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• 1 media/Laws_StaffWebpage.jpg 2020-05-13T05:12:20-07:00 Option Two: Slippage/Knuckle Break 67 plain 2020-12-11T04:44:39-08:00

  5:00 p.m.

  Train 83
  Entering Davenport, Iowa 
  Paperwork is put into a torpedo shaped cone and will be thrown out to the agent at Davenport, Iowa 
  Between the Missouri Division Junction and Walcott is a six mile incline, 2% grade.  
  The train wheels begin slipping. 
  
  There are times, when a train approaches a steep grade, that the wheels start to slip.  This slippage, or lack of traction between the wheel and the rail, creates a piercing, screeching sound reminiscent of fingernails on a chalkboard exponentially multiplied.  The wheels of this massive, multi-ton train keep turning, struggling to gain traction, steel scraping against steel, the friction sometimes sending sparks flying.  
  
  When train wheels are slipping, sand has to be applied in front of the wheel as far as it needs to go.  This could go on for miles. The brakemen will walk on each side of the train.   Buckets (coffee cans) are used to scoop up sand and rocks to put on the track for traction.  In extreme circumstances, the train would have to be divided into two parts, with the head [front of the train] parked in the first available siding, which could be many miles away, and then the rear is brought up the hill and recoupled to the head.
  
  You'd get on a hill. Every inch of it had sand and gravel on it. You'd get out and use coffee cans to get the sand and gravel, and you'd lay it on the rails and you'd walk the hills so you wouldn't have to double the hill. Double on the hill means I cut off the first half of the train, take it wherever I could that had a siding, put that in the siding, come back get the rear half of the train, pull up on the main line, put the train back together and away you go again.  [The first available siding could be miles away.]
  
  You pull it [the rear] and shove the head into a siding. In other words, you pull them into a passing track, which we call a siding, and then you cut them off and tie them down.  Then you'd go get the rear, and by that time the rear brakes are locked up. The conductor got permission to have somebody flag behind him [because] they didn't have the rear brakeman behind you to protect you. He'd have the dispatcher do it. You would pull up, stop. We'd try to make cut. The brakeman would put it together. Ease the train down. He'd get on the caboose and away you'd go again. Two and half to three-hour job.  [listen to audio clip here 8:58]
  
  After two hours of grueling work applying sand and rocks to the track for traction, possibly uncoupling and recoupling the head and rear cars, the train finally moves on toward West Liberty
  
  Pass Durant, Wilson, Atalissa, West Liberty 

  7:00 p.m.

  As the train passes through West Liberty - the conductor drops a ticket and picks up orders.  He teletypes information to Des Moines to let them know what is coming. Orders are picked up, from a string attached to a y-shaped piece of wood, with the train never slowing down from 50 mph.                                                                                                          
  As the train passes, the conductor reaches out and grabs the orders.     
  
  Train 83 must 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.
  
  Separate orders – brakeman and fireman separate and organize the orders for train cars according to upcoming stations. 

  8:00 p.m.

  Arrive Iowa City
  
  Train 83 meets 1st and 2nd Train 60 and waits two hours. Trains have priorities on the track.
  
  Train 83 has to go into a siding and allow Train 60 to proceed.
  
  Train 83 travels down the main line and stops at the west end of the siding, to meet one or two trains.
  
  Red order board - pick up orders 
  
  Dispatcher will give a clear signal (follow the ABS – Automatic Blocking Signals)
   

  
  
  10:00 p.m.    Leave Iowa City 

  Train 83 goes into the siding and let's passenger train #7 go by.
  
  Wait for a signal     (ABS territory) 
  
  Head brakeman – 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 83 pulls out – takes 45 minutes to get up to speed            
  
  Meet Train 84 at Brooklyn – 84 goes into the siding – once it passes, Train 83 goes to Grinnell (45 minutes)
  
  As Train 83 approaches Vernon, it goes into emergency!  The brake is automatically activated.
  
  The head brakeman gets off the train and walks the train to determine the problem.  “Walk the train” means walking along each side of the train looking for problems.  About forty-two cars down he sees that the rear of the train is separated from the front by approximately three quarters of a mile.  He spots the broken knuckle.  He looks to see what type of knuckle it is, Type E or Type F which is imprinted on the top of the knuckle, then continues on to the separated section.  Because there were no radios in the 60s, once the brakeman determines what type of knuckle he needs, he would have to walk all the way back to the front of the train to get new knuckles and a fuzee (11).  About an hour has passed, as the brakeman has walked a mile or more back and forth.
  
