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Option One: Hotbox

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.

(Rule 104A) Employees handling switches must know that the switches are properly lined for the movement to be made and that the switch points fit. Switches must be left in proper position after having been used.

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 proceeds to Grinnell (45 minutes)

11:00 p.m. Pass Grinnell, Kellogg travel on to Newton

As Train 81 proceeds toward Newton and approaches a curve, the engineer and brakeman see smoke and determine there may be a hotbox. The engineer slows the train (4 to 5 mph) and drops the head brakeman off. He walks toward the car where the smoke is spotted.

(Rule 712) Employees must observe trains closely and if anything unusual or defective is noted, such as hot journal, brakes sticking, dragging brake rigging, sliding wheels, indications of fire, lading shifted over side or end of car, protruding objects, swinging car door, or any other dangerous condition, they must make every effort to call the attention of the crew on the train to such conditions.

Hotbox (hot journal) is detected.

While you're going around a curve, you're looking to see if there's any hot boxes. You had to look out when the train was going around a curve. You'd get up, roll the window down, stick your head out, and watch the train coming around the curve. Well, back in those days they had steel wheels, steel rails, and it would throw threads. Me and my eye doctor got to be on a first name basis. Everybody did because they put you in the chair, and you'd lean your head back, and they'd use magnets and pull it all out and clean the rust up. So, I was up at my grandparents' house, my mom's dad, and he ran a business in Clinton, Iowa. And Uncle Louis had this face mask he pulled out before he welded, and it was a dark glass. I said, It's sure bad they don't make those clear, and Grandpa said, 'Well we make those clear.' And I said, Well, I could sure use one. So he just went over to his cabinet and he got a clear one that fit my head. And so, then when I would work, I would pull that down and about every six months I'd have to throw it away and get another one because it'd be all scarred up from all that steel hitting it. [listen to audio clip here 15:30]

An undetected hotbox or journal may catch on fire and potentially destroy the car and other cars coupled to it. Some causes of overheating are damaged seals, condensation, overloading, lack of lubrication, dirt or debris, or even rail conditions. The result is metal-to-metal friction. The lack of lubrication, added to the metal-to-metal friction, creates excessive heat, smoke and a red hot journal, thus the term "hotbox." When the axle bearing overheats, the journal box can fall below the rails, which can result in a derailment.

A hotbox is an overheated friction bearing journal for people that don't know the terms. Back in the old days they would smoke. Now with all these new roller bearings like all the cars have today, if you're not lookin' the instant that thing gets hot you'll never know it 'cause it'll flash blue, they've got a little thing inside them that'll flash blue, but that flash lasts less than five seconds. So if you aren’t looking at the journal, you're gonna burn the journal off. And I've burnt off more than one journal in my life. [listen to audio clip here 17:00]

You didn't touch the brakes. You'd just ease the air into it, squat it down, and meanwhile, as soon as you could, get off, because back in those days you got off and on as it was moving. Back when I first went to work on the railroad, I could get off at 15 to 18 miles an hour. I'd swing my right leg out, swing around and take two steps and go the other way. [listen to audio clip here 34:25]

But back then, if you needed to take that car somewhere, you'd take green grass and you'd put in there so you could drag it three, four, five miles before that journal burnt off and put that car away so the car department could come out and lift the car up and take the wheel off and fix it and do whatever they had to do, but that's what you did. You made do with what you had.

We didn't have cell phones. We didn't have walkie talkies, but the conductor's caboose radio would set in the rack, and there were three glass batteries in there. You had a big antenna that you would screw out on the left of the caboose, then the brakeman could talk to the head and tell 'em what was goin' on. But the engineer would have already called the dispatcher to tell him we were at milepost so-and-so. Most of the engineers could tell you the name of the crossings, what road it was, what street it was. You learned your division. You learned where you were gonna work. You learned it inside and out and outside in. You learned if it was right hand curves or left hand curves. You learned how long the sidings were and where you could get a train to clear. [listen to audio clip here 35:34]

With today's modern technology and instant communication, it is difficult to comprehend the predicament of railroad crews when a problem occurred. Their tools were plain common sense and whatever materials were on hand in order to limp the train to the next available siding. The uppermost priority was to get the train off the tracks so the next scheduled train could pass safely.

The brakeman lifts the lid and looks inside the journal.
If a fire is burning, the lid is closed until the train is pulled into a siding.
If there is no fire, a hook is used to pull out waste and the lid closed.
The engineer will proceed to the first available siding.
Once the train reaches a siding, the train crew uncouples (remove) the car.
A tag is filled out and placed on the car that says, "hotbox do not move."
This may take approximately two hours.

(Rule 714) When car is set out on account of a hotbox, packing must be removed and fire extinguished. In addition, it must be ascertained that there is no fire on car body, and that dust guard is not burning nor smoldering, taking whatever action is necessary before car is left, to eliminate the possibility of fire.

1:00 a.m. Train 81 pulls out from the siding

Pass Kellogg, Newton, Colfax, Mitchellville

2:30 a.m. Arrive in East Des Moines

Bills are given to the clerk.
Change crews.
Engineer goes to flophouse.

Now if you were an extra person you had to go to a hotel or a flophouse. They were nice places. They were clean. They weren't dirty old places. They were well-kept and well-maintained, and they all had good food in 'em. Kate [owner] made sure that you got a decent meal. She would make homemade stew. Kate could cook. [listen to audio clip here 25:27]

Kate's daughter married a West End brakeman, and when I left the railroad, they had three kids. Kate was just tickled pink that she'd set them up because she said, 'Railroad people are good people. They're nuttier than heck, but they're good people.'  [listen to audio clip here 26:28]

Brakeman and conductor stay on the caboose.

Back when I first started, you had your own caboose. Every conductor had his own caboose. When you got into Des Moines, you'd take the bills and hand 'em to the clerk, and he'd put them on the other caboose. They'd reach your caboose up and set it over and set the outbound caboose that the [next] conductor will be on. The brakeman'd be fixing his marker lights.  They'd take your caboose and kick it down into the yard where the other switch crew would get it and put it on the caboose rack. You'd go up and get your radio batteries and recharge 'em. We [engineer and some others] stayed in flophouses for about fifty cents or a dollar. [listen to audio clip here 22:17]

And your meals. You bought 'em when we first started. Later on, we got in our union agreement. By the time I got back from the Marine Corps, we had a union agreement in Des Moines when we had to stay in a hotel downtown. We no longer had our own block, because the crews had their own cabooses: the conductor, the head brakeman, and the rear brakeman on an assigned train and the regular crew. [listen to audio clip here 25:27]

The cabooses were set up very simply. If you [conductor] lucked out, your desk was at the back of the caboose on the left hand side. Your bunk was across from it on the right hand side. At the end was a door, and inside there was a toilet. There was no sink on the caboose. In front of the toilet was a double bunk for the two brakemen. Across from there was the stove. It was an oil stove. To get it to be hotter, it had a round thing and you had a lifter to lift the lid up. And what you'd do is, you'd put the lid back in and you'd get paper cups where you could draw water. You had water vents, and you had a paper cup. You'd draw that out, but before you did it, you'd take a knife or a pair of scissors, yeah everybody kept a pair of surgical scissors on a caboose, and you'd cut a real tiny hole in that [cup] and you'd just pour water through it, and it'd go through this hole in there and water would go into the oil fire. Everybody would get kinda cold, and it would heat up, and it would keep that caboose nice and warm.  [listen to audio clip here 28:20]