I am far, far too amused by this...

[tehluggage]

...But there was a major derailment early this morning in Alyth Yard. There was a potash train coming into P3, which is one of the very long tracks, used to store the trains that are one hundred cars or more, and apparently a wheel on one of the cars caught a switch point, the switch opened beneath the cars as they were moving, (REALLY Not Good), and poof, eight cars all over the ground. No one was hurt, but boy, was the yard manager ever having a shitty night.

The job I got called for actually ended up being the one to put the pieces of the train back together, which basically meant pulling something like the first 110 cars out of P3, then going next door to P4 to pick up the last ten or so cars that another job had removed from the end of the train, behind the derailed cars, and then taking the whole shebang uptown to the Depot.

To be honest, it was actually the most work we'd done all night, and it ended up being our last move, which meant we got to go home an hour anna half early. Hell, I even got to drive the train for a mile or so. It was ver' cool.


Railroading factoid of the day: Potash trains are often over 120 cars long, (over 6000 feet), and usually weigh upwards of twenty thousand tons. They are long, heavy fuckers.

Comments

[fangses.livejournal.com]

...oh wow. So, not much at all like derailing a train of thought, then? Did you wind up having to work with that guy you don't like?

[tehluggage.livejournal.com]

Hehehe. Not really, no. This was a pretty big derailment, and when I went to work last night, I went by the yard, and they still had the biiig crane there to clean up the cars. I think the derailed cars even ended up ripping out a piece of track, and that not only stuck out over P2, but P1 as well, which isn't too good. As far as I know, that's three major tracks out of commission, which means big headaches for the yard coordinators. But no one was hurt, which means ninety percent of the conductors and engineers are all very, very amused by this.

And nope! They gave me a choice of what job I wanted to work, out of a possible three, and based on the info they gave me, I took a chance, and ended up working with the awesome classmate, the one who frequents 4chan. It really was a pretty good night all round. And last night wasn't bad either.