Dispatcher Helps To Set Up A Corn Field Meet

CPR Okanagan Sub, leased to Omnitrax and operating as
The Okanagan Valley Railway, ca 1999
Now deceased
Photo, the Author

Train and engine crews everywhere are presented with many challenges in the performance of their duties, and one of the most 'attention getting' challenges is in dealing with pedestrians and motorists who ignore warning signs, crossing gates, wig wag signals and cross bucks.  While these actions can, and do provide for some very tense moments for those in the cab of an engine, usually there's not much that can be done..., after the fact.  You can blow the whistle a little longer than required, or shake your fist at them.  But generally, you just utter a silent offering of thanks that you didn't hit them.

If the motorist manages to make it across the tracks without losing a fender or a door to the locomotive, it is often over before one can copy down a license plate number, and a trespasser will duck out of the way and disappear into the shadows before the engine crew can even ascertain that they haven't killed him or her.

These things happen every day and on every railroad.  It's not part of the job, but is one of those things that gives most crews a terrible fright..., win or lose.

The railways do what they can.  "No Trespassing" signs are erected in all of the appropriate places.  On level crossings at grade, cross-bucks, wig-wags or gates are installed and kept in top operating condition to warn everyone of approaching trains.  Engine bells are rung and whistle signals sounded for a quarter of a mile before every public crossing, yet there are those of our species who figure that one sixteenth of an inch of stamped, painted steel will protect them from the fifteen thousand ton bullet that's about to hit them at track speed.

There are other hi-jinx that engine crews are exposed to, among them being rocks and bottles thrown at the engine, gun shots fired from darkened windows and objects that are piled on the ties between the rails, however these are less frequent.

SD60F at Vernon, BC 1998
Note large splatter of black paint on nose of engine.
Photo - Author

This is a story of one such encounter.

The summer of 1983 was a long, hot affair on the south-west coast of British Columbia.  Hot dry days stretched into weeks without a cloud in the sky and temperatures went into the mid-30's Celsius, or over 100 degrees Fahrenheit.

CN was pumping new student engineers out of their Transportation Training Center in Gimli, Manitoba and I had one of the new candidates assigned to me.  Gary Ager was a good student, eager to learn and fun to have in the cab.  Without question, Gary took instruction from me, even if those instructions contravened something that he had been taught in the classroom at the Training Center.  Gimli instructors could only impart text-book knowledge in a classroom environment; whereas the instruction a student received at the side of a seasoned engineer in a field environment would be the practical tools of the trade.  When the classroom experience was used in conjunction with the field training, the result was a well-trained individual who would do a good job under all conditions and circumstances.

 As an instructor of new engineers, I insisted that the student take the controls from the very first shift on a transfer, or trip on the road.  I would have him or her conduct a shop-track inspection of our assigned power, and conduct a shop-track brake test prior to moving the engine off the shop track.  This, I believed would establish good habits and even better work ethic.  It was also important for the student to understand that much depended on the condition of the engine consist and their understanding of how everything worked.

Our train was in the yard..., 110 empty grain hoppers and one caboose.  Conductor Roy Anderson and his tail end brakeman were already in the crew bus, being driven to the caboose when we slowly idled our way off the shop track and over the cross-overs to find a clear track to run up to the east end of the yard.

Loaded westbound freight near Laidlaw, BC
September 1985

We had two standard-cab SD40-2's, coupled up back to back.  I remarked to the guys that the shop staff had even washed them for us.  Gary said he was aware of that because the seat cushion was still wet from having gone through the wash rack with the window open.  I leaned forward and pulled a handful of coarse paper towels from the rack for him to sit on, and Gary laughed.

"The rest of the student-engineers are all wet behind the ears," he said.  "But I'm wet behind my jeans!"

It was mid-morning on a warm summer Sunday and I knew that Steve Warenkiw would be on duty in the yardmasters chair.  I asked Gary to give Steve a call and ask him for a clear track to use to get onto our train.

In a moment or two, Yardmaster Warenkiw's distinctive voice advised Gary that track 36 was clear to run to the east end through. He asked Gary to tell him when we were clear of track 36 so he could bring a Lynn Creek transfer in there.

Gary and the head-end brakeman brought the engine onto the train smoothly and without delay and we were finished with our air brake test within a half hour.

When the tail end crew were ready to leave, Gary called the operator to ask for the signal to leave the yard and soon, we were on the high iron, engines in the eighth notch and wheels singing on the rails.

It was a beautiful day for a train ride!

The westernmost seventy miles of the Yale sub is generally pretty swift track with speeds averaging 50 miles per hour, if you don't count the odd permanent slow order of thirty miles per hour. But the fastest piece of track on the subdivision is shown as sixty miles per hour for freight trains between mile 63.3 and mile 77.3.

Almost in the middle of this stretch lies the City of Chilliwack with its built-up neighborhoods, level crossings complete with automobiles, pedestrians, dogs, cats and the BC Hydro Railway Interchange. (Now Southern Railway of BC)

Leaving the 40 mph permanent slow order over the Sumas River bridge west of Arnold, I asked Gary to check his timetable and let me know what he felt he should be prepared to do for the next ten miles.  Gary was a pretty sharp fellow and he gave me a serious look and said that he's already checked and he felt we could open up the throttle until we got past Rosedale and were approaching mile 63.3.  I nodded and leaned back against the electrical cabinet behind the engineers seat that Gary's butt was gradually wicking the water out of.

When the speedometer reached 60 mph, Gary looked at me again..., this time questioningly.

"Do you want to squeeze a little more out of it," I asked him?

"Well, if it's OK with you," he said.  "We were told that there was an overspeed alarm that would sound if the engine went faster than 65 mph and I'd like to be able to say I made the bells ring..., like at the circus!", he said with a huge, boyish grin

"OK", I said. "You have to learn how to recover the overspeed alarm quickly enough to avoid putting the trains' brakes into a penalty application."  "I can show you how to do that."

"But if it doesn't go off before we hit the Chilliwack mile board, you'll have to get the speed down to 60 before we're inside whistle limits for the crossing at Young street."  "If you don't get 'er down, the crossing gates will be late getting down and we could find ourselves in a very sticky situation."

Crossing protection circuits are set up so that a train approaching at time table track speed will activate the warning signals when the train enters the circuit at a point one quarter of a mile from the crossing.  This is where the white posts with the black letter "W" are placed beside the track to warn the engineer to begin blowing the whistle.

"Got it", he said, and he looked up at the speedometer and smiled.  It was edging past 60 when the signal governing the approach to Chilliwack came into view, twinkling like a mirage in the heat of high summer.

"Clear signal", he said out loud.

"Call it out to the tail end," I said.

Conductor Roy Anderson answered back with "Clear to Chilliwack, thanks."

The speedometer was nearing 65 and I got ready to show Gary what would be required of him to recover the 'over-speed' alarm while avoiding a penalty brake application.  As I bent over the control stand to set things up for him, the head end brakeman called out "There's something on the track ahead of us!"

Gary and I both snapped to attention for a look and, before I could say anything to him, Gary had his left hand on the brake valve and his right hand on the throttle.

"Good call," I said.  "Take ten pounds of air off and wait drop the throttle to the sixth notch."

There was indeed something on the track ahead of us.  A half mile away or more, a dark form emerged from the dancing haze, then disappeared, only to appear once again.

The effect of the high heat on the track and ballast was deceiving.  The object would first appear small, then large; then far away and much closer.

I was straining to determine what it was; what sort of a threat it was.

"Take another five pounds off, Gary," I said.  "And drop the throttle to the fourth notch."

The hissing sound of air brake exhaust venting inside the control stand filled the cab with the unmistakable smell of compressor oil.  The big 16 cylinder EMD 645 engines wound down from full throttle to half throttle.

As we got closer, the haze began to get thinner.  We could now clearly see that the object on the track was a pile of scrap metal, including some car parts, a transport truck wheel (rim) and other miscellaneous garbage.

I told Gary to take a 'full service' brake reduction and reduce the throttle to the second notch. He quickly moved the brake handle around as far as it would go without putting the train into 'emergency.'

"Shouldn't I put it into EMERGENCY?"  he asked.

"No," I said.  "We're going to make a 'controlled stop' because I want to back this train up ASAP."
If we put the train into EMERGENCY, it would stop a bit quicker, but we would have to go through a lengthy procedure to re-set a number of safety features that are automatically enabled when the emergency feature is used.  One of  these is the inability to move the engine or train until all of the safety features have been re-set and air pressures have been restored to the train and engine.   This would take fifteen minutes or more and I wanted to move the train backwards within five minutes or less.

The train brakes were now applying fully, but in a controlled manner.

Photo courtesy RailPictures.net copyright hooah!

