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

October 18, 2005
This was supposed to get sent out yesterday (18th) and we attempted such. However, for some strange reason, Microsoft was having all sorts of problems with their ISP’s MSN and Hotmail. Many subscribers have MSN or Hotmail addresses. As a result, the entire mailing list was blocked and this bounced back in its entirety to me allowing nobody to receive it. So we are hoping they have their issues resolved and attempting this again.

BTW: I also had some Microsoft issues, right about the time I tried to purchase tickets to the World Series. Suffice it to say that at this moment I have absolutely nothing good to say about Microsoft’s technology and operating systems.

Before we get started with today’s show; a few updates. My surgery went well. I had work done to relieve the carpal tunnel syndrome that developed and rapidly grew worse in my left hand. I should be good to go again hopefully by the end of November. Carpal tunnel syndrome is the result of repetitive motion. The performance of my job renders a great deal of repetitive motion. For example, there are one hundred twelve road crossings to whistle between Glenn Yard and Champaign. That alone required me to operate the whistle a total of 448 times. This is in addition to all the other requirements and motions needed to perform my craft. A great deal of railroaders develop carpal tunnel and other hand related disorders as the result of the performing our craft.

In other news, the beautiful bride and baby in the production stage are also doing well. We all went to the doc on the 4th. I got to see the little one via sonogram. She (I am positive it is a girl) is quite the active one and was dancing all over the place in there. Everything is looking good according the doc. We are not going to find out the brand opting instead for the surprise and bringing home whatever gender of child makes their appearance come March. We’ll be pleased with whatever kind our little baby human turns out to be.

Oh and for those that have asked, there will not be any type of contest to name the child. We have names picked out already and will announce it when the little one arrives. Thanks to those that expressed an interest though.

And another note; I recently bested my personal high car count in a train. On September 30th we departed Markham on train 331 en route to Glenn Yard with 204 cars. My previous high count was 195. The breakdown was 141 loads, 63 empties, 18,951 tons, 11,796 feet of train. I was given two locomotives to pull this train the 32 miles across town and we never once bested 31 MPH. But we got it there in one piece and with no trouble, so it was yet, “another good one.”

One final note; “THE WHITE SOX WIN THE PENNANT! THE WHITE SOX WIN THE PENNANT!” Finally, after waiting forty-six years, my White Sox have done going back to the World Series. It is the second time in my lifetime, although I was just shy of three when they did it last time so I really don’t remember. And best of all, they did before those sorry Cubs. I wasn’t fortunate enough to land tickets via the legal methods today, so I will just have to hope I win a contest that I have entered to try to make one of the games in person.

And now on with the show.

Well it is October 18th, that time of year again. This date in history marks the sixteenth anniversary of my tragic collision with the automobile in Antioch, IL. In keeping with the tradition begun several years ago, we will conduct yet a study of the behavior of motorists when approaching railroad crossings and the results of their failure to comply with both the warning devices at the crossing and those on the train.

In most states, at least all six of the ones I have lived in anyway, the rules of the road require that motorists approaching a railroad crossing equipped with passive warning devices (that would be the cross bucks that read “RAILROAD CROSSING”), must be prepared to stop. The motorists are instructed to look and listen for an approaching train. They also must yield to an approaching train as well. I need to point out that nowhere in such rules of the road does it state that crossings equipped with only cross bucks mean that there is virtually never a train approaching. And contrary to what some uninformed civilians and even a few politicians believe, Federal law gives trains the right of way at crossings.

The right of way issue is highly logical. Surprisingly enough, at one time our government was able to deduce such logic. Of course, when this rule was enacted, ours was a much different country than today and logic tended to prevail far more often than it does in this present age of that political correctness crap. This concept was developed in an era before there were lobbyists, political action committees and soft money campaign contributions.

A train is massive and heavy. It takes a great distance to stop a train from higher speeds, particularly when such a train is hauling heavy tonnage such as a coal or grain. It is illogical to require a train having to slow and be prepared to stop for each and every road crossing yielding the way to motor vehicles. That reason and the delays that would be incurred to the train at each crossing would make it difficult to operate in an even modestly timely fashion. The train traveling from point A to point B would take forever to reach its destination. Can you imagine the impact that would have on commerce and manufacturing?

