A Week on the Railroad

For those of you who are new to TOTP or just didn’t know, I make my living as a locomotive engineer, and one of my resolutions for 2011 was to document a week of life on the railroad.  What follows is my life for the first week of April.  
Working on the railroad is it’s own little world.  Very different from most other jobs, but I suppose every one's job is like that to some extent.  
Like most jobs railroading has its own vocabulary.  I tried not to use much of it in writing this (it was difficult), but I found a glossary of slang that I pasted onto the end of the post if you're interested.


Probably the most unusual thing about my job is the lack of a regular schedule.  I can’t tell for sure where I’ll be day to day, so making plans is nearly impossible.  For this 7 day period I ended up with about 75 hrs of total time on duty.  Plus a little over 40 hrs of hotel time made for 115 hours, or almost 5 days, of being gone from home.
I’m thankful for a wife that loves me anyway and keeps our home fires burning when I’m so undependable.  I’m thankful for church that supports my family and is flexible enough to allow me to lead worship when I can and has a back-up for me when I can’t. 

To my sister and the rest of you who care about grammar:  I know that I mixed tenses, mostly writing about the past using present tense.  I don’t like it either, and I apologize.  Just grit your teeth and bear it.
The railroad is a 24/7 operation so all times are in military format.

A picture of "my office", the control stand of a locomotive.

  
Friday, April 1
Called to go on duty at 0105 for an empty potash train coming from Beaumont and going to Carlsbad, NM.  A Beaumont crew is bringing it as far as Somerville (about 75 mi southeast of Temple), where we will get on it and take it on to Temple.  We limo to Somerville, a good thing for me since I didn’t get much rest the day before.  I get a nap in the van on the way there.  When we get to Somerville we find out that the train isn’t there and isn’t going to make it, so we get back in the limo and go further down the line to get on it at Allenfarm.  More miles means more money, so it’s okay with me.  It’s an empty train that is pretty easy to run, so the trip back to Temple is uneventful.    I tie up at 0900 (about 8 hrs on duty) and go home and sleep until 1500 when the family gets home from picking up Jones after school.
    That evening Jones attends Cooper and Cutter’s birthday party.  While she’s at the party, the rest of us go to Applebee’s for supper.  The phone rings at 1905 while we are at the Meyers house picking up Jones.  Called to go to San Antonio, on duty at 2035.  Tonight I only have 2 engines and 2 empty cars.  Not much of a train.  They send this out every night so they will have engines to bring back a vehicle train from the San Antonio Toyota plant the next day.  San Antonio is just over 100 miles from Temple on the highway, but 221 miles by rail because they route us the long way around.  Most of the trip is on Union Pacific RR track.  We stop two times for about an hour each time while we meet other trains.  (There is only one main line, but trains going both ways on it so someone has to get out of the way in a siding.)  I get short naps each time we stop.  We tie up in San Antonio at 0745 on the morning of  the 2nd with just over 11 hrs on duty.

Saturday, April 2
After eating the hotel breakfast I sleep the morning away.  When I get up I walk down the road to Office Depot and get a new binder to keep my UPRR paperwork.  My old one is busted and falling apart.  Then I go eat at the Mexican joint across the street.  When I get back to the hotel room I move my paperwork from the old binder to the new, throwing away the stuff that I don’t need or is out of date.  I end up getting rid of 3 to 5 pounds of junk, making my grip a little lighter.  When my task is complete, I talk to Leslie for a while on the phone and then lay down around 1800 expecting to be called in an hour or two to work Toyota vehicle train that night.  The phone rings at 2215 and I am surprised to be ordered home on a 2345 deadhead.  The vehicle train wasn’t going to be ready anytime soon, so they put us in a limo and we get back to Temple at 0145 Sunday morning.  

Sunday, April 3
I go to bed when I get home.  We get up in the morning and go to church.  From there we go to the Taco Bell with Irv, LouAnn, and Lynelle.  We chose this place because it’s across the parking lot from the Sprint store and we need new phones and a new phone plan.  Just as the Sprint guy finishes activating my new phone, I get called for work.  On duty at 1510 to take an empty grain train to Ft Worth.  We hurry home, I change clothes, pack my lunch box, and go to work.  The Ft Worth subdivision is crowded with traffic and has lots of slow orders because of maintenance being done so I know that it’s going to be a long day.  

A grain train

Monday, April 4
I was right.  We end up dying just as we get to Ft Worth.  Then have to sit on the train waiting for the next crew and our ride to the hotel.  We end up with 13 hrs on duty when we tie up at 0410 on Monday morning.  I go straight to bed when we get to the hotel.  I wake up around noon and eat a bowl of cereal before going to the workout room.  I ride the bike for about 45 minutes while I read the owner’s guide to my new phone.  After my workout I call Leslie and then go to Subway.  I eat, shower, and go back to bed.  The phone rings and wakes me up at 1800.  I go on duty at 1930 for a loaded grain train.  113 cars of wheat.  16145 tons.  6913 ft long.  Two motors on the head end and one on the rear of the train.  
After getting our paperwork we, get to the train around 2015.  We don’t get signals to leave until after midnight.  Once we leave Ft Worth we don’t stop until we get to Temple.  We tie up at 0540 the next morning with just over 10 hrs on duty.