Showing brake valve handle (red) and brakes fully set

"Let the engine brake build up to 30 pounds and gradually let it off to zero just before we stop."  "Then drop the throttle to idle," I told him.

I knew that 110 empties would stop relatively quickly, but I also knew that we might also run into the pile of junk.

The speedometer showed that we were slowing down at a prodigious rate.   We would very soon be stopped, brake shoes smoking!

I took the radio handset from its receiver and called Roy on the caboose to tell him why we were stopping.

"OK," said Roy.

Before I could hang the handset back in its cradle, Gary called to me and pointed out the side window at a point on the ground near the track.  I quickly looked outside as we passed by the pile of junk, some of which was now bouncing along the track between the rails in front of the engine and saw the strangest sight!

There, lying under a ground-hugging canopy of wild blackberry bushes were two young men and a dog!

These boys had 'doubled down' on 'dumb'.  Imagine piling a whole pile of crap on the track and then laying down within fifteen feet of the site of a potential train wreck so they could get a close-up view of the whole thing.  Well, I had a surprise in store for them.

Before the train stopped, I called the dispatcher on the radio.

Sunday's were slow days and the dispatcher answered right away.  It was Jerry Griffin (JG) a friend of mine.

Quickly, I explained to him what had just happened and then told him that I wanted to back my train up about  thirty cars so I could grab these characters before they got too far away.

Now, to do it legally, we would have had to cancel our clearance and obtain a new clearance for a 'work extra' that would allow us to make a reverse movement in CTC territory.

Jerry understood the situation and said, "OK Bruce, you can back up, but don't let your tail end go past the approach signal to Arnold behind you."

At that point, Roy Anderson, the conductor got a bit twitchy about backing up without proper authority so I asked him to bear with me and keep his hand on the caboose's emergency valve.  There were two miles of nearly straight track behind the caboose and no public crossings, so he said he'd look after the caboose.

A compliant conductor can be so hard to find.  ;-]

Gary had the brakes released and began to work those engines in reverse, keeping a watchful eye on the load meter so that there would be no danger of jack-knifing the locomotive.

In a few minutes, we had backed up to the scene of the incident and the two guys and the dog were gone, but couldn't have gotten too far away.  There was only one direction they could travel in, and with so many blackberry bushes growing around there, they could only make their way towards an area of new homes which were under construction near the track.

Gary again made a very nice controlled stop.

Then he looked at me quizzically, saying "Why did we back up?" "What are you going to do now?"

"I'm going to find those clowns and hand them over to the Police," I said.

"You're going to need help!", he said, and he got up off the damp, but warm seat.

To the head end brakeman, who hadn't made a move to get up off his seat, I said... "Call the dispatcher and have him notify the RCMP (police) to meet us here at this subdivision."

"OK", he said.

In a minute or two, Gary and I ran up to a new home that was still under construction and asked the contractor there which way the two men and the dog had gone.  He said he saw them running into a forty acre corn field behind the house a couple of minutes ago.  They had tried to hide inside the house, but he had chased them out.

"Great!", I said to Gary.  "We have them trapped in a forty acre field of four-foot high corn!"

Photo obtained from Google Images.  Photographer not listed.

Gary laughed at the irony of that and commented that this was his first ever road trip and already we were involved in a "corn-field meet".  Gary had a great sense of humor that I never tired of.

I picked up a four foot long piece of 2X2 lumber and Gary did the same.

Into the cornfield we went, following the trail of bent and broken corn stalks left behind by the now frantic transgressors.

Within a few minutes of pushing through the corn stalks, we could hear the dog panting nearby, and I called out to them that we had them surrounded and they should stand up and come with us.

This, they did.

Making our way out of the cornfield, we came upon the contractor and a couple of his carpenters who were clapping and grinning.  And beyond them, there was an RCMP cruiser with an officer sitting on the left front fender..., obviously waiting for us to complete the 'easy' part of the job.

He got up and opened the back door of the cruiser and, with a nonchalant wave of his hand, he loaded the two men and the big dog into the back seat to wait for their ride downtown to the lock-up.

He asked me to write up a statement for him and I told him that I would submit one to CN's Constable Roger Bailey and he would forward a copy to the RCMP.

"Is Roger Bailey still around?" he asked, sounding surprised.

"Oh, yes," I said.  "He's very much alive and on duty at all times."

"My first posting as an RCMP officer was at Prince Rupert," he said.  "I was delayed getting away from home and was trying to make up some time on the way."

"I was barreling down the highway west of Terrace, and no sooner had I crossed the railroad tracks out there in the middle of no-where..., there were red and blue lights flashing in my rear view mirror!"

"It was CN Constable Roger Bailey."

" I explained that I was an off-duty RCMP officer and was late for my first posting in Prince Rupert."

"With a faint smile, he told me to drive carefully in the future, and he handed me a ticket."

CN Special Constable Roger Bailey
Vernon, BC  ca 1998
Photo... Author

"I always respected Constable Bailey," he said.

Four Days On The Road

For some time prior to October of 1985, when my wife and I were married, I had been working yard engines and spare board assignments around the Greater Vancouver area.  With Christmas coming though, I felt that I should give up the yard work and concentrate on making some serious money for Christmas expenses.  So, it wasn't long after I had called the crew office to tell them of my decision to work the road.

For my first trip back on the road, I was called at 05:30 for a drag of grain empties for 07:30, being given the standard 2-hour call.  Susan got busy making breakfast while I prepared my "kit" for the trip.

While sharing a lovely breakfast together, the phone rang.  The crew dispatcher, Henry Pylypiak called to tell me that the crew office was having trouble finding a train crew for this train.  The crew office was canvassing a list of men who had been brought in from other regions of Canada, and not having much luck.  I was advised to stay at home until they found a crew, or in the alternative..., my call would be cancelled, paying me a basic three hours pay for the day.  I silently wished that they would find a crew, and sooner rather than later.
This would be my first "out of town" trip since we had gotten married and, without saying so, I was looking forward to getting back out on the mainline.  I'd missed running on the high iron, and was looking forward to the excitement that I found there. As well, I also found a sense of peace during my lay-over time in Boston Bar.  The sensation one experiences while riding a moving locomotive can never be explained; it has to be felt.

This is what it looks like!

Jim Sexsmith at the throttle of ex-CNR F3A number 9000
see: Alberta Railway Museum

Susan wasn't quite sure why I would be so willing to leave the comforts of home and climb into a noisy, smelly, dirty locomotive and go driving off into the unknown, ... and do it with a grin on my face.  Perhaps one day, she might get the opportunity to ride the locomotive with me.

The weather channel had been forecasting an intense Low front that would move in from the Pacific Ocean which could affect us for the next 24 hours.   The forecast was for rising winds and fluctuating temperatures, accompanied by periods of precipitation.  The temperature outside was still mild, but the relative humidity seemed to be rather low.  It didn't feel like rain was on the way, it felt more like snow might develop.

Susan asked me how long I would be gone.  That would be a difficult question to answer with a pin-point response.  There was no such thing as an average trip; we could be back home in as little as twelve hours if all went well,  or twenty-four hours when the weather was misbehaving.  Sometimes it wasn't the weather that determined when you might get home.  A derailment three hundred miles away would block the tracks, hindering train movement.  A rock slide, or a wash-out could tie up the railroad for a few hours or a few days.

When conditions deteriorated, a crew might be on the road for days, but that was quite rare.  However, most seasoned railroaders working the road, carried emergency provisions that, if rationed carefully, could carry one through for a couple of days of being stuck on the road.  There were worse places to be holed up in than the cab of a locomotive.

I wrote down the phone number for the operator at Port Mann.  She could call and ask the operator to check with the dispatcher to find out where I was and when she might expect me to be coming home.  That would be the only way she might get a reasonable estimate of my arrival at Port Mann.

NOTE:
I won't dwell on the matter too much, but I think it's appropriate to tell those of you who aren't familiar with 'life on the engine'a little about life in the cab of a locomotive.  Conditions were spartan.


Prior to the late 1980's, there were few amenities available to CN road crews on engines.  There were no toilet facilities such as the chemical toilets that today's locomotives have.  Some locomotives were equipped with a toilet called "Incinolet", which was a toilet seat mounted over an electric hotplate.

Photo compliments Ron Bowman
Chemical toilet in nose compartment of second generation diesel locomotive

This facility was almost always situated in some nearly inaccessible, unheated, dimly lit, non-ventilated and filthy equipment storage area within the body of the locomotive.  Anyone who has ever had to use one of these toilets in the middle of winter, now possesses one of railroading's most unforgettable memories. Once the device was activated, it would cause the droppings to smolder for hours, or burst into flames.

Only after years of complaints by engineers, did CN reluctantly provide a half dozen "Tidy-Wipes" and two 355ml cans of water to each member of the engine crew at the beginning of each round trip.  


