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tehluggage...Good lord, 33 hours round trip to Field and back. That's a long fucking trip. Of course, that does include 15 hours sitting at the Field bunkhouse, but still. Ten hours on a train west, and then ten back out east to Alyth. ...Man, I think I'm so tired now I'm not actually tired anymore. Also, it's like minus 40. I like the cold and all, but YUCK.
It was an interesting trip, though, and that includes both ways. On the way out west, we were called for 1900, but we didn't actually leave until 2115, mostly because we were waiting for the Holiday Train to come into the yard. (I know the exact times because they're something I have to note on every trip. And it hasn't been long enough for me to forget them yet...) Anyway, we were out of there after nine-ish, and I gotta say, it was ver' nice being on a warm engine, instead of out in the yard, sweeping switches at minus thirty. With a wind chill.
Didn't have any issues at all until we reached...Massive, I believe. We had to wait there for two trains to pass us in the siding, as we were something like 6800 feet, maybe a little longer. It was a light train, though, only 3500 tons. And then, once we headed out from Massive, the Rail Traffic Controller, (RTC), called us up to let us know that there was a broken rail on the north main past Lake Louise, and we'd have to take the south main to the Hill.
Now, north and south main means that there's two tracks side-by-side, but instead of one track being a siding where trains can park or pass, they're both main track. Trains passing each other on these tracks can do up to about forty miles an hour, which you can't do in a siding. Anyway, taking the south main meant that there was an extra forty minutes added onto our trip, because of various speed restrictions.
Didn't have any issues going down the hill and through the tunnels, which is a very good thing, because I Did Not want to have to walk a mile and a half, tying down fifty hand brakes as I went, on a very, very large hill, at -30 C. Finally made it into Field and into the bunkhouse at about 0345, finished up the paperwork, and headed to my room to crash for eight hours. They weren't very good pillows, but it's amazing how much that doesn't actually matter when you're that tired.
My hoghead and I were at the bunkhouse for a total of fifteen hours, two of which I spent playing pool with the engineer who helped me hire on with CP in the first place. It was the first time I'd really spent any time at the bunkhouse down around the various crews, instead of staying in my room the entire time. It was a lot of fun.
We finally got called for 1900, again, which was a relief, because we'd spent the entire afternoon watching train after train fall back to later and later start times because of the cold. It was almost surreal, watching the giant clusterfuck in progress. The train we got called for, 198, was a hotshot train like the one we brought to Field, 105. Hotshots are the best trains, because they're the top priority, (usually), on the subdivision, and most other trains get out of the way for them. The trains all have numeric designations, and the same number always goes to the same type of train, so that sulphur trains are 608 or 607, grain trains are 361 or 360, hotshots are in the 100-series, 662 is empty glycol cars coming back from the West Coast, and so on. Oh, and odd numbered trains go west, even numbers go east.
Anyway, we headed out about 1845 to run all the paperwork, and get set up to grab our train, and that's where the fun part really started. Once we got down to the station, the road manager informed us that the two lead locomotives needed to be watered, which is a thankless job at the best of times, and sheer freezing hell at the kind of temperatures we got last night. This actually led to our next big problem, wherein we finally finished fiddling with the units, had all our paperwork, and set off up the Big Hill. When we'd made it about a mile anna half up, the lead locomotive basically died on us, so that we still had heat, power, and all the other essentials, we just didn't have any pulling power. So there we were, stalled on the Big Hill, blocking the main line, and stopping every westbound and eastbound train pulling into Field. I was weirdly proud of my train.
Oh, and by this time, there were three crews called for eastbounds behind us, so we were holding up a lot of people. I suspect the Laggan Sub RTC was having a few quiet hissy fits off the radio, 'cos boy was it ever a mess. We ended up having to call one of the eastbound outgoing crews to help us, which they did by cutting off their engines from their train in Field Yard, coming up to the tailend of our train, and then pulling us back down the hill, and into a track in the yard, thus clearing the main line. With that, I think there were only two track left open at the yard; the main line, and one of the slightly smaller yard tracks. Which is...insane. Field is a very, very small yard, and should only be used as a crew change-off point. It should not have five freaking trains yarded.
