White Deer and BeerFriday, I got a call asking if I could work. I ended up on a local train going down to the Seneca Army Depot. Our mission was to dig through a thousand storage cars to find 23 that had been released. It was a beautiful sunny day with the temps pushing 70. Things would have been absolutely perfect except for the conductor I drew. This guy loved to think with his feet and most of the day was spent watching him walking back and forth while consulting switch lists. My level of frustration was on the Holy Hell level by the end of the day. If any of you have seen that commercial on TV with the suck-o-meter, mine would have been in the red.The locomotive I was given for the day was an antique switch engine. It's hard to believe that this engine was built two years after I was born. It was strong which is unusual for an engine of its age, and I was able to move the lengthy cuts of cars as we searched for the ones coming out. The old girl was doing fine until I tried to pull 32 cars up a hill. We were in 7th throttle, moving about 5mph up the hill. The exhaust finally turned clear and was shooting high into the air. As I crested the top of the hill, I could see smoke behind us. I just assumed it was exhaust smoke until the conductor reported a problem. Here we were in the middle of a partially abandoned Army base with a number of grass fires. Everything was extremely dry and the hot carbon dislodged out of the mufflers in the engine had now started grass fires. One had even gone under a fence and was burning through a cemetery. For I while, I watched him trying to stomp the fires out. He had repeatedly told me he didn't need help but I finally grabbed a switch broom and walked back to assist. It took about a half hour because every time we thought we had it out, the wind would pick up and hot spots would spring back to life. When the fire was finally out, I turned to see about 10 white deer standing there watching us. Not expecting an audience out there in the middle of nowhere, it scared the Hell out of me. They were so close I could have almost reached out and touched one. They finally scampered off so I returned to the engine to finish the job. After about 10 hours of moving cars, my conductor had managed to dig out two of the 23 releases. Since we were getting on short time, it was decided to pack it in and head back to Geneva. Now I was not a happy camper. I had spent the better portion of a beautiful day in an engine cab watching a conductor fumble around. The guy absolutely refused any advice or help. I was more than ready to go home. As we drifted down grade headed toward home, I cooled off a bit. We ran along fields overlooking Seneca Lake. The water sparkled in the wind and sun and looked beautiful. Wild turkeys were every where along with foxes, opposums, ground hogs and deer. One of the fields we passed was being plowed by an Amish farmer behind an eight horse hitch. I have never seen anything so cool. Finally, we got into the home terminal just under 12 hours on duty. I parked the engine and tied it down for the night and then made a bee line to the bosses office. I hate having to say anything but I requested not to be called for work with this guy in the future. I have nothing against working long hours, I would just prefer they be productive. The boss understood as he had similar complaints from others. When I got home, Dear Wife met me at the door. Helped me out of my jacket, took my lunch pail and sat me down in our easy chair. Before I could say anything, she reappeared with chips and cold beer. My work boots were gently taken off and I was asked if there was anything on TV I wanted to watch. All I can tell you is that it was a fairy tale ending to a most difficult day. Now, outside to finish up some jobs before the rain this afternoon and snow tomorrow. Cheers all, DadHavoc |
|
|