Until the late 1980's, there was no refrigeration for food storage on locomotives, no clean, safe drinking water, and no hotplate to make a pot of coffee.  


Just before 09:00, the crew office called back to say that they now had a full crew ordered and the men had promised to show up by about 10:30.  Henry told me that the train crew was made up of three 'new guys' who didn't have much experience on the road.  He asked my if I thought I'd be "OK" with a green crew.

"No problem," I said. "I'll look after them."

"What could go so wrong that I couldn't help these guys get over the subdivision," I thought.

I got to the yard office before 09:30 and began to pour over the bulletin books, notices, time tables, special instructions and other errata that gets pinned to the walls and taped to the windows.  Since I hadn't worked the road for several months, there was a lot to catch up on, and I felt that because the crew was not familiar with the subdivision, I should be particularly sharp today.

As promised, the men arrived at 10:30.  It soon became obvious that they were uncomfortable with the promise of a road trip into the canyon, as they grumbled about having been corralled into taking a call for "the road."

I did my best to assure them that I knew the territory very well and would do my best to ensure we didn't get into trouble out there.  Fortunately, the fellow who would be riding the engine with me showed that he had a good sense of humor and that he was willing to get on with the job.

With all of our 'paperwork' in hand, we left the office to 'go to work.'  As the brakeman and I walked over to the shop tracks to find our power, the conductor and tail end brakeman got into the crew bus for the half mile ride to the west end of the yard, where a freshly serviced caboose was waiting for them.

With the exception of myself, as engineer, the remainder of the crew were relatively new to the west coast.  The conductor and tail end brakeman, who were from the same town in the Maritimes, had made a few trips on the Yale sub in the past five months, but the head end man was a newcomer to the mainline; he’d been working in the yards back east for a couple of years, but only recently relocated to Vancouver.  He was planning a trip back home to be with his family for Christmas and took a call to go out onto the Yale Sub this trip only because he had an opportunity to pick up some extra money for the holidays.

He admitted to me that he was a bit edgy about the trip.  He'd heard stories about long trips, dangerous canyons, and rock slides on the Yale Sub.  The men who worked out there, he was told, were notorious risk-takers and lacking common sense in dangerous situations.  I must admit, there was sometimes a dusting of truth in these accusations.  I assured him that he was free to use the emergency brake on his side of the cab, but I would prefer that he discuss his concerns with me first, and if he wasn't satisfied with my response, he could pull on the handle and the train would stop almost immediately.  That seemed to calm him down somewhat.

The Canyon, it was known, could be dangerous at any time of the year, but when the weather got bad, the Canyon became angry and combative.  And the crews..., well some might occasionally exhibit a bit more false courage than might be deemed appropriate at the time.

I found myself observing this young man's readiness for the rigors of the road.  He had a pair of light leather gloves, a wool sweater over his T-shirt, jeans, a pair of worn leather eight inch steel toe boots and a baseball cap.  Good enough, but if it rains, he's going to get wet.  If the weather takes a bad turn, he'd better hope he doesn't have to get off the engine for any reason other than to walk to the bunk house in Boston Bar.  But the weather shouldn't get that cold for at least another month.

I hadn't bothered to take a look around outside the cab since we put the engine on the train, and when I realized that I had just turned on the overhead light, it occurred to me that even though it was mid-day, it had become ominously dark outside.

The sky had become heavily overcast with dark, grey cloud cover. The temperature had begun to drop and bits of paper, leaves and little funnels of dust were chasing about the ground in front of me.

Reaching for the cab heater control,  I turned the switch from "off" to "low" and the fan kicked in, delivering warmth and bits of collected debris into the cab.

With the air-brake test completed the rear brakeman announced by radio that he and the conductor were ready to leave the yard. Picking up the radio handset, I called the dispatcher in Kamloops 245 miles to the east and asked for the signal to leave Port Mann.

"If you're ready to leave now, I can give you the signal", he said.

"We're ready on the tail end", said the conductor.

 "And we're ready on the head end", I said.

"You've got the signal". "Have a nice trip", said the dispatcher.

Ruel Sub. CTC Dispatcher.  Photographer not known at this time.

Opening the throttle slowly from idle to run 2, the big engines began to throb, rumble and whine as they emerged from their resting state of low idle.  Inching forward, they pulled the slack out of the 6000 foot train.

“5286 East…all moving” came the call from the caboose. “All moving, thanks”, I answer.

CN 5286 August 1994, Prince George, BC
Mark Forseille - photographer

Creeping out of the yard track and onto the lead, the dwarf signal at the east end of the yard came into view. Its bright, red colour indicated, with absolute authority that we are not to go beyond that point until we receive a less restrictive signal indication.  Beyond that lies seventy two miles of broad Fraser River valley, and forty miles of deep, narrow Fraser Canyon.

Just as the dispatcher had promised, the dwarf signal turned from red to green, allowing our train to leave the yard.    I advanced the throttle a bit more, and the engines increase their rpm's in response.

I looked forward to getting out "on the main again; we'll run free, like a herd of wild horses.

 "CN Extra 5286 East, Slow Clear signal leaving Port Mann," I call out on the radio.

"Slow Clear" came the response from the caboose.

I pull the throttle out a little more and wait for the train to respond.  Sliding the window open, I lean out for a look back along the side of the train. The long string of boxcars and covered hoppers that are coupled behind the locomotive heed the pull on their draw-bars, shaking off the rain-water that had been clinging in cold droplets to their sides, ladders and walkways.  They seem eager to make their way back to the grain elevators of the Canadian Prairie provinces to be re-filled and sent on their way west again.

The grain harvest is in full swing in Western Canada.

As the mile board drifts quietly past, I again, pull on the throttle.  The engines rev up as one; each locomotive in the consist throwing dark smoke from its stack.  The speedometer creeps up a few more miles per hour.

The tail end calls out, "5286 East, we're on the high iron!"

"On the Main!" I answer, as I open the throttle up, all the way to the "money notch".

With the throttle wide open now, I pour a cup of coffee from my thermos as the train climbs the ascending grade from Port Mann up to Fort Langley.  Across the cab the brakeman is checking the orders and his timetable for clues to understanding the complexities of mainline work.  This is a nice change, I think.  This young man was making an honest effort to figure things out on his own.

The weather continued to deteriorate rapidly.  Cold began to radiate from the glass in front of me and the side windows that my right shoulder had been resting against were showing some frost which was beginning to form on the glass.  I flip the switch that turns the electric windshield heaters on.  Slowly, the frost disappears, and I feel a warm glow on my face.

Before we reached Fort Langley, snowflakes began to fall as the wind picks up, driving the snow first in one direction, then in another.

I wish I had tested the sanders before I left the shop track.  Oh well, if the snow doesn't get too deep, I won't need sand on the rails for traction.  We'll be fine.

Chased by a winter storm. RBH at the throttle.  Photo credit unavailable.

The wind began to blow fiercely.  The snowflakes were being driven wildly in every direction; they appeared to be worried, even terrified of the sudden ferocity of the storm, and seemed to be frantically searching for a place to hide.  This was going to be more than just a simple squall; it was very rapidly deepening into a major storm.

As visibility got worse, I considered reducing the throttle out of concern for motor vehicle traffic at level crossings.  If I could no longer see the crossings or the vehicles, I felt sure that drivers would not be able to see me either.

 I reached up with my left hand, gripping the whistle handle.  I gave it a couple of short pulls, to make sure that the open bells of the whistle weren't filling up with snow, making them mute.

White whistle posts tend to vanish from the eye when the snow is flying, or in a dense fog and a train crew's nemesis is the vehicle operator who doesn't hear or see you coming.  Everybody loses in a train/car collision.

The wind increased to angry proportions, buffeting the huge locomotive as it rolled along the tracks. Snow was drifting now, piling up in long snaking waves that broke into chunks when we passed through them.

Credit RailPictures.net

photographer not known yet

If I could keep the train moving ahead, and the weather continued as it was, we would soon be plowing hard-packed snow.  I was struggling with the train, trying to keep it moving, but the speedometer was telling me that I was losing the battle.  The wind was fierce, and the snow was squeezing the wheel flanges against the rail heads, causing friction to develop, adding to the difficulties already present.

Perhaps we would find ourselves stalled, unable to move further; and not in a location of our choice.

I checked our train length against my time table notes to find a place where we could park 6000 feet of train without having to cut crossings.  The only places on the entire subdivision that could accommodate our train  were in the canyon, many miles east of us.

It would be preferable to keep it moving, if possible.  But we were running out of time.  I had gone 'on duty' prior to 07:30 and would be subject to mandatory rest at 19:30.  With operating conditions rapidly deteriorating, I hoped that CN officials would arrange to have our train tucked away before we were brought to a halt by the weather conditions.It had already been a long day and I was feeling the weight of the circumstances.  I wanted a meal and some rest.

