Pranks and Horseplay on the Railroad

BR&P wrote:I heard of one played on a local NYC conductor named Bob Rinders many years ago. The guy was sleeping on the bunk in the caboose when a prankster slipped a lock or maybe just a spike through the hasp on the outside of each door. They then climbed up top and quietly put a big old bucket over the stove pipe. Deprived of a good draft, the coal stove began belching its smoke INSIDE the caboose. When the guy woke up gasping and coughing, he found the doors locked and had to break a window to get out.

LOL that's harsh. But funny as hell.

It was probably a common prank in older days. I also heard of a similar incident on the B&O here.

Speaking of cabooses, in Kachler's book "The Snowflaker" he tells of a job which had a side-door caboose during WWII. One of the crew did some cooking and would often board the caboose carrying a bag of groceries as it slowly left the yard. On occasion somebody would board the caboose down in the yard and lock the side toward the yard office. The guy would board the thing - not an easy task anyway - and find the door locked, and would then have to go up and over the top and down the other side, lugging the bag of food, to get in that side. You can imagine the language flying around then!

I once had a long running "feud" with a coworker who I had actually grown up with and another in our gang. It was nothing malicious and there was an unspoken agreement that if you pulled a prank on someone, you could be sure to be hit back within a few days. Of course, the knowledge that revenge was coming meant that the return "attack" had to be as unexpected and unpredictable as possible.

Some of the things I can remember just off the top of my head:

1. Filling a guy's hardhat with water and freezing it overnight and coming in just early enough to get it out of the freezer and into the victim's locker right before we had to head out onto the tracks
2. Dropping spikes in a switch point while someone was cranking it during adjustments and making them loosen up the throw rod for a few minutes until they realized what the problem was
3. Filling several cups with water and putting them on the pushbar of door leading into the shop. One particular guy was always huffing and puffing and would pull the door open violently every time he came in. This, of course, sent the contents of the cops flying at him and usually hitting him in a spot where it looked like he had wet himself
4. Someone covering the inside of my locker with pictures of Hannah Montana they had collected from various newspapers for several months the day before a facility inspection, making me look like a pedophile in front of all the supervisors (I kinda deserved that one though, after I pulled off #5)
5. Setting off a firecracker while someone was delicately trying to insert a fuse inline on a hot 110v bus

One very green trainee had an attitude from the very first day on the job, acting like he didn't have to do any more work than the rest of us (technically true, but everyone else there had to bust their butts the first couple months on the job until they had some new employees under them). It took him a while to realize that his toolbag was getting heavier every day by way of lead weights we gradually inserted into the bag lining over the course of several weeks.

One guy did a really accurate impression of one of the guys on the trouble desk. He would sometimes call the 3rd trick gang in the middle of the night saying he had a problem with "5 switch", which, at that location, had been removed in the late 60's. For some reason the 3rd trick guys never knew that, and spent half an hour walking back and forth through the plant looking for "5 switch" before they called the desk back, only to be asked something along the lines of "what are you talking about?". Other fake calls involved them being asked to visually inspect a home signal that a train had reported displaying a "slow stop approach slow". One frantic call from the "desk" asked them to hurry up and get to a location because a train was stuck at a signal that was displaying a "purple aspect".. we watched from a bar near the location as they showed up a few minutes later.

An instructor told our engineer class that someone had placed acouple dozen track torpedos inside a tunnel in a sequence which when a loco came through at the regulation speed, sounded like an M60 machine gun. An engineer training me had placed a torpedo infront of our engine when we returned from lunch without my knowledge. Some unknown person had also placed a torpedo on a yard track while a buddy of mine was working. He about jumped outa the window of the GP38.

roadster wrote:An instructor told our engineer class that someone had placed acouple dozen track torpedos inside a tunnel in a sequence which when a loco came through at the regulation speed, sounded like an M60 machine gun. An engineer training me had placed a torpedo infront of our engine when we returned from lunch without my knowledge. Some unknown person had also placed a torpedo on a yard track while a buddy of mine was working. He about jumped outa the window of the GP38.

LOL those things are loud enough to wake the dead.

WOW! I never knew anyone to prank with the torpedoes! We were a bit afraid of them. When the old motor cars would come into the shops to be rebuilt, one of the things we had to do was fish out all the torpedoes from the dash pockets. The things were a bit unstable when wet and could go off if mishandled. One time, one of the boys were taking a M/C out of a box car and one went off on its own!
it scared the (censored) out of him!


Gadfly

I never heard of them being that unstable. Not saying it did not happen but I've seen them thrown against the side of a brick building, thrown way up in the air and come down in a parking lot, and a lot of other stuff without a problem.

So NS is the only road where pranks were common.now i know thanks for this wonderful info i appreciated it thanks and more power guys.,

Huh???? I don't get it.

A couple of weeks ago a crew handed off a train to me that had been hit with a tub of butter. I didnt think it was very funny.

Trying to grease up the hog i guess?

When I worked for Amtrak, one time I put my grip down in the trainmaster's office and stepped out to go to the bathroom. When I got back and grabbed the shoulder strap to pick my bag up off the floor, it didn't move an inch. The prankster (I suspect it was one of the TMs!) had taken my books out and loaded the bag up with a bunch of brake shoes.

Another TM had a company truck. One of his colleagues had a set of spare keys to the truck and lived in the same neighborhood. One chilly morning the TM left his house, got into his truck, started it, and threw the defrosters on full - WHOOSH! A mini-blizzard of hole-punch chads blew out of the defroster vents and fluttered all over him and the inside of the truck.

Nothing like a knuckle pin or 2 in the ole grip to make ya feel 30 years older real fast. lol

Nothing like a knuckle pin or 2 in the ole grip to make ya feel 30 years older real fast. lol

Tie plates work well, too!

IN the NS shops, people would put grease on the underside of door knobs, on the bottom of fork lift steering wheels---anywhere an unsuspecting victim might grab. While this was highly amusing (apparently) to immature workers, most of us failed to see the humor in such horseplay. Likewise, they would put "Locktite" in employee's locker locks. This was routine until one of the shop supervisors started out the door and suddenly snatched his hand back in shock. The grease was intended for another "lesser" employee, and the bossman was NOT amused!!!! This prompted another unscheduled reading of Rule #1028 (Norfolk Southern General Conduct & Safety Rules): "Running, Jumping, Horseplay of ANY kind is strictly prohibited....................................................." at the next morning's Safety Briefing. AND a lecture on pranks and the use of company materials and products to play them! Of course, there was the warning that went something like, "If I catch ANYBODY playing pranks or greasing steering wheels, THAT S O B is out of service for 10 days!!!!!!!!" LOL! It cut down on the pranks (for about a week)!!


Gadfly

This one was pretty funny. One of the fellows got hold of a realistic-looking plastic SKULL (the thing looked VERY real) and put in one of the workers' lockers. This prank victim was talking a mile a minute about the ACC basketball tournament as he slowly opened his locker to change clothes. As he reached into the locker to get his street clothes, he turned and suddenly screamed bloody murder!!!!!!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Expletive deleted!) It scared the blazes out of him as he spied this skull grinning at him! When we realized what happened, we had a pretty good laugh at him.


Gadfly