Tuesday, April 5
When I get home, I turn off Leslie’s alarm so she can sleep a little bit longer.  Jamison, the baby she keeps on Tuesdays and Thursdays, is delivered at 0640.  Jones gets up to get ready for school.  The other kids get up over the next 30 minutes and our day begins.  Leslie takes Jones to school while I watch the other kids.  When she gets home she loads them up to go to the gym and I go to bed.  I get up at 1500 when she brings Jones home from school.  The phone rings at 1540 and I am order to Ft Worth again on another empty grain train.  After I take my call, Jones and I take a short bicycle ride to the mail box and the park, before I change clothes and go to work.  
Lots of stop and go because of all the traffic.  Pretty slow going, but not a bad trip.  I get to the hotel and tie up at 0350 with 10 hrs 40 min on duty.  


Wednesday, April 6
I wake up at 1130 and go downstairs for lunch.  The hotel restaurant has a pretty good buffet for a good price.  After lunch I walk a few laps around the parking lot so I won’t feel so guilty about stuffing myself at the buffet.  I go back to the room and watch a show on the History channel about Attila the Hun while I check my internets and write a little bit.  
Since Leslie likes her lover to maintain fine physical fitness, I go back downstairs and swim laps and do some water aerobic exercises followed by five minutes in the hot tub jets.  I return to my room to shower and go back to bed around 1600.  The phone rings at 1800 with an on duty call, but the automated computerized thing won’t confirm my trip so I get forwarded to a live person crew caller who tells me that they messed up and I’m not going on duty yet.  My nap is ruined.  I get up and return the call that I missed from my sister while I was sleeping.  (For those of you who wonder why her call didn’t wake me...  The railroad calls our hotel room landline phone.  I had the ringer down on my cell phone while I was asleep.)
I finally get my real call at 1915 to go on duty at 2045.  When our ride picks up up, my conductor and the limo driver begin discussing where he wants to stop to get something to eat on the way to the train.  He says he’s been trying to lose weight and just can’t seem to lose much.  He’s even been to his doctor seeking advice.  After going on about this for a while he decides to stop at Jack in the Box, and I decide that he’s a moron.  Then the limo driver starts giving him advice, suggesting that he drink vinegar and eat grapefruit with every meal.  Then she starts talking about beef quality, “Some of the beef in these places isn’t very good for you either, but that Angus beef, it’s pretty good.  I don’t know what Angus is, but I know it’s better.”
I can’t keep quiet any longer and I tell her that it’s just a marketing ploy and that Angus is just a breed of cattle no more tasty or healthy than any other, but I catch myself before I explain too much since our driver is a black woman who might take offense if I go that direction,and I don’t want to be sent to diversity training.  (For those of you who are ignorant of cattle breeds and the PCness of companies as large as BNSF:  Angus cattle are black, and yes, I know guys who’ve been sent to diversity training for lesser things.)
After my conductor gets his heart attack in a sack, we go to Saginaw for our paperwork and to get our train.  We don’t have to wait long before we get signals to leave and we get a straight shot to Temple with only one short stop along the way.  Tonight’s train is 120 carloads (17127 tons) of coal from the Powder River basin in Wyoming destined for the Reliant Energy plant near Houston.  It’s a heavy train, but handles pretty well as long as you keep it under control.  I have two engines on the head end and two on the rear.  
We get to Temple just after 0300 in the morning, but there is no outbound crew on duty so we have to tie it down before we can go.  We tie up at 0345 with just 7 hours on duty.  

A coal train

Thursday, April 7
I go home and get to bed around  0500.  I sleep until 1030 then get up and play with Annie and West.  Leslie is keeping Jamison again today, but he’s not big enough to play much yet.  We prepare and eat lunch.  Today is the first day of this session of gymnastics for the girls.  We prep for that and load everyone up to go pick up Georgia from school at 1400.  She got treasure box for good behavior at school so we get to stop at Sonic.  I know that I’ll be called back to work soon, so Leslie drops me off at the house on the way to get Jones so I can get my truck.  
Gymnastics classes are in the gym at Jonesy’s school.  We pick her up then eat our ice cream and play in the field for a while then go inside for their classes.  I get my call at 1535 to go on duty at 1735.  Another empty grain train to Ft Worth.  
I’m not really thrilled about going up there for a third straight trip, but I have a good conductor that I enjoy working with.  We have an okay trip, until we get to Joshua just south of Ft Worth.  We end up sitting there for several hours while we meet 5 southbound trains.  We finally get signals on into Ft Worth and tie up at 0400 with about 10 ½ hrs on duty.  

And so the week ends.  