The siding at Arnold was only eleven miles further east. We might be able to make it and get most of the train into the siding there.  Arnold held only 5200 feet of train once the crossing was cut.  We could take the remainder of our train to Chilliwack and put it away in one or more of the tracks there.

Excited voices suddenly burst from the radio speaker in the cab.  Seven miles east of Chilliwack, a west-bound train was stopped "In Emergency!!", at Rosedale.  The caboose had derailed, perhaps due to a chunk of ice falling from a rail car, becoming lodged in the flange way of the crossing.  The caboose came to rest, standing upright on its wheels, between the mainline and the siding.

Being preoccupied with the weather conditions, I hadn't yet told the dispatcher that we were getting close to our hours and would need to be taken off the train for rest.    With a caboose on the ground at Rosedale, the decision regarding where we would leave the train would be less complicated.  It was going to be Arnold, with the over-flow going to Chilliwack.

On the Trans-Canada highway, somewhere to the south of us, CN’s mobile crane, the “Cherry Picker” had been out on a  previous call doing some clean-up work near Boston Bar and was returning to its home base at Port Mann.  It was travelling on Highway One when the storm struck and was now in the middle of a fifty vehicle crash, caused by a 'white-out' in blowing snow conditions.

Reaching for the radio, I switched from the road channel to the Dispatcher's Channel and pressed the "call" button.  In a moment, the dispatcher answered with, "Dispatcher Kamloops, Over."

I talked with him of the situation with the Cherry Picker and then I told him that we were in the middle of the same violent blizzard.  I was concerned that we might not be able to continue much farther before the weather conditions forced us to stop.

"I want to put you into the siding at Arnold", he said.  "Do you think you can make it that far?"

"If we can keep moving for another two or three miles" I said, "We'll be in the lee of the mountain and it'll be easier going from there," I told him.

"Once you get into Arnold, I'll do what I can to get you a signal to run to the west end of your train to pick up your tail-end crew!"  "Then you can run to Chilliwack where we'll arrange for a hotel room for you guys."

Arriving at the west switch at Arnold, we got the switch cleaned out and pulled the train into the siding.  After the tail end brakeman got the road crossing cut, he made his way back to the caboose.

We finally arrived in Chilliwack and headed into the siding.  After putting our engine and a few cars away in the elevator spur, we called a taxi and went to a hotel.  It was after midnight.

As I warmed up in the hot shower, I thought about the track maintenance employees who had been out in this storm all day, and who might have to be out there all night as well. They had no warm cab to wait out the storm in, no toilet, no fridge or hotplate, no place to hide from the raging blizzard that now covered us completely.

During the night, the Cherry Picker crew had made slow progress. The wreckage on Highway 1 had held them up for a long time before they could make their way to Rosedale to begin setting up to re-rail the crippled caboose.

DAY TWO:

We were called for 0900.

The roads in the exposed areas of the valley had not yet been cleared and it took nearly four hours to get our crew back on the train and the crossing put back together.  Once the brake pipe had been charged up to about 75 lbs, we did a number two air test and everything was in order for us to leave.

Section crews had been out almost continuously since the storm began, and all of the switches and road crossings had been shoveled out, swept and cleaned.  But as soon as they moved on, the snow would be blown back in.  Every switch we came to had to be cleaned out before the dispatcher could set them for our train.

Every time the engine entered a road crossing at grade, we would feel the front axle jump a bit as it entered the flange-ways.  This was due to the fact that highway department vehicles and others, had passed over the crossings after the section crews had left and filled the flange-ways in with snow and ice again.

I slowed the train down before going over each road crossing, just in case.

I must admit to feeling some apprehension when the axles jumped like that.  There was always the chance that just one time, the wheels wouldn't come back down on the rails, leading us into the ditch at speed.

With signals all green at both ends of the siding, and whistle blowing loud and long, we rolled through the city of Chilliwack, heading toward the the Fraser Canyon, thirty miles distant.  If all went well, we might make it to Boston Bar tonight where there would be a hot meal at the Beanery and a familiar, warm bed in the bunkhouse.  But for now, that was just a dream..., a faraway dream.

As we were leaving Cheam View, the dispatcher called again.  Apparently, some large rocks had come down in the canyon and the main line was blocked between Yale and Stout.  It would be at least 12 hours before the main line would be cleared, so we were instructed to put our train into the siding at Floods and take hotel rooms in Hope!!!

I told him I thought CN should be sending us back to Port Mann and call another crew out the next day.  The Chief did not agree.  I was beginning to take this "personally."

DAY THREE:

The taxi delivered us from our hotel to the train at Floods.  The main line was passable and we were to proceed to Boston Bar where, I was assured..., we would be deadheaded back home on the first available Greyhound Bus.

Finally, we arrived in Boston Bar and a crew from Kamloops was in place to take over our train.  We happily gave it to them and went into the station to check the bus schedule.

The operator said we had missed the bus by a couple of hours, but could catch one later that night.

I went to the bunkhouse and went to bed.  My train crew did the same..., or so I thought.

In fact, they had "booked sick" and went up to the highway to hitch-hike back to Vancouver, leaving me sleeping soundly.

DAY FOUR:

The next morning, I got up and got dressed.  I wandered down to the station for breakfast in the Beanery, but stopped in to see the operator first.  He told me that my crew had booked sick and I was being held in Boston Bar until they got a relief crew for me.  As soon as they arrived, we would be called for a sulphur train that was sitting in the yard.

The relief crew arrived on the bus shortly before noon, and were happy to be getting a quick turn-around out of the yard.  They had, however heard about the voyage we had been on, taking three days to travel 112 miles!!!  They referred to me as "Black Cloud".  I couldn't disagree with them.

After lunch, the head end brakeman - Phil Busch - and I got the engine off the shop and made our way to the west end of the yard, where we put the engine on the train.

Soon, we had completed our air test and both head end and tail end crew members were ready to go.

As the heavy drag rolled, creaking and groaning out of the yard, the sky cleared and the sun began to warm the hillsides all around.

Aside from the "expected" slack action of this miserable train, (do you remember the train that Karen took from Boston Bar to Thornton without using the brakes???  This was another one of those.)  we were making good headway as we wound our way through the canyon, tunnels and slide detector fences.

Leaving mile 5, I went to work on the throttle as the train began to climb up to mile 10.  The indicator in the load meter climbed past 650 amps and the speedometer showed a slight drop in speed while the engines roared in the canyon.

I opened my window wide to listen to them.

Finally, I began to unwind.

Tipping over the top of the hill at Komo, I slowly reduced the throttle, maintaining the speed at 25 miles per hour.  I didn't use the air brakes, as track curvature would help to keep the speed regulated for me.

Now that the noise of the pounding diesel engines had subsided, Phil leaned back in his chair and we began to chat lightheartedly about railroading and union business.

The engine rocked a bit from side to side, and the wheels clattered as the engine passed over the west switch at Komo.  I reduced the throttle by a couple more notches and we began an easy thirteen mile downhill run to Yale.

The dispatcher's voice came over the radio.   He told me that my "girlfriend" was on the phone with the operator in Port Mann, wanting to know when I was going to be home!!!

I had been calling her from the hotel rooms and the station in Boston Bar, but I suppose she was getting a bit frustrated with this whole railroadin' thing.  Frankly, so was I.

She used the number I had given her and called the operator, who had used the dispatchers phone to ask about my whereabouts and perhaps, get an estimated time of arrival for my train.  The Dispatcher then used the CN radio system to call me on the locomotive.  In the end, it was all set up that my wife could hear the two-way conversation between the dispatcher and myself.

The operator, Ed Kowalski had joked with my wife that if he "told the dispatcher that Bruce's 'wife' was looking for him, the Code of Silence would be enacted," so Ed told the dispatcher that my 'girlfriend' was on the phone and she wanted to know when I was coming back to town.

The dispatcher asked Ed to hold on while he called me on the radio to tell me that my girlfriend was on the phone, wanting to know when she'd see me again.

That was all very sweet, and was certainly a wonderful demonstration of the advanced technical age we were living in.  When asked how long it was going to take me to drive that train to Port Mann, I said
"If you can keep the signals green", "I'll be home by five o'clock today".

"The railroad's all yours, Bruce", he said.   "The signals are 'green' all the way home and you're the only train on the road."

Just as he was completing that statement, the locomotive headed into the east end of the tunnel at mile 11.4.  I waited to answer him, as the 548 foot tunnel would surely block any radio response I would make.

A moment passed and the engine emerged from the tunnel.

I raised the radio handset to my face to crack a joke about it being "down hill all the way"... "both ways"..., but, for just a half-second, I froze in my seat unable to process what had just happened in front of the engine.
A large rock had fallen onto the track, landing between the rails on brand new concrete ties, and it lay a scant fifty feet in front of the locomotive.

