Discuss your Trainz adventures here!

Whatever. Not a lot to report today, we're still trying to relieve the bottle necking caused by the tunnel wreck which we're still struggling to clean up (we've gotten most of the containers out of there, still about 15 more as well as the 35 wrecked freight/well cars). In other news, the A&SE recently leased 25 SD40-2's from HLCX. Most of them are SD40-2's/M-2's/M-3's in the old maroon and blue scheme, so get ready to see some old school leasing power in the A&SE screenshot thread (skins already in the works).
 
Finally cleared out the last of the containers today and also removed ten well cars. 10 well cars and 15 freight cars left to remove! Then tunnel repairs and a bunch of other boring stuff.
 
The last of the freight cars have been removed this morning! Our MOW crew has now examined the tunnel and found the damage to be surprisingly minor, so the tunnel is do to be open again around noon, the Oak Mountain Yard has already let trains go so that they should be coming through roughly 30 mins after the repairs are finished. They'll be spending the next two or so hours fighting up the 2.35% Cheaha Pass grade, then in heavy dynamic breaking trying not go off a cliff from excess speed. Power on the first train is: A&SE 7122 SD42-3, A&SE 7171 SD42-3, and HLCX 6055 SD40M-3 up front, then A&SE SD49 8905 and A&SE SD60 5989 shoving from mid-train, and finally A&SE SD40-2 8527 and A&SE SD33-3 3311 bringing up the rear of the 143 car consist.
 
Well, good news and some bad news. Good News is, Im coming out again to the A&SE again next friday. The bad news, its because we have to discuss with another railroad up there for trackage rights for the RAFT. And these are never too fun. Dont worry though, its not you guys. I will come over maybe after the 2nd meeting to visit so see ya then
 
When's the second meeting over? I need to assign a train for you. Just don't pull another South Yard mess up again please. Once you're done you'll be taking one of the southbound overflow trains out of Birmingham (not sure which one). You're taking it over Cheaha Pass (depending on which train you get you may have some set-outs to make at Summit Yard) and down the other side (still some MOW activity towards the bottom, so be mindful of that and watch your speed) and then over the mainline to Verbena. Good luck.
 
Supposed to end around 2:30. Stars at 8:00a.m. I will then get lunch and be around the yard by 6:30. I can do some yard runs until 11:00. I will stay over after the last meeting then I can help out the rest of the week.
 
6:30 eh? Alright, let's see, that puts you on southbound I444. You'll have SD47-2 4904, SD42-3's 4242 and 7106, and SD39M 3841. You'll pick up 2 SD49's, 8944 and 8901, and a SD55, 5212, for helpers at Oak Mountain, you'll go over Cheaha Pass with no stop, cut the helpers at the bottom at Montevallo, and drop your train in the Autumnville South Yard on track 5. Another crew will take it to Mobile.
 
More trouble on Cheaha Pass...

A&SE train F819 was heading southbound this weekend on the pass, 4 locos in the lead and another 4 in the rear. Lead units were C40-8's 6323 and 6335, SD20-2 2124, and SD33-3 3327. Helpers were SD49's 8902, 8951, and 8914, and SD42-3 7175. About 10 mins after cresting the pass, 8951 suffered a colossal engine failure. Footage from a gas station camera showed it to be nothing short of a small explosion. Normally this would've caused the train to go into emergency, but for some reason the brakes cut out completely and the air in the train brake lines was weakening. They were hitting dangerous speeds by the midway point at about 50 mph. On a 2.35% downgrade. We got lucky, a panicked, "Hey we had an engine blow up! HELP!" call from the helper crew allowed the main crew to give a mp and speed for a spare set of units to help brake from the front. 4 A&SE SD42-3's, 7151, 7107, 7123, and 7168, hooked up to the front at speed from the mid way helper siding and put 'em in run 8 trying to slow the train down. By the time they got to the repaired tunnel, they had slowed to 40 mph and were in control by the bottom. If the spare crew had not been there, the train would've accelerated too fast and would've gone off of the steep cliffs of the pass. We really dodged a bullet with this one.
 