Glossary of Railroad Slang and Terminology

• angle cock - Lever that is turned to open or close off air from one car to another.
• augment - Temporary reassignment to another division that may be short on hoggers (see below for the meaning of that term) or conductors. (a low seniority move).
• B/O car, bad order car - Railcar requiring repair.
• bare table - An empty TOFC, COFC or double stack train.
• Big "O", the brains, skipper, pin puller - Conductor.
• bighole, bighole it, dump the air - Emergency brake application.
• deadhead - To move from home terminal to away terminals or vice-versa.  Usually done by riding in a van or on another train going toward your desired point.
• drawbar - The bar portion of a coupler that houses the knuckle.
• dynamos - Dynamic brake mode of a diesel locomotive.
• Extra Board - A group of stand-by engineers, conductors and brakeman that fill vacant jobs.
• eyeballs - Locomotive headlights, i.e.: dim your eyeballs when you're entering a yard.
• F.R.E.D.- F#^*$%@ Rear End Device, Federal Rear End Device. A flashing marker attached to the end of a train that is coupled into the train's brake pipe. Signals from the FRED (such as the brake pipe pressure on the rear of the train) are then transmitted to the leading locomotive via radio. Newer FREDs can also transmit telemetry data.  These took the place of cabooses.
• FRA, Federalies - Federal Railroad Administration, branch of government that enforces, implements and dictates safe train practices.
• get the air back - Resetting a penalty application or emergency brake application. Refers to an automatic brake release.
• hogger, hoghead - engineer.
• hotbox - Overheated or overheating wheel bearing journal. A "hotbox detector" will scan a train's journals for similar problem.
• knuckle - Hinged coupling portion on a coupler.
• lay-off - To take time off from work.
• limo- van or other vehicle that transports crews to and from trains.  
• mark-up - To return to work i.e.: extra board, freight pool, passenger pool.
• roundhouse - Building either circular in shape or square (modern version) where motive power equipment is repaired or altered.
• motor.
• traction motor - An electrical device (motor) that turns the wheels of a diesel or electric locomotive.
• yard -tracks where trains are made up or rearranged.

Part 2: Slang related to Train Movements:

• A-head, Back - These two commands are governed by the direction of the controlling locomotive. So if the cars are coupled to the front of the controlling locomotive, "A-Head" would mean to shove on the cars, and "Back" would mean to pull on the cars. If the cars are coupled to the rear of the controlling locomotive, "A-Head" would mean to pull on the cars, and "Back" would mean to shove on the cars.
• bend the rail, bending iron - Lining a switch for other than normal position.
• buff force - The action of a train shoving on a locomotive(s), i.e. dynamic brake mode of controlling or reducing train speed.
• bunch 'em up - To cause the slack between railcars to run in..
• cut 'em off - To separate cars from the train.
• Eastman, Westman, Northman, Southman - refers to a train travelling in a specified direction. i.e.: I'm putting you into the hole for one Eastman. Translation: "I'm putting you into the siding for one Eastbound train."
• head end - Front.
• highball, yard on it, pull 'er back - Maximum allowable speed. Also, a "highball" is a signal given when the train is ready to depart.
• hold the main - To occupy the main track at a train meet.
• hole, the hole - Siding.
• hook, joint - To couple to a railcar.
• kick, kick 'em - To throttle up rapidly and the pin off the car, allowing it to proceed under its own momentum in switching operations.
• pick-up, P/U - To retrieve a car or number of cars from a general location, i.e. pick up all the cars at Burkes siding.
• pin - To bunch the train enough to release the coupler locking feature.
• plug it! - Put the train into emergency brake application quickly.
• pull - To pick up a car or cut of cars from a specified location, i.e. "We're going to pull 2 cars from under the gantry crane at Bill's Lumber spur."
• re-spot - To return a car or cut of cars to a specified location at the end of a switching move. (adding or removing cars at the location of the spot)
• release - To remove the brakes, or undo a brake application.
• roll by - An inspection done on a moving train either from the ground or from a train traveling in the opposite direction.
• set - To apply brakes to a car or train.
• set out, S/O - To leave a car or cut of cars in a general location, i.e. "We'll S/O the head 10 cars at Burkes siding."
• slack action - Excessive unwanted run in and run out in your train.
• sliding meet - Where two trains pass each other with out either train having to come to a complete stop.
• spot - To position a car or cut of cars at a specified location, i.e. "We're going to spot these cars under the gantry crane at Bill's Lumber spur."
• stretch, stretch 'em - To pull on the train to remove all slack.
• that'll do - Stop.
• tie-down, tie your train down, tie 'er down - To secure your train or locomotives for a prolonged period of time. This move consists of applying the locomotive brakes, minimum train brake application of 20 psi, center and remove the reverser, open the generator field switch, dim or extinguish the headlights, lock the controlling locomotive's doors, and apply a sufficient number of handbrakes to prevent unwanted movement of the train.
• tie handbrakes - Apply the handbrakes on any car or engine.
• up a notch - To move the throttle lever up one quadrant.
• grab some air, pinch it down - Set brakes on a moving train.