We were on top of it before I could get my hand on the emergency brake handle!

Still clutching the radio handset in my left hand, I reached across and grabbed the train brake handle with my right hand, instantly slamming it across the quadrant into the 'big hole', or emergency position.  Within a half-second, using my right hand again, I grabbed the locomotive brake handle, pushing it into the 'fully applied' position.

The locomotive struck the rock, which was about three feet, by two feet by four feet, and climbed up on top of it.

Photo credit Andy Cassidy
Large RED handle is automatic train brake
Smaller RED handle is locomotive, or engine brake handle.
Train brake is in "Released" position, while engine brake is in full "ON" position.

The locomotive lurched vertically, like a horse jumping a fence.  The rock disappeared out of sight below the front pilot deck, remaining where it lie as the locomotive slid over top of it.

When we had gone less than an engine-length, the trailing truck caught one edge of the big rock and began to turn it over, between the rails.

The engine then began to jerk and pitch as the rock rolled and tumbled beneath the trailing truck..., then the ride became smooth and even, albeit the rear end of the leading locomotive was somewhat higher than the front end.

Sometimes, when a train hits a rock in the canyon, this can be the outcome!
Photo Credit Peter Cox

Ahead of us, just a few dozen yards away, was another tunnel at mile 12.3.  The train was still advancing downhill and the brakes were only just beginning to take effect.

My main concern had switched from "going over the edge into the river", to "becoming jammed inside the next tunnel" by the advancing train.

The locomotive purred softly; the only other sound being that of the rock, now being dragged beneath the locomotive and chewing and grinding up the concrete ties that held the rails together.

Phil said softly..., "Bruce, I don't think we're going to make it".  "We'd better get off."

But the ground beside the track on the "mountain" side was covered in broken rock, or rip-rap; the other side of the track didn't offer much more than a quick descent into the river.  Our chances were better if we stayed aboard and rode it out.

We braced ourselves by putting our boots firmly against the front wall of the cab, and waited.

The 14000 ton sulphur train behind us kept on coming, pushing the locomotive up and over the rock., the rock settling in between the two locomotives before making a quarter turn, becoming jammed under the drawbars and couplers.

The rock, which had jammed beneath the drawbars between the locomotives, was big enough to lift the two locomotives at least 18 inches.
Photo - Author

As we slid along the rails, the engine settled in a slightly 'nose down and forward' position, while remaining upright.  But it continued to slide on the rails straight toward the next tunnel at mile 12.3, only a hundred yards away.

Amazingly, the train coasted to a smooth stop, just 20 feet away from the gaping black hole that was the 418 foot tunnel in front of us.

Only then did I realize that I still had the radio handset in my left hand and I hung it back up on its cradle.

A moment or two passed before the conductor called, asking if we were OK.  Phil and I just sat there, wondering how we had escaped a watery death in the canyon.

The dispatcher called next, wanting to know if we had "made it."

I picked up the handset and said, "Yes, we're OK."

Now, you'll recall that I had unknowingly held onto the radio handset while I shut down the throttle, slammed the train brakes into emergency and jammed the engine brake on full.

You'll also recall that the dispatcher had called me using the micro wave system and the operator was on the dispatchers line, and my wife was on the phone to the operator?

Well, I had inadvertantly kept the "transmit" button  held down while I was desperately attending to the business of getting the train stopped; the dispatcher heard everything.

Our conversation in the cab as we hit the rock; the air brakes going into emergency; my voice telling Phil that we were going into the river...., everything had been transmitted over the radio, then over the dispatchers' phone lines and then..., via the loudspeaker in the operator's office..., over the phone to my wife, who listened in horror, as her husband of less than a month announced that his train had just hit a large rock and was in trouble in the canyon!!!!

She heard every word.

These were a few very tense minutes that were added to an already tense trip that I'm happy to have survived.

The Chief Dispatcher came on the radio, saying that we should sit right there while he tried to find the Section Foreman at Hope (it was a Sunday) and bring up some dynamite to free the engines.  We could then carry on home.  At that moment, I was thinking that the Chief might fail a "substance abuse" test.  What the heck was he thinking???

I told the Chief that I was getting off the train and a taxi could be sent from Boston Bar to pick up Phil and myself at the Alexandra Lodge at Chapman's a half mile away down the track.

Phil and I climbed off the engine, leaving the tail end crew on the caboose as they would not be able to navigate the extremely narrow rock shelf alongside the train to get to the head end..., and the taxi.

If Phil had been a 'smoker', I think I might have asked him for a cigarette.

NOTE:  Many thanks to a regular reader who, after reading the story, commented that certain 'details' didn't line up.  After checking it over, I realized that I had indeed erred in my timeline and have since corrected the mis-step.

Recently, our first grandchild was born to 'the kids' near Vancouver and we've been making plans to visit our grandson.  With a last minute edit to the story, I published the story and we hurried to catch the BC Ferry.
With the story finally published and the road clear all the way to the Ferry Terminal in Nanaimo, we were on our way.  Not so.   BC Ferries announced that our sailing was cancelled due to 'mechanical difficulties.'

Apologies.....    Bruce

The Classic Railroad Pocket Watch

 One of the most important, and treasured pieces of equipment that railroaders from the classic period of railroad history was the pocket watch..., or "Turnip" as it was lovingly referred to by some old-timers.

If you were in the market for a watch in1880, would you know where to get one? You would go to a store, right? Well, of course you could do that, but if you wanted one that was cheaper and a bit better than most of the store watches, you went to the train station! Sound a bit funny? Well, for about 500 towns across the northern United States, that's where the best watches were found.

Why were the best watches found at the train station? The railroad company wasn't selling the watches, not at all. The telegraph operator was. Most of the time the telegraph operator was located in the railroad station because the telegraph lines followed the railroad tracks from town to town. It was usually the shortest distance and the right-of-ways had already been secured for the rail line.

Most of the station agents were also skilled telegraph operators and that was the primary way that they communicated with the railroad. They would know when trains left the previous station and when they were due at their next station. And it was the telegraph operator who had the watches. As a matter of fact they sold more of them than almost all the stores combined for a period of about 9 years.

This was all arranged by "Richard", who was a telegraph operator himself. He was on duty in the North Redwood, Minnesota train station one day when a load of watches arrived from the east. It was a huge crate of pocket watches. No one ever came to claim them.

So Richard sent a telegram to the manufacturer and asked them what they wanted to do with the watches. The manufacturer didn't want to pay the freight back, so they wired Richard to see if he could sell them. So Richard did. He sent a wire to every agent in the system asking them if they wanted a cheap, but good, pocket watch. He sold the entire case in less than two days and at a handsome profit.

That started it all. He ordered more watches from the watch company and encouraged the telegraph operators to set up a display case in the station offering high quality watches for a cheap price to all the travelers. It worked! It didn't take long for the word to spread and, before long, people other than travelers came to the train station to buy watches.

Richard became so busy that he had to hire a professional watch maker to help him with the orders. That was Alvah. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The business took off and soon expanded to many other lines of dry goods. 

Sears - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia  

Richard and Alvah left the train station and moved their company to Chicago -- and it's still there.

IT'S A LITTLE KNOWN FACT that for a while in the1880's, the biggest watch retailer in the country was at the train station.

The Conductor and Engineer Compare Watches

http://railroadheritage.org 

It all started with a telegraph operator: Richard Sears and his partner Alvah Roebuck!

The Yardmaster's Revenge (Lulu Island Part Two)

A few days after the Lulu Island experience of the previous post, we were back in Port Mann, working our regular East Lead job under the watchful eye of the yardmaster and his immediate supervisor, the General Yardmaster, from their lofty perch in the three story control tower built next to the Fraser river and at the west end of Canadian National Railways large marshaling yard near Vancouver, British Columbia.

In the early to mid-eighties, all yard crews started their shifts by gathering in a one-story cinder-block building called the "booking in room".  This building housed locker rooms for switchmen, trainmen, engineers and conductors.  Also found there were appearance registers for train and engine crews and a train register on which conductors entered significant information about their trains, both arriving and leaving.  A kilometer (one kilometer = 0.62137 miles) east of this building was a three story tower structure on the north, or river side of the western end of the yard.

The booking-in-room housed the Train Order Operators office, locker rooms for trainmen and conductors, yard foremen and helpers, and engineers.  There were also "appearance" books and train registers where yard and road crews signed in and out and trains were logged in and out, showing train and engine numbers, loads and empties, the names of the crews and other information, such as radio numbers, train length and tonnage and rest requirements of arriving crews.

In the rear of the booking-in-rooms was a large paved parking lot and in front of the building could be found the diesel shop tracks, diesel servicing and repair facilities and the car shops where rolling stock was serviced and repaired.  The caboose track was also situated there.

