of the overhead bridges north of Kensington are just above seventeen feet in height above the top of the rail. The MoPac bridge just south of Kensington has one track passing underneath that allows for high cars to pass, track four. However, this will be of no benefit to us. It is decided to instead, interchange these cars to the Indiana Harbor Belt. What this means is we will have to set them out from the rear of our train when we reach Highlawn, where we affect interchange with the IHB.

Now had Gary not been back there to spot these two cars, they would have been pulled north and at either the MoPac overhead or the NS/BRC overhead at 95th Street, we would have lowered the height of these two sets of switch panels. Of course we probably would have destroyed them in the process but we would have corrected the excessive height problem. It wouldn't be the first time somebody tried to squeeze an excessive height car through one of these bridges. Although I believe we would have been the first ones this year to attempt this feat.

After we got the air test and Gary was on board it was then I learned that we would be handing all the interchange business tonight. We have an assignment that goes on duty about 2300 hours that handles the interchange traffic to the IHB at Highlawn and CSX at what used to be called Wildwood in Riverdale. Today this location is called the CSX Connection. But here is one of those old railroad issues; this portion of CSX was part of the old Baltimore & Ohio, actually the B&O Chicago Terminal. To this day many people still call this the B&O connection. It doesn't matter that this hasn't been the B&O in years.

But I digress.

Normally the 2300 "Interchange" job handles the deliveries to the IHB and CSX. Tonight we would get them instead. What this means is two more blocks of cars on our train and two more stops. The IHB block would be right behind the engines and the CSX block right behind them. However, we have those two gons of switch panels way back at the tail end of the train that must also be set out at the IHB, so that means pulling the entire train by, setting those two cars over, shoving the entire train back and then setting out the block of IHB's out that are on the head end. So this means an even bigger delay.

Well, as we pulled the train by for Gary to make the rear end set out, he encounters our next full moon folly, extra cars not on the list. It turns out we have not one, nor even two, but six, yes folks count em, six extra cars in our train that do not appear anywhere on our wheel report. So another delay is encountered as we have to call Markham and report these car numbers to him over the radio. He checks these numbers in the computer and tells us where they are going. As it works out, two of them are IHB cars, and the other four are bound for CSX. And we did catch a break in that all of these cars were set in the proper blocks so there was no additional switching to get them set out. The railroad gods can't win them all I guess.

With all the CSX and IHB work finished we head on north to Fordham. We have a list of fifty-four cars we are supposed to pick up there and take to Glenn Yard with us. The Fordham pick up is routine on our assignment. The Recycle Job normally switches out the cars received here in interchange from the South Shore and Chicago Rail Link. Cars bound for Glenn Yard are separated into two blocks, Glenn's and Fond du Lac's and we stop and pick them up. No big whoop.

More often than not we use track three or four out of Kensington to accomplish our work keeping the main tracks clear for traffic. Tonight though we use number two main out of Kensington and head up to the switch at 79th Street where we will reach in and grab the cars. As we rolled up that way we discovered the next lunar loony; more extra cars. As we passed the cut of cars in the yard at Fordham, we discuss how it looks like far more than the fifty-four being advertised.

A taxi was waiting at the switch at 79th Street. We usually get one here to assist the Conductor by driving him around to expedite the move. We reached back and coupled onto the cars here and Gary entered the cab to check the cars against his list. It turns out there are an additional twenty-one cars here. A call to Markham had them instructing us to pick them all up and take them to Glenn Yard with us. They didn't even want any car numbers. None of the extra cars contained hazardous materials, so we needed no paperwork in order to move them.

Once we had them doubled back to our train, another lunar loony transpired; I lost the brake pipe pressure display on my head end telemetry unit. The screen just went dark. Everything else was working on it, just no reading of brake pipe pressure. I knew the pressure was increasing as the box was beeping every time the pressure increased as the system was recharging. Like everything else high tech, when in doubt, reboot. I rebooted the box and the brake pipe pressure reading was restored.

With brake test complete we head north again towards Glenn Yard.

The air did not seem to be the best after we made our pick up. Even though the leakage test indicated only three pounds per square inch of brake pipe leakage, it just didn't seem right. When I slowed for a 10 MPH speed restriction, it took forever for the brakes to release. I only had 112 cars and while it was cold out, the train wasn't that big and it wasn't bitter cold. I released the brakes at 18 MPH and was down to about 6 MPH before they felt like they were starting to release.

As we worked our way through the twin towers of 16th and 21st Street crossings, the air problems became a little more severe. Our railroad twists and bends through here and you cannot see the signal for 21st Street until you are about five or six cars away from it. The best signal you get in advance of it is an approach (yellow) signal. This signal indicates that I must proceed prepared to stop before passing the next signal. This is the phrase that pays. If I don't get stopped before passing a stop signal at 21st Street, I get decertified for thirty days along with an equal amount of time of without pay as discipline. So being ever so mindful of the rules and also the desire to maintain the lifestyle the beautiful bride has become accustomed to, I set the air to apply the brakes on the train as I pass 16th Street.

