GA, wow, I gotta remember that trick with the bailing off...........It gets aggrivating when Im the only one awake on extra service moves/stone trains, etc....even at stop signals when its my turn...I usually just turn the radio way up
That trick with the horn pedal reminds me of something that happened in Newark Penn station about 2 years ago when NJT crews were still getting used to the ex-Amtrak P40s, which have the sequencer horn pedals, and in a differnet place than the other locos with horn pedals (not sequencer pedals thank god).
A Raritan Valley Line train pulled into Newark with the P40 on the point. In NJ, its required to blow the horn when coming into a station. So the eng hits the horn pedal coming into the station from the yard, as required (no one told him that it would continue to blow and blow and blow). The horns on the P40 are FRIGGEN LOUD btw, and blow for a long time.... So when the second horn blast blows, he is starting down the platform where all the people are standing. Of course, this is evening rush and the place is packed.
So he stops on the pedal a few times in a panic thinking its stuck or something. All that does is shut it off and restart the sequence all over again. While management scrambled over there to him to try to figure out what to do, half the station is deaf now as the loco is still doing its --------------- ---------------- ooooo --------------- Needless to say, when the rest of us got trained on them, that was one of the first things they pounded into our heads.
I was getting ready to leave Newark Penn a few months ago in a P40 and I go to turn on the bell getting ready to pull out, and I hit the damn horn button and not the bell button on the dash....after scaring the hell out of myself and everyone in the station, I pull out of there needing a change of underwear! I was expecting to hear something about that, or at least some comment on the radio, but luckily it was an early Sunday AM, and not too many folks around