CN SW1200RS  #1286 - Built by General Motors Diesel in 1957
Harry Schimm Photograph

We had taken our engine, a two-unit consist of  SW1200RS switchers off the shop and, after picking up three or four serviced cabooses from the cab track, we proceeded eastward to the control tower.

Even if there were no other trains or engines in the way, it could take ten minutes to take a locomotive from the shop track to the tower.

I know.... I've used this photo already, but apparently, the tower was camera shy
and this is the only one I have been able to locate.  

The foreman climbed the three stories to the yardmaster's office to receive our switch lists and other instructions prior to heading through a clear track to the east end of the yard.  There we began our shift, marshaling recently arrived trains, setting trains that were due to leave for points east and west, and making sure they had fresh cabooses placed on their tail ends.

After three and a half hours of "pounding the lead", and looking forward to going home with a three-hour quit, the foreman and his helper check their lists to ensure that all the work that was given to the crew has now been completed.

Knowing there would still be another hour and a half to "put in" before we can make our way back to the shop track, one of the crew members changed the channel on his portable radio and pressed the 'transmit' button.

East Lead crew and SW1200RS locomotive at Port Mann Yard.
Photo courtesy CN Rail and CNRHA (formerly CNLINES SIG)
Lorne Perry Photo 

"Thornton Tower?".  "East Lead calling. Over."

Not hearing a response, he called again.

"East Lead calling the Tower, Over!"

This time, the yardmaster answered with, "Port Mann Tower."

"We've finished up all the work on the first set of switch lists and would like to come down to the tower for a coffee and fresh switch lists, Over."

"Permission denied, East Lead!"  "Stay where you are and I'll bring your lists up to you."

We expected to be dealt a little retribution in response for the 'slippery' move we pulled off, so we wondered what the boys in the tower might have in mind for us this evening.

Ten minutes later, a half-ton truck arrived with a large cloud of dust in full chase.

The door opened up and the yardmaster stepped out, and clutching a sheaf of switch lists in one hand, he retrieved his sliding trousers with the other and began to stride briskly toward where the three of us had been waiting by the river.

With a slight grin on his face, he tossed his head and said...., "Do you remember how smart you thought you were last weekend?"  "Well, you boys aren't going home until we're finished with you."  "you're ours for the night."

Handing the pile of switch lists to the foreman, he turned and walked purposefully back to the truck and, spinning the tires in the dirt, he drove back to the west end of the yard.

After he drove away, the foreman brought his helper into the cab of the engine and, switching on the overhead lights in the cab, we proceeded to have a good look at the work we had  been given to complete before we could go home.  There was something terribly amiss!!  There were at least eight long pages of car numbers to switch out and these cars were buried in nearly every track in the yard.  There was enough work here to keep two crews busy for eight hours!!!!

You will recall that the yard crews were working on a "quit system" that allowed crews to go home after 5 hours on duty.  You may also recall that we had pulled a 'fast one' on the yardmaster when we quietly crept onto the shop track with the Lulu Island engines and then crept out again without letting the yardmaster know that we were in town.  Well, we expected to have to do penance for that little bit of fun we'd had, but..., it looked like they were going to hold our feet to the fire for a full 12 hours!

We went back to work with the understanding that we would see where we were at the expiration of 5 hours on duty; then we would re-visit our situation.

When we had been working for a little over five hours, the yardmaster called and ordered us to pull some cars out of track 36 that we had been holding out in there.  He had a transfer coming off the New Westminster bridge and needed track 36 for that train.

We reached into track 36 and coupled on to the easternmost car.  Not wanting to be easily tracked by the tower, we decided to abandon radio transmissions and revert to hand signals.  We knew that we could work safely on hand signals, leaving those in the tower wondering what we were up to.

Railroad man using hand signals to control movement of cars.
Photographer and source unknown
RBH collection

The switchman gave me a hand signal  with his lantern and I reversed the engine, released the brakes and began to pull on the cars we had tied on to.  The foreman and I began counting the "bumps" in the slack between the cars as the engine slowly pulled backward.  A stop signal appeared in the gathering darkness.   I applied the brakes, stopping our movement.  Leaning into the open window, I watched the light from his lantern bobbing rhythmically as he walked deeper into the track, searching in the darkness for cars that were standing in the darkness there.  Once again, the switchman swung his lantern in a wide circle, ending in a quick spinning motion at the top of the arc.  This was the signal to back up, all the way out onto the lead.  He was telling me that we had all the cars in the track.  I watched as the little point of light from his lantern went through the motion of following him up onto the ladder at the end of the last car for the ride out to the east lead.

Once we had all the cars out of track 36,  I watched as he lined a switch into a track in B yard.  Giving me a big "proceed forward" signal, I urged the two SW1200's to push those cars into clear, where we cut the engine off and parked the engine under the Port Mann highway bridge so that we could have a talk about what our next move would be.  It was plain to see that those in the yard office planned to make our shift a long one.  Crews on the west lead had called us on the radio, saying that they had been released from duty with only four hours on duty!!  The yardmaster had told them that we would be doing some of their work too before we would be allowed to go home.

Ahh, the game was afoot.

After weighing the obvious options..., and this didn't take long, because we really didn't have many to weigh..., I suggested that we try a little artful dodgery.  It was time for a bit of heavy equipment "stick-handling".  I ran my plan by them and they agreed to the plan I cobbled together.  

Explaining the plan to the crew.
Photo Don Birch
RBH collection

When the transfer engine emerged from track 36, we were there to meet them.

Three SD-40's emerging onto lead after depositing their train in a yard track.
"The Bomb Train is arriving from the Yale Sub.
Photo by the author

After a couple of minutes discussing our plan with the crew in the cab of the lead SD40-2, the transfer's engine, we had them pull their power out onto the lead, where we slipped our two SW1200RS's onto the west, or back end of their power.

We all knew that it was common practice for CN to move yard engines between terminals, using transfer crews to effect these moves.  Since Port Mann diesel shop was the primary service and repair facility for the Greater Vancouver Terminals, yard power was often seen coupled onto the rear of a transfer consist.  We figured that those in the tower might not tumble to our little deceit.  Our best, and only hope was to conceal our locomotives out in the open, causing them to appear to be "road power".

Once coupled together, we extinguished our headlights, class lights, number lights and cab lights.

The two sets of motive power appeared as one, and moved as one. Together, we rolled down a clear track to the west end of the yard. Once there, we found our route to the shop track blocked by a westbound transfer that was pulling slowly out of the yard, heading for Vancouver.

We came to a stop..., directly beneath the outwardly angled windows of the control tower.

The yardmaster and the general yardmaster were both standing at the windows, binoculars to their eyes, searching the darkness for any sign of our engine, or our crew.

The assistant yardmaster began calling for us on the radio.  When we didn't answer, he called other crews in the area, asking if anyone had seen us in the last hour.  No one would admit to having seen us.  It seemed as if we had simply...., disappeared!

The General Yardmaster came out of the tower and, getting into his vehicle, he drove within fifteen feet of the end of our engine, which was still stopped, waiting for the Vancouver-bound transfer to clear the crossing.

And there he stopped, also blocked by the exiting Vancouver transfer.

The head end brakeman from the Lynn Creek transfers' engine walked over to the General Yardmaster's vehicle and stood by the drivers window, talking with him for the ten minutes it took the Vancouver transfer to get out of the way.  As soon as the crossing had been cleared, the GYM drove away, jaw set firmly, heading toward the east end of the yard.  Raising a considerable amount of dust into the air, he disappeared eastward on the mid-yard service road.

He was on a mission, as were we.

We huddled in the darkened cab of our locomotive..., waiting...., not daring to lift our heads for a look around.

After what seemed an eternity, the congestion cleared at the west end of the yard and the transfers power, along with ours moved westward, out of the yard and onto the shop track.

We swiftly tied down the locomotives and went to the booking-in-room, where we found the General Yardmaster waiting for us.

With one hand on his hip and the other raised in the air, he pointed his index finger, first at the foreman and then at me.  Then, both arms fell loosely to his sides and he broke into a huge grin.

Saying nothing, he turned on his heels and walked out into the darkness.

We changed into our street clothes and went out to the parking lot and home.

Until today, our secret has been kept; our supervisors not knowing how we managed to get two substantial locomotives past their watchful eyes, under the bright lights of the control tower and onto the shop track without being seen..., by anyone!

The Lulu Island Branch (Part One)

In the 60's, 70's and 80's, the city of Richmond BC was attracting more and more light and heavy industry.  Warehousing, small and medium manufacturers, re-packaging and freight forwarding companies were thriving.