Eventually, and by this point it was about 2130, 2200, the road manager and RTC decided on a plan of attack. Their idea was for an incoming from the west to drop a unit for us in a clear track, us to grab it, and use the two good units, (in a consist of four!), to get us up the hill. It didn't help that most of the switches were so frozen that the only way to throw the silly buggers was with a sledgehammer and three people. Oh, and the snow was up to my knees. And it was really cold. So that relatively simple move took two hours, because it was *midnight* by the time we actually pulled up the hill.
Oh, and by this time, we'd decided enough was enough, and given our ten hours notice. See, the maximum length of time you can remain on a train is twelve hours. You cannot operate it more than twelve hours, but you can give notice if you think you might be on the train for twelve hours, which, considering it took us five hours just to get out of Field, was looking more and more possible. So they had to have us off the train and back at Alyth Yard in Calgary by 0500 this morning, because we gave notice. And I'm very glad we did, too. Hell, I think the crew in front of us and the two behind us all gave their notice as well, because it took them as long to get out of Field as it did us.
Anyway, once we were moving, we didn't really stop again until Ozada, which is the siding where the crew was waiting in the taxi for us, but boy, was it fun listening to the radio on the way back east. There was a train sitting in the siding near the top of the hill who had problems with his air, which, considering he was about to descend the hill, is a Very Bad Thing, and the cold really didn't help. There was a guy a few miles behind him who had problems with his air, we passed a guy at Massive who, you guessed it, had air problems, and there was a westbound train in front of us at Ozada who had lost fify-four pounds of air in about twenty minutes. That's a big deal, because the most you can lost is fifteen pounds, as long as you started with ninety. Basically, what they're trying to ensure is that you have the air in the brake pipe necessary to descend the hill. The engineers know a lot more about that than I do, though...
Anyway, that's kind of an average west pool train trip in a nutshell. And even though it sounds like a lousy trip...I can't wait till I can go west all the time. I'd forgotten how much I missed it.
It was an interesting trip, though, and that includes both ways. On the way out west, we were called for 1900, but we didn't actually leave until 2115, mostly because we were waiting for the Holiday Train to come into the yard. (I know the exact times because they're something I have to note on every trip. And it hasn't been long enough for me to forget them yet...) Anyway, we were out of there after nine-ish, and I gotta say, it was ver' nice being on a warm engine, instead of out in the yard, sweeping switches at minus thirty. With a wind chill.
Didn't have any issues at all until we reached...Massive, I believe. We had to wait there for two trains to pass us in the siding, as we were something like 6800 feet, maybe a little longer. It was a light train, though, only 3500 tons. And then, once we headed out from Massive, the Rail Traffic Controller, (RTC), called us up to let us know that there was a broken rail on the north main past Lake Louise, and we'd have to take the south main to the Hill.
Now, north and south main means that there's two tracks side-by-side, but instead of one track being a siding where trains can park or pass, they're both main track. Trains passing each other on these tracks can do up to about forty miles an hour, which you can't do in a siding. Anyway, taking the south main meant that there was an extra forty minutes added onto our trip, because of various speed restrictions.
Didn't have any issues going down the hill and through the tunnels, which is a very good thing, because I Did Not want to have to walk a mile and a half, tying down fifty hand brakes as I went, on a very, very large hill, at -30 C. Finally made it into Field and into the bunkhouse at about 0345, finished up the paperwork, and headed to my room to crash for eight hours. They weren't very good pillows, but it's amazing how much that doesn't actually matter when you're that tired.
My hoghead and I were at the bunkhouse for a total of fifteen hours, two of which I spent playing pool with the engineer who helped me hire on with CP in the first place. It was the first time I'd really spent any time at the bunkhouse down around the various crews, instead of staying in my room the entire time. It was a lot of fun.
