Engineer’s Journal – April 9, 2005

Published by Bill Johnson on

We had a snafu with the fuel truck delivery the day before and David spent about 3 hours on the phone this morning trying to find someone who could deliver fuel to us. A recycling company brought the proper spec. fuel to us so we now probably have enough fuel onboard to make Shreveport.

Today’s trip left from the KCS Mossville yard where the train stayed overnight. We backed out of the Calumet track and onto the yard main. We traveled through the yard, bypassing some cars and a yard engine on the same lead and headed for the north end of the yard. After getting authority from the dispatcher, we entered KCS CTC territory. We had to stay at about 10 mph for a little over a mile past the yard because of an interlocking (crossover) with another railroad. We had a red block at the interlocking, which our pilot Dennis Edwards said almost never happens. When we got on the circuit, the signal changed aspect to an approach and we proceeded to cross the other railroad. Once we got clear of a switch beyond the interlocking, it was up to road speed which was 35 mph.

The jointed rail on the line was pretty rough and we did a good bit of pitching around in the cab. We went through the defect detector and it alarmed on #2 L so we stopped to inspect the engine. A thorough check with my infrared thermometer showed all bearings and rods in great shape. I was able to stop the train just short of the next ABS signal, so we were able to resume road speed pretty quickly. The “new” 26 air brake stand in the cab is extremely tight and it’s quite difficult to get in and out of the engineer’s seat.   Unbeknownst to me, when I got back into the seat, my bib overalls caught the front sander button and pulled it out. Consequently, I sanded the whole KCS main from the defect detector all the way to DeQuincy.

There’s another interlocking with the UP just south of DeQuincy and we had another red block there that we had to stop for. Mr. Edwards got off the engine to walk forward to the signal box to key the signal when it went approach, so he got back on the engine and we started across. We immediately entered DeQuincy and took the diverging leg of the wye and stopped the train right next to the old DeQuincy KCS passenger station. Later in the evening, we all went across the street to the Iron Horse Pub and had a few celebratory brews. Tonight we’re at the Red Oak Inn in DeQuincy.

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