I had actually released the brakes before the signal at 21st Street came into view as I was well under control of the train. Even if it would have been displaying a stop signal I would have been able to stop easily for the signal. Well, the air on the train did cooperate and we ground to a halt instead. I waited for what should have been sufficient time for them to release, but I could not get the train started. I tried making a full service application of the brakes to equalize the system and get all the brakes to fully release but the train still did not want to move.

My train only had about twenty-one loads, but they were back at the tail end. I had a concern about possibly stringlining the train causing a derailment. The best way to describe stringlining would be to have you take say a shoelace and laying it on the table. Now make bends in the shoelace so that it is not sitting in a nice straight line but rather looking like a meandering river. Now grab a hold of one end then pull the other end. It straightens right out correct? This is in effect, what stringlining is with a train. If there are brakes sticking towards the rear and I start pulling too hard through all these curves and bends, I could stringline the train. Such an event could constitute poor train handling and also get me an unplanned and unpaid vacation.

So I tried one last trick, taking slack. I bunched the slack up just a bit, backing the engines up about half a car length. I then started pulling forward again and the train, while fighting me began to all roll in the same direction.

The rest of the trip to Glenn was pretty uneventful. We just did a stop and go at the Panhandle in Brighton Park. There was no cross traffic for once and we even had the line up to proceed when we arrived there. First time that has happened all week. We've been blocked there with NS and CSX cross traffic pretty much every night and had to sit and wait our turn.

We finally arrive at Glenn and I informed the Yardmaster we did not have a good list of our train. We were lined up to continue down number one main and told to hold up at 47 Crossover at the south end of the yard. Of course being that we had a stop signal at 47, there wasn't much choice in the matter anyway. We were told they wanted to get a look at our train before they decided what they were going to have us do. There is an automatic equipment identification reader at 45 Crossover. This device sends a radio signal to the little transponder tags on each car to read the numbers of them as they pass the reader. When the train is clear of the reader and the information is processed, the SRS computer system automatically updates our train and prints out a list of it in the Yardmaster's office. I think that when they reviewed the list and discovered our train looked like a dozen eggs that were just run through the food processor; they decided we would not make any type of set out tonight. Instead we cut away from the train, ran back to the other end through the yard and coupled onto our outbound train.

We pulled the train up to the office, went and procured the paperwork required for the trip back to Markham and then got our air test. By now though, we were living on borrowed time. There was virtually no chance of making it all the way back. The mission had now become a suicide mission; we would die in the attempt to accomplish our primary objective.

One last lunar loony took place while were performing our brake test. Outbound BNSF train CNIGAL (which originates at Glenn Yard and goes to Galesburg, IL) was getting ready to depart from the south end. This train had an old Santa Fe GP7 rebuild in the lead instead of some nice road power. The outbound Engineer reported that he could not take this as his lead unit because among other problems, it was not equipped for use with end of train telemetry equipment. This engine was basically a yard engine and why it was sent out on the BNSF train that comes to Glenn Yard daily is beyond me. The BNSF crew had to wind up cutting off from their train and take the power down to CP Canal where the IHB crosses and connects. They would have to turn the power there and bring it back to Glenn. Their trailing unit was an SD70M with all the appointments and features required to be a good lead unit on a through freight train.

We finally departed at about 0505 and headed back to Markham. The sand in our hours of service glass would run out at 0630. Our new primary objective was to expire at a location that would allow easy access for the taxi to reach and rubber tire us back to Markham. We made it as far as Kensington and quietly passed away at the dawn of the new day. The cab, now required to perform the duties of a hearse was able to drive up nice and close to the train. We solemnly entered it and began the journey to our final tie up location.

Did I mention that this was my Friday? And of course on getaway day what normally seems to occur? Losing the battle with the hours of service and then a cab ride home what else? Well, it's not like I really wanted all that extra sleep when I got back to my house today.

Somewhere out there in the place where the railroad gods live, I believe the late Rod Serling, creator of "The Twilight Zone" joined up with them for tonight's journey. With the both the full moon and total lunar eclipse at their disposal, this night was just right for picking. Dead people can do stuff like that.

You know at least once during the course of this journey I could have sworn I heard that haunting theme from the Twilight Zone playing. And I believe that in one of the windows of the one of the apartments I was looking into in Mayor Daley's neighborhood there was a guy with dark hair, a plain black suit with white shirt and skinny black tie. He was looking back at me. And yes, he did have his hands folded in front of him as he smiled an eerie sort of smile at me. Maybe old Rod is not all that far from us in his hereafter.

And so it goes.

Tuch