And then there would be the chronic delays to the motoring public. Take any town that has numerous railroad crossings spaced fairly close together. If a train would have to be prepared to stop at each and every crossing yielding to motor vehicle traffic, the delays to motorists would be nothing short of massive. Every time a train approached a road crossing, it would have to prepare to stop short and allow motor vehicles to proceed first. In the meantime, any crossing that the train now had blocked to the rear would incur the delays of the slowly moving or stopped train. Have two or three crossings in fairly close proximity and you’ll have huge tie ups to motor vehicle traffic as the train has to stop for each and every crossing. All that stopping and then, all of that effort to start the train again takes a great deal of time. That is not to mention the very slow speeds the train would have to operate to allow the stopping for each crossing. One certainly doesn’t need a degree in astrophysics to deduce the cataclysmic effect this would have on the motoring and pedestrian public.

Automatic warning devices, the flashing lights with or without gates and with or without bells, were invented for two reasons; warn motorists of an approaching train and, when there is no train movement imminent, allow vehicular traffic to operate normally when approaching such crossings. Generally speaking, the busier roads have crossings equipped with automatic warning devices. With no train on the approach, the motoring public can operate at normal highway speeds. Drivers do not have to greatly reduce their speeds and be prepared to stop for the crossings. Of course they still have to observe and obey the automatic warning devices just as they have to watch for traffic signals at an intersection with another road. Everything flows well in this manner.

There are some crossings on busy roadways that are not equipped with automatic warning devices. While not always the case, these tend to be rail lines that have very limited usage such as a branch that might not even see one train on a daily basis or perhaps a lead that extends directly into an industry that uses rail service and does not see a heavy volume of rail traffic. However, in some cases there is a busy rail line but no automatic warning devices, just the passive warnings like cross bucks. In some locales, like here in Indiana, you’ll see a stop sign in addition to the cross bucks at selected crossings only equipped with the passive warning devices. This is sort of a reinforcement of the law. Interestingly enough though, I have observed motorists roll right past such stop signs and cross bucks at those crossings so equipped without even slowing to see if there might be a train approaching.

As the rule is written in the Indiana Motor Vehicle Code, motor vehicle traffic must yield to an approaching train. This means that at crossings only equipped with cross bucks, you have to be prepared to stop for a train. It does not mean speed up to get across quicker in the event there is a train approaching. It also doesn’t mean that because there are no flashing lights (with or without gates); there is very little likelihood of a train. Or, if there is an approaching train, it will be going slow therefore I won’t have to worry about getting struck. However, many people don’t seem to understand the very clear and concise meaning of being prepared to stop and yielding the right of way. What is worse, driver education classes don’t seem to impress this fact emphatically enough. While there has been improvement, it is still not stressed strongly enough.

Way back in the dark ages when I took Driver’s Ed in high school, there was very little at all mentioned about safety and good judgment at railroad crossings. In fact, what little was mentioned was basically, be careful at crossings and don’t get hit by the train. One sentence that took just a few seconds to state and nothing else was ever mentioned. This is probably because there were more discussions about watching out for the crank you used to start the Model T or Pierce Arrow. It could kick back on you causing serious injury. That and they were also preoccupied with instructing you to watch out for all those horses and carriages or buckboards still out there on the roadways. You didn’t want to crash into one of them.

What is even worse than the lack of education in driver education classes for high school students would be the flippant attitude at such crossings from the more educated “professional” drivers; those that operate trucks, buses and motor coaches for a living. These drivers get far more education and training about rules of the road than do a bunch of high school kids. I would like to have a crisp new ten dollar bill for every bus, motor coach tractor-trailer or delivery truck that has totally ignored either passive or automatic warning devices at a crossing and pulled out in front of my approaching train throughout the course of my career. I could have quit working years ago as I’d be a wealthy man.