Richmond, being built on a large, flat island composed mostly of peat bog and sand called Lulu Island, had lots of room to expand and CN Rail was there to service the needs of industry.  CN's access to Lulu Island was via a steel swing span that straddled the North Arm of the Fraser River just west of New Westminster.

One of the things that made working trains in the Greater Vancouver Terminals fascinating, was the geography that one traveled in the course of a day's work.  Westbound trains arriving in Port Mann/Thornton yard after their trip through the Rocky Mountains and the Coastal Range, down the Thompson and Fraser River canyons and the seventy two miles of Fraser Delta would still have a long and interesting route to take before reaching their ultimate destination.

As an engineer, I might begin my day at Port Mann and take a train to North Vancouver, through the two mile Thornton Tunnel, or by-pass the tunnel and proceed into Vancouver itself.  We might have been required to take a train to the CP interchange at Sapperton, then pick up a train at Sapperton and go to North Vancouver, deliver it to the BC Rail interchange at Lonsdale, then pick up a train from the BCR and take it to Port Mann.

At times, we were sent out of Port Mann with cars for New Westminster and Lulu Island, or from Port Mann to Tilbury Island where we would pull and spot the rail barge from Vancouver Island.  

Photo credit unknown.   Likely Seaspan source.

In short, there was never a dull moment, especially when working the spare board, from which we could be called to go to any number of places that CN serviced.

Occasionally, I would need to take a break from the helter-skelter of the spare board life and I would take a job that had regular hours and predictable days off.  Especially attractive were the jobs that started and finished on Lulu Island.  As a rule, those jobs were self-administered.  There was a yardmaster on duty in the modular yard office at Mile 7 on the Lulu Island Branch Line, and motive power was kept on a small, open shop track nearby.

While the switchmen changed into their work clothes, retrieved their radios from their lockers and had a chat with the yardmaster, the engineer would bring the engine off the shop track.

The most senior men on the seniority list could be found working the Lulu Island jobs.  There were a number of reasons for this.  First, there was usually only one job working on the whole island at one time, so there was little chance of getting in someone's way; second, the crews weren't bothered by front-line officers who spent the majority of their time at Port Mann.  And last, but certainly not least...,  the crews knew that unless things went seriously awry, they would be "off duty" within a very short time after having gone "on duty".

The men who worked Lulu Island were very good at their jobs.  They knew the rise and fall of every meter of track, they knew how well cars would roll and where they would stop after they let them go, free rolling.

Within a half hour, they would have their train made up, air charged up in the train line and brakes checked, usually on-the-fly.  Soon enough, the train could be seen leaving the yard with the sun at its back; the cars swaying from side to side as they made their way between cranberry fields and blueberry fields; between low, wet peat bog and fast moving muddy brown waters of the Fraser River.

Andy Cassidy has come up with another gem for us!  This photograph is of the Lulu Island Yard, looking west.
As you can see, the engine and crew have left the yard, leaving only the birds and crickets to keep the yardmaster company.

The yardmaster could then lean back in his chair, put his feet up on the edge of a desk drawer that he'd pulled out a bit..., and open up the morning newspaper for a couple of hours of uninterrupted peace and quiet.

Occasionally, the conductor would call in, asking him to phone a particular industry that was supposed to have the switch unlocked, or the warehouse door opened, but had failed to do so.  The yardmaster at Port Mann would usually call at least once to find out what tracks might be clear in the yard at Mile 7 so he could put together a train for the 22:30 Port Mann to Lulu Island Tramp to deliver that night.  But, otherwise, it would be a quiet day on the Island.

Well before lunch, the crew would call in on the radio and tell the yardmaster that they would be back in the yard in about a half hour with X number of cars.  The yardmaster would give them a track to pull their train into and then lift the phone to call the crew office, who would order up a taxi to take the crew back to their respective pick-up points.  The taxi agreement came about due to a 1969 re-distribution of work between the trainmen/conductors and the switchmen.  The company agreed to provide free, or almost free taxi transportation to employees going to and from work almost anywhere in the Greater Vancouver Terminal.

(Yes, I realize there's more to the Taxi Agreement than that, but I'll save that story for another time)

The crew would pull into the yard, cutting off their train in an empty track and take their engine directly to the
shop track.  If they had a caboose on the train, they would leave it on the tail end for the next shift to pick up.

Most days, these jobs would tie up with less than three or four hours on duty, being paid for eight or more.

No one seemed to be concerned about this, for during this time most yard assignments were working on a "quit" system, where they would put in five hours without taking a break (ostensibly) and then be released to go home, or to take another shift at time and a half.

Above photos credit Bruce Harvey.   Occasionally, there were casualties of the "Quit System"

In the case of Lulu Island, it had been set up so that there would be a "clean up" job on Saturday mornings, and this was part of my assignment.  I worked four days at Port Mann and one day at Lulu Island.  On Saturday, we were tasked with cleaning up any last minute spots that might not have been completed by the third shift on Friday.  Once that had been done, the locomotive had to be taken to Port Mann and traded off for fresh power which we would bring back to Mile 7.  To avoid having to bring cars back to the island from Port Mann yard, we would turn off the headlight and move slowly onto the shop track from the west end of the shop complex so that we wouldn't be seen by the yard supervisors in the control tower to the east of the shops.   Once on the shop track, we would lock up the locomotive, as per the regulations and slowly sneak away from the shop with the replacement locomotives, using the same route.

Photo credit - Bruce Harvey.   This is Neptune Terminals and, as we used to refer to or maybe still, the East Leg.  The phosphate rock silos are on the right and Seaboard Lumber is on the extreme left in the photo. The tall building in the middle is the Phosphate Rock load-out building equipped with a track scale. This is where the Phosphate Rock unit trains used to be loaded..  Clark Grey...North Vancouver

A quick call to the Operator of the New Westminster rail bridge and we would be off to New Westminster and Lulu Island.., and home.

On one such Saturday morning, I picked up my girlfriend, Susan at her North Vancouver apartment and headed out to Lulu Island for an easy "train ride".  As she slid into the front seat of my 67 Ford Fairlane
2-door hardtop, I couldn't help but smile.  While I hadn't been very specific about dress code that might be required for a ride on a freight train, I assumed that she would find a pair of jeans and a sweat shirt.   But no..., she was wearing lovely white slacks, with a white, fine wool sweater and white sneakers.  Oh well, there was no time to waste, so I said she looked fine and we were off!

It was a beautiful sunny day out on the island.  The only sounds were those of the songbirds in the birch trees, and the lovely throbbing of a pair of EMD SW1200RS class road switchers, which were sitting on the shop/service track just west of the yard office.  Susan stood, wide-eyed and excited taking it all in.  The crew foreman and his helpers had just arrived, and came over to introduce themselves.

The yardmaster had our switchlist ready and it showed that we would have a pretty light day.  There were ten cars in the yard to pick up and deliver to the CPR at New Westminster.  We were then to go over to Port Mann and change power at the shops.  The YM had called Port Mann Diesel Shop for the engine numbers that we would be bringing back to the Island, and had checked with the yardmaster at Port Mann to see if there was any traffic to be picked up in the yard for delivery to the island.  Apparently there were a half dozen cars in the yard to be taken to Lulu Island, but we knew there would be a 22:30 Tramp out of Port Mann on Sunday night and they could bring the cars to New Westminster and leave them there.  The 0700 Lulu Island yard job would be able to pick the cars up in New Westminster on Monday morning.  In short, if we could avoid it, we would not be bringing the cars with us out of Port Mann.  The rationale for this decision was this; four days of each week, we were the cleanup crew in Port Mann yard.  We never went home in less than six hours on duty, while all the other crews left work after five  hours.

On Saturday's, we expected to take a little back, and we generally did.  Sometimes, we'd plan a lunch and have a  "tailgate picnic" on the caboose after parking the train on an industrial track.

While the crew was strapping on their radio belts, I took Susan out to the shop track and helped her get aboard the engine.  Soon, we were pulling out onto the "main line", actually Rule 105 territority, and heading for the Fraser River rail bridge over the North Arm of the Fraser.

This is a plate steel swing span, with long timber trestle approaches and is operated by a bridge operator who is a CN employee.  At the time, it was a fellow named "Tony" who worked the assignment on Saturdays.  Tony was a Maintenance of Way guy who was one of the senior employees in his craft.  Saturdays were an easy day for Tony and gave his family a little extra income each payday because it was an overtime shift.

Tony began his day at 0700 and finished at 1500, when the next man came on duty. Unless closed to allow a train to cross the river, the bridge remained open for marine traffic.  To get across the span, the engineer would call the bridge operator on a yard frequency, telling the operator where the train was, how many cars it had and when it was expected to return, if it was going to be going back before the shift change.  As you can see in the Andy Cassidy photographs below, the bridge operator worked from a small cabin on the swing span in the center of the bridge.

