Over the years, I've heard many stories about a guy on the WP dubbed "The Mad Bomber". Never been able to discover his real name, but it seems he had a particular fascination with torpedoes. Several old WP heads told me that a favorite game of his was to wire a number of them together and toss the resulting ball out the caboose window when they went over a bridge, including highway bridges. Seems it made quite a bang when it struck something hard.

A former Stockton carman told me about patching a hole in the floor of a caboose caused by a game of torpedo "medicine ball". A guy (perhaps the Bomber, stories vary) wired a mess of them together and the guys in the caboose started tossing this hot potato around. Well, someone bobbled a catch and the thing exploded inside the car. Burned a hole in the floor and seriously injured everyone involved.

E