So using the basis of this background we are going to discuss several collisions at crossings and also discuss several near hits that involved trucks, buses and the alleged professionals that operate them. In the case of the collisions, they involved other people and not me. The near hits involved me and one has an interesting twist. Several of these events occurred on the Wisconsin Central and in the state of Wisconsin. Now that doesn’t mean I’m singling out Wisconsin drivers as I am not. Bad or lunatic drivers with poor habits tend to occur everywhere, not just in the land of cheese and the Green Bay Packers.

We had received a huge snowfall one winter day in 1988. Enough snow that the use of a Russell plow was required to move snow off the tracks in some locations. A Russell plow is a large plow that is coupled to a locomotive and pushed to clear snow from the tracks.

So a plow train was summoned and goes to work to plow out the Shawano (pronounced SHAH-no) Subdivision where snow tended to build up quite heavy and quite deep in some locations. The plow train consisted of the aforementioned Russell plow and a GP30 locomotive to push it around.

The train approached the hamlet of Black Creek. In those days the WC crossed and connected with the Green Bay & Western at Black Creek. We had a couple of road crossings in Black Creek. The one in question was only equipped with cross bucks. In those days we generally operated about six trains per day through Black Creek, and four of them used the connection between the two railroads as the WC had trackage rights to operate over the GB&W between here and Green Bay. The GB&W themselves also only operated a handful of trains per day as well through Black Creek. So this was not exactly a hot spot location that incurred massive train delays.

So now here comes the plow train rolling into town. Here also comes a truck en route to a sour kraut plant located right along side our tracks. The driver ignored the cross bucks as well as that round yellow disc in advance of the crossing that states you must look and listen and be prepared to stop for an approaching train. Instead, he just rolls right through without even slowing. Of course in his zeal to spot up his trailer and get it loaded, he failed to hear or see the approaching plow train. The Russell plow slammed into his empty dry van trailer. The collision literally cut the trailer in half. Aside from having a premature bowel movement knocked out of him, the driver only sustained minor injuries. I guess it was good that the trailer was empty instead of loaded as that would have really been a tragic waste of all that delicious kraut. Not to mention the greater impact with the potential to derail the plow train and injure or perhaps even kill the crew on board.

At that point in time this area of the main track was under yard limit rules. This required all trains operating through this here to proceed at restricted speed. To refresh your memories, restricted speed requires that you operate prepared to stop within half the range of vision short of train, engine, switch not properly lined, derail, roadway workers, red flags or stop signals, be on the lookout for broken rail and not exceeding 20 MPH. More often than not, the crossover switch that was used to connect with the GB&W was improperly lined, so you had to stop and restore it to the route you needed to use.

It is highly probable that the Engineer was operating at far less than the 20 MPH maximum allowed in restricted speed for just that reason. Quite a bit of damage was sustained for operating at a lower speed.

Another WC train mixed it up with a tractor trailer at a crossing on the far south side of Fond du Lac on the Chicago Sub a couple of years later at a siding called Valley. There was a big warehouse at the west end of Valley Siding. There was a road and crossing leading to this warehouse located just west of the Valley West control point, the very west end of the siding. Again, this was a cross buck crossing with no automatic warning devices.

A truck departed the warehouse hauling a load of large wheels of cheese. The truck failed to stop at the crossing and was struck by an eastbound train. This eastbound was only proceeding at 20 MPH, the maximum track speed at this location. I don’t know if the trucker thought he could make it or what, but in his haste, his truck got creamed and the trailer chopped into multiple pieces. And large cheese wheels were scattered in all directions. I wonder how the trucker explained that one to his dispatcher.

“Splain this me Lucy!”

In the very early days of the WC, a westbound train out of Chicago mixed it up with a semi-dump truck hauling crushed rock. The driver ignored the operating flashers and all warning signs in advance of and at the crossing and drove directly into the path of the approaching train. The truck was clobbered by the train and the driver was killed. The lead locomotive of the consist, the 6548 derailed and rolled onto its side. Being that there was an embankment along side the right of way, when the locomotive derailed and rolled over, it came to a rest at about a 45 degree or so angle, up against the embankment as opposed to being completely flat and on its side at a 90 degree angle to the rail head. The Engineer was seriously injured in the mishap and the Conductor sustained minor injuries. Rock was scattered everywhere, including inside the cab of the locomotive which contributed to the injuries to the crew on board the train.

