Okay, so maybe it's only funny to me...
Sep. 11th, 2008 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tehluggage...But my crew and I derailed a locomotive today. No one was hurt, and there was only a bit of damage to the rail, so I can laugh about it now. And it was rather amusing, so that helps too.
Anyway, to understand what happened, you might need a bit of background. So in the yard, we use yard engines to switch, (ie. swap out rail cars, build trains, take/leave cars for various customers), and we use these engines for switching because of their size. They're fifty, maybe sixty feet long, which is actually pretty small, and they have either four or six axles. The important thing, though, is that they're short. This means they can go around relatively tight corners, and that they can go on some really shitty rail. When I say that, I mean stuff that's thirty years old, hasn't been maintained in probably a decade, and has a speed limit of like five mph. Which is really freakin' slow. The engines themselves can go pretty fast, but they're often restricted by the track itself.
Now, road engines are another story altogether. They're probably seventy feet long, maybe almost eighty, and they have six axles. That means that they can pull trains weighing up to 20 000 tons, and that they can hit speeds of sixty miles an hour. Plus they're so much more comfortable than the yard engines... Anyway, as you've probably figured out, taking these units onto the old service tracks is not a good idea. Actually, if you do, it's almost a sure bet that you'll derail before the day is out.
So! I got called for a yard job today at 1300, and the job happened to start at the General Yard Office, or GYO, which is an almost sure bet, for me, that it'll be a tramp job. (By popular definition, tramps go everywhere and do anything. And...well, yeah, that's pretty much accurate. Tramp jobs clean up the yard, build trains, go relieve other jobs, switch customers, and pretty much anything they're asked to.) So I got there, talked to my crew, and found out we were to take the 8814 unit, which happened to be a road engine. (Road engines start from 8500 and up.) Now, using that for a tramp job is a really bad idea, and I'd kind of like to know what bright light thought it would be a good idea. But I digress. The 8814 happened to be parked on the GYO shop track, which is just a short stub track used for parking units, either for breaks, when you're done, or for quick repairs. It happened to be old, lousy rail.
...I'm sure you can see where this is going. So we trundle out to the unit, fire it up, perform all necessary brake tests, and get ready to back it up off the track. And...well, this next part can best be described in dialogue, quite frankly.
"8814, back it up, you got about 12 cars of room behind you, take what you need to clear the switch."
"8814 backing up, lots of room."
*sound of locomotive revving up and going into throttle 1, which happens to be the lowest*
*engine backs up about a car anna half, or about 75 feet*
*bump BUMP CLANG*
"...Well, fuck."
Only one wheel actually ended up going on the ground, but there was another one just about ready to pop off. And to be honest, I'm still not sure how they even got it in there without derailing, because when the car department guys came out to rerail it, they derailed it three or four more times in the process.
...And yeah, so that was my day. That was also probably more railroading terms than any of you wanted to know. And I had to force myself not to use more. It's practically another language...
Anyway, to understand what happened, you might need a bit of background. So in the yard, we use yard engines to switch, (ie. swap out rail cars, build trains, take/leave cars for various customers), and we use these engines for switching because of their size. They're fifty, maybe sixty feet long, which is actually pretty small, and they have either four or six axles. The important thing, though, is that they're short. This means they can go around relatively tight corners, and that they can go on some really shitty rail. When I say that, I mean stuff that's thirty years old, hasn't been maintained in probably a decade, and has a speed limit of like five mph. Which is really freakin' slow. The engines themselves can go pretty fast, but they're often restricted by the track itself.
Now, road engines are another story altogether. They're probably seventy feet long, maybe almost eighty, and they have six axles. That means that they can pull trains weighing up to 20 000 tons, and that they can hit speeds of sixty miles an hour. Plus they're so much more comfortable than the yard engines... Anyway, as you've probably figured out, taking these units onto the old service tracks is not a good idea. Actually, if you do, it's almost a sure bet that you'll derail before the day is out.
So! I got called for a yard job today at 1300, and the job happened to start at the General Yard Office, or GYO, which is an almost sure bet, for me, that it'll be a tramp job. (By popular definition, tramps go everywhere and do anything. And...well, yeah, that's pretty much accurate. Tramp jobs clean up the yard, build trains, go relieve other jobs, switch customers, and pretty much anything they're asked to.) So I got there, talked to my crew, and found out we were to take the 8814 unit, which happened to be a road engine. (Road engines start from 8500 and up.) Now, using that for a tramp job is a really bad idea, and I'd kind of like to know what bright light thought it would be a good idea. But I digress. The 8814 happened to be parked on the GYO shop track, which is just a short stub track used for parking units, either for breaks, when you're done, or for quick repairs. It happened to be old, lousy rail.
...I'm sure you can see where this is going. So we trundle out to the unit, fire it up, perform all necessary brake tests, and get ready to back it up off the track. And...well, this next part can best be described in dialogue, quite frankly.
"8814, back it up, you got about 12 cars of room behind you, take what you need to clear the switch."
"8814 backing up, lots of room."
*sound of locomotive revving up and going into throttle 1, which happens to be the lowest*
*engine backs up about a car anna half, or about 75 feet*
*bump BUMP CLANG*
"...Well, fuck."
Only one wheel actually ended up going on the ground, but there was another one just about ready to pop off. And to be honest, I'm still not sure how they even got it in there without derailing, because when the car department guys came out to rerail it, they derailed it three or four more times in the process.
...And yeah, so that was my day. That was also probably more railroading terms than any of you wanted to know. And I had to force myself not to use more. It's practically another language...
