A Day in the Life: The Railroad

Option Four: Derailment in Grinnell, Iowa

5:00    p.m.        Train 81


Enter Iowa – Pass Davenport, Walcott, Stockton Durant, Wilton, Atalissa    

Paperwork is put into a torpedo shaped cone and thrown out to the agent at Davenport, Iowa.

The agent teletypes the data to Des Moines to let them know the contents of incoming cars.

6:00 p.m.    Arrive West Liberty

Wait on Train 94 out of Cedar rapids to pass.    
Wait for Signal – red, yellow or green light.
The engineer has to watch for signals.
Pick up orders from depot.
Separate orders - brakeman and fireman will separate and organize the orders according to upcoming stations.
 


7:00 p.m.    Arrive Iowa City        

Train 81 will meet 1st and 2nd Train 60. 
Wait two hours – trains have priorities on the track. 
Train 81 has to pull into a siding and allow Train 60 to proceed.
Once the track is cleared and the signal is given, Train 81 travels down the
main line and stops at the west end of the siding to meet one or two
trains. 


Red order board and then your orders
Dispatcher will give the all clear signal (ABS) and Train 81 will proceed. 

9:00 p.m.        Leave Iowa City

Pass Vernon, Tiffin, Oxford, Homestead, South Amana, Marengo, Ladora, Victor, Brooklyn, Malcom, Ascalon
Train 81 must go into the siding and let passenger Train #7 go by.
Wait for a signal (ABS territory)
Head brakeman proceeds with lining the switch.
Rear Brakeman – lines the switch back to the main line        
Train 81 pulls out.  It takes 45 minutes to get up to speed of 55 mph.
Meet 84 at Brooklyn – 84 goes into the siding – once it passes, 81 goes to Des Moines 
           


11:00 p.m.  Heading out of Grinnell Train 84 derails.

 Train 84 out of Des Moines heading for Silvis goes through Grinnell around 11:00 p.m. 

We turned a train over leaving Grinnell one night. We were doing 50 miles an hour on this train that went in the ditch. We had just cleared the depot.  I got a highball from the clerk on duty.  Everything was good on his side.  I just started to walk back into the caboose, and  the conductor said,  'grab something!'  I grabbed his bunk and just sat on the edge of his bunk and held on, because what you do is, in a derailment, you go in, you stop, you think you’re gonna stop, and then you go in again until it clears the cars out.   We went in three or four times.  [listen to audio clip here 1:15:18]

When a train derails, the massive 100 ton cars slam into each other.  As one car strikes another, the contact causes a ricochet that bounces the cars back and forth, “out and in” until they all finally come to a stop.  Railroad personnel stay alert, grab hold of whatever is bolted down, and keep a death grip until the train stops.


Every time I’d start to get up he’d say, ‘Am I getting up?’ and I say, No, and he said, ‘You stay right where you’re at.’  So he kept me in my seat.  When we finally came to a stop he said, ‘Now here, Gary, get out there and when you find the Ham’s beer car,  take that beer and stash it and when we come back we’ll pick it up.’ You could have anything you wanted off a derailment.  It was scattered in the cornfields.  And you might as well pick it up, because the railroads are self-insured, so anything [damaged or thrown out of the cars], I mean we got tool boxes, we got food.  We had a wrecker foreman. He had a one ton truck with a box on the back and he lived right next door to me.  He’d go out there and he’d say, 'Gary are you workin?'  And he’d say, 'Leave your garage door open and I’ll give you some stuff when I get back.'  We’d have a case of beans, a case of peas, whatever they got.   I mean they’d split between all of the wrecker crew, and they’d split it between the train crews out there. He’d bring it home and we’d split it.  I got home one night and I had 12 cases of wine. I didn’t drink wine.  I gave it to all my friends.  That was the best Christmas present they got that year!  But the railroad didn’t want it.  They just said, ’Clean up the railroad!’  [listen to audio clip here 1:16:18]

We turned over all but the three cars and the caboose. They still had the caboose.

More information on derailments may be found in the Archives of Appalachia's extensive railroad collections that include thousands of photographs dating back to the 1800s; over 300 ledgers; and over 700 boxes of research materials containing correspondence, daybooks, journals, timetables, day-to-day operational documents, financial statements, reports, engineering drawings, blueprints, maps, posters, motion pictures, songs and more.

Specific items of note include:

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