  Why you’re in emergency is the reason you’re walking the tracks.  What’s got you in emergency, the air hose, the penny line, knuckles out; something put you in emergency.  Once that train comes to a halt, you had to walk.
  
  Back in the day before we started doing all this new stuff, the track was like this – you’re walking way down ballast, you could walk along the wheel about that low [indicates the wheel is very low to the ground].  Now it’s at an angle, and you’re walking way out here trying to hang on to something and looking underneath the train. It's a whole lot harder to walk a train today than it used to be. Everybody has to walk the train, brakeman gotta walk the train, because if the engineer and the fireman came back, and you have to take one down [knuckle], they can help you get it out.[listen to audio clip here 1:06:40]
  
  One time I got a real bad ankle twist.  When they got rid of the locks or the batteries for all the signals, and they ran the signals through the tracks, they left these battery boxes with pieces of wood or dirt over ‘em [alongside the tracks]. You’d be walking the train, and the wood would be rotten, and you’d step down there, and I twisted my right ankle big time a couple times.  I don’t know how many times I worked on a division, and about the third or fourth guy in the division got hurt.  The superintendent had a gang go through, and they got rid of all those boxes. [listen to audio clip here 1:08:55]
  
  We had two knuckles and it depended, you'd get back there and if a knuckle broke, you'd have to look at the top of the knuckle and you'd know what size to get.  And so you'd get that size knuckle and put it in.  The knuckles were hung on racks underneath the caboose, or on the back of the engine. There were two knuckles on each end of the engine, so there were four knuckles, because we had two types of knuckles [Type E and Type F].  [listen to audio clip here 29:48]
  
  The brakeman would close the angle cock on each side and release the brake.  The first knuckle repaired would be the car attached to the engine.
  
  Well now, you pick 'em up with two hands, [a knuckle could weigh between 60 and 80 pounds] but you had to hold 'em in one hand 'cause you had to lift it up and put the knuckle in. The way the pin lifted, you had to pull the pin up and hold the pin up so you could slide the knuckle and drop it back down.  Some of the railroad crew carried a type of tactical web military type belt for the purpose of holding the pin while they changed the knuckle.   [listen to audio clip here 5:58]
  
  Once the knuckle pin is removed, the uncoupling lever is lifted.  The old knuckle was then removed and the new knuckle put in while holding the uncoupling lever up. The brakeman has to be very careful where he places his feet in case the knuckle is dropped.  The knuckle pin is then replaced.  The knuckle is checked for proper movement.  Once the repair is made on the car attached to the engine, the brakeman grabs hold and hangs on to the side of the car. The engineer begins backing the train up to the other car with the second broken knuckle.  The brakeman goes through the same process again and changes that knuckle.  Once the repair is finished, the conductor fills out paperwork for the clerk.  Every incident has to be documented.
  
  The old box cars in covered hoppers, instead of having an underside pin, you'd have to lift up on it to get it to pull. You push it up, and that would lift the pin up and the knuckle would come open. Well, those things would bounce open so we all carried plugs. And a plug is something they put in the [railroad] tie when they're getting ready to drill it together, put another spike in. They take these wooden plugs and drive 'em in the hole where the old spike was. And  everybody had a bunch of 'em on an engine. Car kept hopping up, you would just take that plug and drive it in there, force that pin down, it couldn't lift up anymore. But again, you had to tell the car department so they could go get it out, 'cause you couldn't pull that pin with that plug in there. These are just tricks you learn. [listen to audio clip here 4:53]
  
  The knuckle itself wasn’t dangerous, what was dangerous was, you’d be switching cars, and like when I worked out of Silvis, the south end of the yard had a slight slant to it.  You’d pull out a pin and they [the cars] would roll into the tracks.  [You had to use extreme caution when stepping between cars.]  The lightest thing on the railroad that we ever have is the caboose and it weighs, let’s see, 34 to 38,000 pounds, and that is the smallest thing we’ve got on the railroad.  All the box cars, tank cars, flat cars, they all weigh more than that, so you got killed, you didn’t get hurt. You’ve got to have good common sense or you’re gonna get killed on the railroad.  [listen to audio clip here 1:10:02]
   

  2:00 a.m.

