Boy, it sounds as if you are not having a good day. Take a deep breath.

Well, if anyone didn't like working with me, they never told me. Then again, they may have not wanted to hurt my feelers.

Then again, they knew I would get them over the road as fast as possible and be safe doing it.

I was a young runner (a year) and got a knuckle one night on the mty beet racks from Guadalupe. I was heading in at Grover. Well, the racks were on the rear end and about 15 tanks of liquid asphalt were on the head end.

I set the air and was getting stopped at the east switch. As I was coming to a stop I released the brakes. The moment I did I thought, "You dumb SOB, you know better than that". (the racks squatted and the lds kept moving.)

Well about 10 seconds later we went into big hole. Crap. I reset the PC and started the air back.I told the head man (3 months as a brakemen) to dig out an E-50 knuckle and a flag stick and dump them in the toe path. He did and I got down and helped him carry the knuckle back to the joint. (Hey, I was the one that did it) We got there and we were about 10 cars from the rear car. He shut off the angel cock and I helped in putting in the knuckle and told him what we were going to do. I got to the head end, whistled back and started to inch back. Didn't take long before we bunched to a stop. I waited a bit and then pulled forward. We were coupled up. Then I saw the air flow start and the brakes released.
He had already left the switch lined in so off I went down the pass. We saw the east man, lined out and went to SLO.

It is problems like above, that keep the crews working together, safely. I guess they hated me in the cab







Nudge