I’ve had several very close encounters with larger vehicles but, up to this point, I have not had the close encounter of the third kind. In my events though, they were close enough to put the fear of God into you.

The first one took place way back in 1980 when I was a student Engineer at the MoPac. We were heading north out of Yard Center in Dolton, IL on the Clearing Run Transfer. As we were approaching the road crossing of 130th Street on the far south side of Chicago, the driver of a garbage truck decided he could not wait for us to pass and proceeded to drive around the crossing gates.

Something to think about here for a moment; in order to drive around the lowered gates, you have to violate additional traffic laws before you even break the law of disregarding the gates. You must cross the double yellow stripe in the road and enter the lanes of traffic of the opposite direction. This means you are now driving left of center. This in itself is a violation of the law. In some cases you are passing vehicles that are already stopped and patiently waiting at the crossing. This adds passing in a no passing zone. Then, of course, there is the driving around the gates themselves issue which is the third violation.

Now back to our story.

The garbage truck rolls across the crossing in front of us as we were approaching. The Engineer training me instructs me NOT to put the train into emergency. He says the truck will be across before we would collide with him and besides, our going into emergency will not prevent us from hitting him should he stall or proceed to slowly. This was the first lesson I received in the calculation of time and distance while operating a locomotive.

The calculation of time and distance is something that can be explained, sort of, but cannot actually be taught. I can tell you how it is done, but not how to do it. Does that make any sense? The technique is also skill that you develop and hone as time goes on and you get more experience running trains. I have quite the ability to perform it now but didn’t have it when I was first promoted to Engineer in 1981. I try to explain it to my students, but it can be extremely difficult now as many of them cannot add, subtract, multiply and divide in their heads. Schools do not teach this anymore opting for the use of calculators instead.

The time and distance calculation is vitally important in situations like a close encounter at a road crossing or when the Dispatcher calls and asks if you can make it to a certain location by a specific time. You need to be able to quickly calculate this distance you need to travel, how much time it will take to reach that point and what minimum sustained speed you will need to maintain to reach said destination. It is the same when approaching a crossing when you observe a motorist disregarding the warning devices placed there. You must quickly, in most cases, very quickly determine how soon you will be occupying the crossing.

But I digress.

The garbage truck cleared when we were about one hundred feet or so from the crossing as were traveling about 25 MPH or so allowing him plenty of time to clear our path without us plowing into him. Once cleared, the Engineer pointed out that putting the train into emergency would have been a wasted effort resulting only in the crew having to walk the train to inspect it before we proceeded again and also blocking this very busy crossing during the evening rush.

Now comes the weird part. The following night I was off and went to a party. Later that evening I was involved in a motorcycle accident and sustained very serious injuries. I guess my mind was trying to protect me from the horror of what had actually happened. For whatever reason, I had the idea in my head that we had collided with the garbage truck. When the paramedics were talking to me in the ambulance asking me what happened, I insisted that we “hit that garbage truck.” They must’ve thought I was delirious or something.

The second encounter occurred while I was training on the City Run, a transfer job from Yard Center to 37th Street Yard in Chicago. While rolling through the Roseland community in Chicago, a school bus drove around lowered gates at a crossing. There were student on the bus. We were rolling along much faster this time though, about 40 MPH.

The bus driver seemed totally oblivious to our approach despite my leaning on the whistle. He was not in a particular hurry to get across, just sort of lazily ambling along. As the distance between the bus and my train rapidly diminished, I did not believe he was going to clear in time. This time I put the train into emergency, doing so several hundred feet before the crossing.

The bus barely cleared but it was extremely close; close enough that I was able to clearly see all the kids on the bus, observe their open mouths as they all appeared to be screaming, read the name on the side of the bus including the number of the unit, and even get the license plate number on the back as we rolled past. Oh yes, I was a bit rattled. Even old Howard Hanna was somewhat concerned. He told me he too, would probably have put it into emergency as it was that close.