  
  Due to all of the problems, Train 83 will not make it to Des Moines as the crew must stop work at 2:59 a.m.  The train will continue on to Marengo, pull into a siding and tie up [train is holding on line for a relief crew].  The crew will have eight hours off.
  
  Every conductor had his own caboose, so when you got into Des Moines [or destination] you'd take the bills and hand 'em to the clerk that was there, and he'd hold on to them and put them on the other [outbound] caboose. They reach your caboose up and set it over [park it for the night] and set the outbound caboose. The brakeman'll 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 track.  Then you'd go up and get your radio batteries and recharge 'em.  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 22:17]

  The cabooses were set up very simply.  If you 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 as the conductor. At the end was a door, and in 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 hole, and you had a lifter to lift the lid up.  What you'd do is, you'd put the lid back in and we'd have 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, everybody kept a pair of surgical scissors on a caboose, and you'd cut a real tiny hole in that and you'd just pour water through it and it'd go through this hole in there and water would go into oil fire 'cause everybody would get kinda cold.  It would heat up, and it would keep that caboose nice and warm. [listen to audio clip here 28:20]

  Now if you were an extra person you had to go to a hotel or a flophouse, which was fifty cents a night.  Beforehand though, you went down into the basement of the yard office, and you’d take all the stuff out of your pockets, take your boots and your socks off, and step in the shower with your clothes on and wash all that dirt and dust off your clothes. Your clothes would be as black as coal because of the dust coming back across the train and all that stuff coming back.  You’d wash all that off, you’d wring ‘em out.  You’d take the canvas bag that we all owned, they were military surplus bags that were lined, and you’d put your wet clothes in ‘em and get a clean set of clothes.  So, if you were out for a week you had a set of clothes.  [listen to audio clip here 1:02:38]
• 1 media/Laws_StaffWebpage.jpg 2020-05-13T05:14:15-07:00 Option Five: Derailment in Omaha, Nebraska 30 plain 2020-12-11T04:49:18-08:00
  Train 81 left Silvis, Illinois and reached Des Moines, Iowa the night before.  The crew spent the night and prepared a return route the following day.
  
  The head brakeman would go to the roundhouse if he had to get engines.  He would go with the firemen and they'd bring the engines out and put them on the train. The rear brakeman will go down and walk the track, and he would check and make sure all the brake riggings were in good shape. He'd double check the carman's work. He'd make sure that the retainer valves…out west you use a retainer valve when you're coming down the mountain. They'll set up a quarter, half or three quarters or full to keep the brakes partially set as they go down the hills. When you get to the bottom you release your retainers. Once in a while they forget to release a retainer. So you would check all your retainer valves because you did not want the wheels getting hot going across the flat track.
  
  Because when I was working in Silvis, Illinois to Des Moines, Iowa, it's running across the top of the table. It's flat as can be. So, anyway, you did that [checked the retainers], got back on the caboose, make sure you had all your supplies. Make sure that the markers had oil in them so they'd light, because they weren't electric when I first started. They were kerosene lit.  The one thing a brakeman did not do was light the conductor's lamp on his desk. That was the conductor's lamp and he was the only one that adjusted the wick, trimmed the wick, or lit the lamp. You did not touch the conductor's lamp unless you were the conductor on that thing. Every conductor had their way they wanted their lamp lit. It would sit over his desk.  [listen to audio clip here 27:40]

  5:30 a.m. the following day

  You’d come into Marengo, Iowa at a 60mph curve. They'd [the wheels] throw fire up and up and over the right of way fence. They'd set cornfields on fire and everything else because it’s steel and against steel, and they’d slow down, but by the time that rear end cleared that curve, they were back at 90 miles an hour and they're gone again.   [listen to audio clip here 49:59]

  9:00 a.m. train enters Omaha, Nebraska

  I’ve been in more than one derailment, (chuckles) as a brakeman, a conductor, and an engineer!  The biggest one I ever had as an engineer, I was leaving Omaha, Nebraska going the back way down to Kansas City.  You go out of Kansas City and all the way up to the top of the hill, and you could go to Lincoln, or you could go to Omaha. All we did was run grain trains from Omaha to Lincoln to Kansas City.  It was all loaded grain cars.  They were coming out of Omaha with a grain train. We’d take ‘em down and change crews at Kansas City, and they’d take it on south to Houston, Texas.
  