We finally got called for 1900, again, which was a relief, because we'd spent the entire afternoon watching train after train fall back to later and later start times because of the cold. It was almost surreal, watching the giant clusterfuck in progress. The train we got called for, 198, was a hotshot train like the one we brought to Field, 105. Hotshots are the best trains, because they're the top priority, (usually), on the subdivision, and most other trains get out of the way for them. The trains all have numeric designations, and the same number always goes to the same type of train, so that sulphur trains are 608 or 607, grain trains are 361 or 360, hotshots are in the 100-series, 662 is empty glycol cars coming back from the West Coast, and so on. Oh, and odd numbered trains go west, even numbers go east.
Anyway, we headed out about 1845 to run all the paperwork, and get set up to grab our train, and that's where the fun part really started. Once we got down to the station, the road manager informed us that the two lead locomotives needed to be watered, which is a thankless job at the best of times, and sheer freezing hell at the kind of temperatures we got last night. This actually led to our next big problem, wherein we finally finished fiddling with the units, had all our paperwork, and set off up the Big Hill. When we'd made it about a mile anna half up, the lead locomotive basically died on us, so that we still had heat, power, and all the other essentials, we just didn't have any pulling power. So there we were, stalled on the Big Hill, blocking the main line, and stopping every westbound and eastbound train pulling into Field. I was weirdly proud of my train.
Oh, and by this time, there were three crews called for eastbounds behind us, so we were holding up a lot of people. I suspect the Laggan Sub RTC was having a few quiet hissy fits off the radio, 'cos boy was it ever a mess. We ended up having to call one of the eastbound outgoing crews to help us, which they did by cutting off their engines from their train in Field Yard, coming up to the tailend of our train, and then pulling us back down the hill, and into a track in the yard, thus clearing the main line. With that, I think there were only two track left open at the yard; the main line, and one of the slightly smaller yard tracks. Which is...insane. Field is a very, very small yard, and should only be used as a crew change-off point. It should not have five freaking trains yarded.
Eventually, and by this point it was about 2130, 2200, the road manager and RTC decided on a plan of attack. Their idea was for an incoming from the west to drop a unit for us in a clear track, us to grab it, and use the two good units, (in a consist of four!), to get us up the hill. It didn't help that most of the switches were so frozen that the only way to throw the silly buggers was with a sledgehammer and three people. Oh, and the snow was up to my knees. And it was really cold. So that relatively simple move took two hours, because it was *midnight* by the time we actually pulled up the hill.
Oh, and by this time, we'd decided enough was enough, and given our ten hours notice. See, the maximum length of time you can remain on a train is twelve hours. You cannot operate it more than twelve hours, but you can give notice if you think you might be on the train for twelve hours, which, considering it took us five hours just to get out of Field, was looking more and more possible. So they had to have us off the train and back at Alyth Yard in Calgary by 0500 this morning, because we gave notice. And I'm very glad we did, too. Hell, I think the crew in front of us and the two behind us all gave their notice as well, because it took them as long to get out of Field as it did us.
Anyway, once we were moving, we didn't really stop again until Ozada, which is the siding where the crew was waiting in the taxi for us, but boy, was it fun listening to the radio on the way back east. There was a train sitting in the siding near the top of the hill who had problems with his air, which, considering he was about to descend the hill, is a Very Bad Thing, and the cold really didn't help. There was a guy a few miles behind him who had problems with his air, we passed a guy at Massive who, you guessed it, had air problems, and there was a westbound train in front of us at Ozada who had lost fify-four pounds of air in about twenty minutes. That's a big deal, because the most you can lost is fifteen pounds, as long as you started with ninety. Basically, what they're trying to ensure is that you have the air in the brake pipe necessary to descend the hill. The engineers know a lot more about that than I do, though...
Anyway, that's kind of an average west pool train trip in a nutshell. And even though it sounds like a lousy trip...I can't wait till I can go west all the time. I'd forgotten how much I missed it.