We radioed in this event giving the Chicago & Western Indiana Dispatcher all the particulars of the event including the name, unit number and license plate number of the bus. After a tragic event in 1979 just a little north of here where a Louisville & Nashville train collided with a school bus killing several children, we were required to report any and all close encounters with school buses. In that 1979 event, the driver ignored the flashing lights and bells warning him that a train was approaching and drove across directly in front of the approaching. Witnesses corroborated this testimony with that of the train crew.

Upon our arrival back to Yard Center at the end of our tour of duty, Howard and I were instructed to report to the Claim Agent’s office to discuss the event. We were informed that the police had apprehended the driver and that the bus company had dismissed him. We had to fill out incident reports about the situation.

In the last close encounter we will discuss this time, it was almost a run in with a tractor-trailer. This one occurred at Valley West on the Wisconsin Central in 1989. We were heading west with our train out of Chicago for the yard at North Fond du Lac. The speed limit drops from 40 MPH to 20 MPH at the Valley West control point. I was slowing the train for this restriction as I was coming up to the signal here.

As I had mentioned earlier, there is a road crossing just west of the control point at Valley West. Valley Siding is at the bottom of Byron Hill also known as the “mountain.” At Valley East the hill bottoms and there is a curve. As you round the curve you encounter an ascending grade and roll around another curve. As you come out of this curve you drop back down again towards Valley West.

We had a clear (green) signal at Valley East indicating we were going down the main track here. It also indicated that we had a proceed signal at Valley West. I was using the air brakes instead of the dynamic brakes to better control the slack through this territory.

As I rolled around that last curve and started down towards Valley West, the train speed was dropping quite nicely, just as I had intended. I was working the throttle against the train to adjust my speed. Being that the descending grade would remain all the way into downtown Fond du Lac, I had to keep the brakes set.

As the train approached the crossing at Valley West, both my Conductor John Ziegler and I observed a tractor-trailer rolling towards the crossing from our left. As we zeroed in on the crossing we quickly realized this guy was not going to stop. The memories of the other collision here quickly passed through my mind. In judging the time and distance I quickly surmised there was the high probability of a collision. I put the train into emergency. We literally just missed ramming the tail end of this guy’s trailer. Being that I had brakes already set was to my advantage. The emergency application quickly took effect on at least the head end. Being that the rate of an emergency application travels at about 900 feet per second, I probably had the head 2700 or so feet of my train in emergency by the time we reached the crossing. This was just sufficient to reduce our speed enough to barely miss this truck.

The engines stopped just a little west of the crossing. The truck also stopped. John jumped up, ran out the door and after the driver. A heated exchange took place between the two. On his way back I could see John writing something down too.

We had forms on the WC to fill out for near collisions with motor vehicles at road crossings. We would turn them in to the claim department would process them running the license plates on said vehicle and send the owner a letter about the situation. A copy of the letter would be entered into the data base for future reference in case some sort of event involving the owner took place in the future. The letter established a history of unsafe driving with regards to railroad crossings.

When John returned to the engine, he told me of his conversation with the driver. It seems the driver assumed we saw him coming and figured were going to stop for him. You know what happens when you assume. I wonder how he would have explained this to his dispatcher and the police if we had collided with him. John read him the riot act using some highly descriptive adjectives that also referenced family history and portions of the anatomy. He then copied down the name of the trucking company, vehicle number, license plate information and the trailer number. He filled out a card upon our return to Shops Yard in North Fond du Lac including the statement the driver made to him and turned it in.

John told me he also told the driver something to the effect that he was lucky the Engineer didn’t come out to talk to him. He gave him some line about my being big and mean and in an ugly mood, ready to “kick some ass” over this episode. He told the driver that I was livid and that he was lucky that I didn’t come back there to talk to him. When all was said and done, we got a good laugh out of John’s choice of description of me. It was an interesting combination. I’ve been described as a lot of things over the years, but the combination of big and mean and in an ugly mood all at once was certainly the most unusual.

And so it goes.

Tuch

Hot Times on the High Iron and the HTOTHI initials, ©2005 by JD Santucci.