  We came down the hill, and back up in the middle of the train, a three-foot chunk of the rail broke at the edge of the bridge crossing over a pond/lake.  People were camping around it.  They’d go fishing and swimming out there.  It was 18 or 20 foot deep.  It had a stream that ran into it that kept water in it year round so people would camp out there. [listen to audio clip here 1:11:20]
  
  
  The front engine and about 35 cars had already cleared the bridge on the other side and was on up the track.  All of a sudden cars started going off the bridge, down a 60 foot embankment, left and right, into the water.  We put 36 cars, out of 115, [into the water].  This was probably bigger than this building (Sherrod Library) and the other building together (Culp Center) maybe 2600 feet.  So when we started dumping all of these grain cars into that thing, people scattered, all of the cars and the campers and stuff were destroyed. The caboose and seven other cars were still on the tracks before the bridge.
  
  As the engineer on this train, I immediately called the dispatcher to explain the situation and tell him we took the main line out of service. I told him we needed ambulances, police, and fire and rescue, because we don’t know the situation with the people below.
  
  The engineer could talk to the conductor with a hand-carry radio/walkie-talkie.  It was a box with a handset.  Once the train stopped, the conductor looked over his checklist of all cars. He relayed to the engineer that the list was okay.  The brakeman walked the train.  The engineer waits for the manager to come and pick up the eight-track tape [“black box”].  Both the engineer and the manager initial the tape.
  
  Emergency services arrive in about 30 minutes, but we wait three hours for railroad services to arrive.
  
  Nobody got hurt.  The rear brakeman I had was a switchman out of Kansas City on that trip because they ran out of brakemen.  He was a flagman and a rear brakeman, and the conductor said you could see his hands turning white hanging on to that seat.  The conductor said, ’I was looking around to see how close it was gonna get to the caboose so I could get off of the caboose, if the caboose was gonna go in.’  If the caboose got close enough you’d bail out so you didn’t ride it into the derailment.  You did NOT want to go into a derailment.  And he said, ’He had ahold of that seat on both sides.’  And when we got back to Kansas City he said, he told that yard master ’If you ever call me for one of these freight trains again, I’m gonna come in here and kick your butt.  No if, ands, or buts about it.'  [listen to audio clip here 1:14:32]
  
  The train went into that water, and it took ‘em two years to clean that pond out.  The railroad had to put divers in there to pump all that grain out of there.   It all went in there, so they [the railroad] had to clean it out.

  6:30 p.m.

  Once the crew has inspected all engines and cars, they tie it down.
  
  The crew is picked up by a “limo” which is a four-door van with three seats.  They are taken out to dinner in Kansas City, courtesy of the railroad, then some of them proceed to a flophouse to spend the night.  Gary Emmert lived in Kansas City at this time.
  
  A lady conductor I knew was called and got train orders from the UP to go to Omaha.   And she said, 'I’ve spent a week out here on your cotton pickin’ grain train derailment and we’re not gonna be done until next week'. She said, ‘I’m workin’ daylight till dark, 7 days a week, I’m gettin’ paid well; the brakeman is gettin' paid well; the engineer is gettin’ paid well. They’re puttin’ us up over here at this hotel.  They’re feedin’ us.  They’re payin’ for all the bills', and she said, 'We lie on our time, because you’re only supposed to work 12 hours,’   She said, 'We’ll stay out here from daylight to dark and they’re payin’ us in cash for the work beyond 12 hours.’   I’ve been in that situation already before.  And she goes over to her truck and she says, ’What I’m getting ready to show you will fit in the back of my pickup.’  And she had one of those small rangers when they first came out with the small pickups, and here’s an empty tank car – it crushed that car together so tight that you could've fit that tank in the back of her pickup.  I mean it just - whoosh!  [listen to audio clip here 1:12:42]  
  
  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:
  • film clips 349 and 352, dealing with the 1975 L&N train wreck from the Virgil Q. Wacks Collection
  • Box 122 of the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio Railway Collection.