 The Fraser river, for many miles upstream was classed as "Tidal Water".  During flood tides, or when the tide was rising, the flow of water in the river was "upstream", and when the tide was ebbing, the flow returned to its normal out-flow course.  However, when the tide was in ebb mode, all the water that had been pushed upriver by the rising tide for nearly 40 miles, now came rushing out of the valley in a dash for the ocean.  For railroaders, it was a fact of life that trains would often be parked somewhere, waiting for tugs and barges to pass beneath or through the swing and lift spans around the Lower Mainland of British Columbia.  Marine traffic had superiority over rail traffic.

On this particular Saturday, I called Tony and sounded one long blast on the whistle in accordance with Rule 14 M (1).  When he answered, I told him we had left mile 9 and were coming toward him.  He said he could see the smoke from the diesel engines' stacks and would close the bridge as there was no river traffic in sight.  Rolling up onto the trestle, I reduced the throttle and let the train's speed reduce to ten miles per hour.

"You comma da stoppa sign, eh?"  "I heara onea river boat onna da radio".  "OK", I answered.  "We'll stop at the stop sign".

Within minutes, the bridge began to swing to the closed position and, when it was secured, Tony called to tell us it was OK to cross the bridge.

The morning air had been quite warm and it promised to be a hot day as the sun was getting higher in the sky, lighting up the highrises on the skyline to the north.  We had been running with the windows open and the cab forward configuration of the two SW1200RS's, coupled nose-to-nose placed us in a position where we had a full wall of glass in front of us.  The view of the forest and the river was unimpeded by either oily car-body or clouds of yellowish white smoke coming from the stacks.  The scent in the air changed dramatically as we climbed up onto the trestle.  We were leaving the warm air of the peat fields and birch trees and gliding over the cold, muddy brown water of the river, rushing below us.   With the change in temperature came a distinctive smell of the river.  It wasn't a bad smell, just different from that of the wild fields we had left only moments before.

Once we were off the bridge, shut the throttle off completely and controlled our speed on the trestle with the engine brake.  The two helpers on the crew retired to the second unit, leaving the foreman, Susan and I in the leading locomotive.

The music of the railroad filled the inside of the cab.  Radio traffic between CN freight trains operating on the Burlington Northern tracks between the New Westminster rail bridge and Vancouver could be heard.   Port Mann yardmasters were calling yard engines with changes in their switch lists, while crews on different trains in the area called each other to make arrangements to watch for each other, or to help each other fit between road crossings.  The engines danced along the tracks, in tune with the clickety-clack of the wheels on the rail joints. All the while, the sound of air being released from the brake valve and the diesel engine throbbing inside its steel jacket created the underlying base for the symphony.

Soon we were gliding down the hill toward the New Westminster docks.  I picked up the radio and, changing channels, called the New Westminster bridge operator to advise him of our impending arrival.  I told him that we would be setting out some cars at the dock and would like to "run light engine" over to Port Mann.

We were advised that the bridge was open for marine traffic and, would close to allow two trains across, after which he would have to open it again for more marine traffic.  He expected that it would be at least 90 minutes before things would begin to thin out, but we could come up to the signal on the CN highline in case there was a break in the traffic.

I told him we'd take our time in New Westminster and call him in an hour or so.

I suggested to the crew that I knew of a place where we could get a nice breakfast and everyone agreed that it sounded like a great idea.

Bringing the train to a stop on an empty track in the small yard on the docks, we locked up the engine and walked over to an older one-story building just across the road from the tracks.

Photo Credit - Andy Cassidy

A lot has changed over the years, but the track hasn't moved, and the "pink" building across the street may be the location of the old "Farmer's Market" of the early 80's.  RBH

Inside, was the regular Saturday morning Farmer's Market where one could find just about everything home-grown..., and..., a free...all you can eat...pancake breakfast!!!  Just a perfect storm for a bunch of railroaders and a stowaway girlfriend, wouldn't you think???

After we had filled ourselves with pancakes, syrup and coffee we walked about the market for a look at what folks had brought to sell or trade.  The only thing I bought was a half pound bag of home made pepperoni, which I stuffed into a deep pocket in my overalls.

We wandered back out to the engine and let ourselves in, where we called the bridge operator again.  Much to our surprise, he had a short spell between vessels and was wondering if we would like to take advantage of it.  We said we would and that we would be up at the signal in five minutes.  He said he'd take us if we could get there quickly, otherwise we would be waiting for more than an hour.  Being a light engine movement, we were able to scurry along the dock and cross the CPR and BC Rail tracks to get onto our highline.  Just as we pulled up to the signal, it turned from red to green.  I whistled off and released the brakes.  We were on our way.  There was a ten mile per hour slow order on the bridge, but when the bridge tender asked me to make sure we didn't cause any delay to the ocean-going barge that was already getting close, I opened up the throttle and we scooted across the bridge in very short order.

Once off the bridge, we had to find our way onto the shop with our engine, and leave the shop with the replacement engine without being noticed by the yardmaster in the tower nearby.

We decided to creep onto the shop from the west end, out of sight of the tower and creep off the shop at the east end, in full view of the yardmaster.  I believed that if we moved slowly enough, we wouldn't draw attention to ourselves and would stand a good chance of escaping from the yard without having to spend a couple of hours switching out boxcars for Lulu Island and other destinations.    You see, if the yardmaster got hold of us, he could keep us in his yard for several hours before releasing us to go back to our starting place.

This was to be avoided if at all possible.

Photo credit Bruce Harvey
CN F7A's at Port Mann on their way to the US ca 1980

We got onto the shop track just fine.  But getting off the shop track with our new power might prove to be a bit more difficult.  We could see someone standing behind the large glass wall panels in the upper offices of the tower, holding field glasses to his eyes.

Photo Bruce Harvey

Tramp job dropping their caboose into the cab track

Port Mann Control Tower - center rear

He was scanning the New Westminster rail bridge and the tracks leading from the bridge to the yard.  He had probably heard us calling for the bridge while at the docks and I know he would love to get us into his yard for a few hours of switching.

Photo credit - Bruce Harvey
SW1200RS waits for fresh switch lists as the crew foreman consults with the yardmaster in the top floor offices of the control tower.

But we held to the plan and moved the locomotive at a snail's pace out of the shop track and then back out the way we came in.  I made a quick call to the bridge tender to tell him we were coming at him with two units and no cars.  He said he could close the bridge for us if we hurried.  We were already hurrying, so that wasn't going to be the issue.

Photo Credit Andy Cassidy.  Track to New Westminster dock is seen on right.

Photo Credit - Andy Cassidy


We had to get across the bridge before it became apparent to the yardmaster that we were gone...

Breathing a big sigh of relief, and knowing that we'd have to pay the piper in the coming week in Port Mann, we worked our way through the maze of tracks on the dock and back onto the CN line to Lulu Island.

A mile from the Fraser River Bridge, I laid on the horn once more....one long blast.  I hoped that Tony would hear the whistle and close the bridge.  I didn't want to use the radio, for the yardmaster at Port Mann would, by now be looking for us.

A half mile out, I blew the whistle again and slowed to ten miles per hour as the engine began its ascent up the timber approaches to the span.

"You comma da stoppa sign, OK?" Tony called..., loudly.

"Damn", I thought.  But it was too late now, anyway.  We were now too far away to be called back now.

"I gotta da tug-boat comin', but I takka you first".  "You gotta comma now!"

Photo Credit - Andy Cassidy

"OK, Tony", I said.

"And, by the way Tony"..., "I have something for you".  "OK", he said.  "I meeta you onna da bridge."

As we were nearing the end of the timber structure and about to roll onto the last stationary structure, we could see the river clearly in both directions.  To the east, the river was clear of traffic for a mile or so.  To the west however, there was a tug and barge approaching the bridge on a flood tide.  The tug had reeled in its tow line and was furiously backing into the oncoming barge in an attempt to slow it down or impede its progress altogether.  When the tug captain was satisfied that he had his stern against the hull of the barge, he reversed his engine, causing the stern of his vessel to be pushed under, leaving the winch and bitts awash.

Photo Credit - Andy Cassidy

I slowed the engine to a crawl as we passed the bottom of the ladder where Tony stood, smiling.  Reaching out the cab window, I dropped the bag of pepperoni into his waiting hands.  Raising the bag to his nose, he closed his eyes and took a long sniff of the contents.  As a broad grin spread across his face, Tony gave us a big wave and climbed back up into his cabin, high above the Fraser River.

On arrival in the office at Mile 9, the yardmaster was trying to be serious, trying not to laugh as he told us that the General Yardmaster was driving out from Port Mann to give us a piece of his mind and we were to wait for him.  That certainly wasn't going to happen.

We left the property, satisfied with our Saturday railroad adventure and eager to begin our two day weekend.