Seen worse on the transcon. Taking a local in from KC city into the intermodal in Gardner. Some teen were screwing on the tracks (god knows why) and yes they were "screwing". My eyes are still bleeding from that sight.So yeah you could say I have seen worse. Kids, it is not cool to screw on the tracks or any where near a train, please, for the sake of our crew member's eyes.
 
Was out at another one of my RR's the Detriot Connecting RR (Yes, this is the Chris Racer route that I brought up to TS12). Well, fired up the RS27 we call power and headed out to make the pickups, we picked up cars at EQ chemicals and 84 Lumber. Before running down to the scrap yard and dropping our train and headed up to the interchange to grab a centerbeam for 84 Lumber, 3 tank cars for EQ and 2 gons for Cooper scrap. well get tied on and as we pull out, Plop! lead truck on the ground fouling the crossing. Another 5 hours and we get it back on to the track finished the duties and put the engine back in the hole. So it looks like I need to invest some money in track up there and work out a new agrement with CN about interchange times and frequency. Right now it is a Monday-Wednesday-Friday and a late night drop-off, but we need a daily interchange and a Mid-day drop off because our crew goes on duty at 9:00 PM, since our crew works regular day jobs. All in a days work, I guess....
TJ
 
Nice stories everyone!

The A&SE had at one time 60 of the ex-CSX U18B's; however they were quite old and often took a lot of work to keep running, so we ended up downsizing the fleet to about 20 units, which we reserved for light yard work and tight turns, while the other 40 sat in the deadlines waiting for whatever might become of them. Well, we're starting to run low on switching power around 2011, at which point we'd sold off the last of our alcos and a majority of our four axle GE's, thinking our EMD power would be plenty. In that year alone, we had to scrap 6 EMD GP32's (GP35 rebuilds) after getting involved in a t-bone derailment in which a P&TC train overran a switch at the A&SE-P&TC interchange, running onto A&SE tracks, and beating into an A&SE power move. We had 2 GP25's suffer engine failures, as well as 1 GP38, 4 of the 5 GP29-3's were experiencing electrical problems fresh out of rebuild, the brakes were going to crap on our GP50's, two GP49's were experience generator issues, and that's just the tip of the iceburg. It was NOT a good year thus far, and it was only March! So we began digging through our deadlines trying to find anything that had a vague chance of running, when finally we had three yards call in to inform us that they had U18B's in their deadlines. They had been stored for about 5 years at that point. So our Birmingham, Summit, and Hampton Yards started shifting the U18B's towards Autumnville and Mobile, where our two biggest shops are located. When the first one, 1808, showed up at the Autumnville shops, the crew realized that the unit was a piece of work. They had to scrape off two inches worth of graffiti (courtesy of sitting for 5 years in downtown Birmingham) and literally shovel cobwebs out of the engine room just to see what she looked like on the inside. Aside from some extra rust and a bit of oil drippage, she just looked worse than she had worn. They ran her through the paint booth and put her to work. The ones that came in from Hampton were a different story, their paint was just a bit worn, but the dynamic brakes had gone to crap, the fuel lines were dry-rotted, and the primemovers were absolutely saturated with flies...on the inside. They took a lot more work to fix up. Then there were the ones that came in from the Summit Yard on Cheaha Pass. They had aged like champs up as high as they were. Of the 14 U18B's stored at Summit Yard, 6 came down the slope under their own power. The other 8 needed a bit of work and got a tow down the slope from a set of SD49's. With some minor work they too were running. Those 14 did not receive fresh paint, so they're the dirtiest of the bunch, 10 wear maroon, and 4 still wear the old black paint, bumping the number of active units wearing the old paint up from 6 to 10. There are currently no plans to retire the freshly refurbished U18B's at the moment.
 
On the Chicago Metro -

Proviso yard operator - Noon.

I had just finished putting a train together. I left my switch engine coupled and ran to the nearest Subway to buy lunch. When I got back some vandal had duct-taped the couplers and brake hoses together. I tried to pull the engine out, but the train just followed me. I realized that there was no way the engine was gonna uncouple, so I headed out onto the main. After about half an hour, me and my train enter 40th street yard. I realize that we are going to have to break the couplers on the S4 and the boxcar behind it to get them free, and that neither would ever be usable again. Luckily the boxcar was empty, so I disconnected the loco and boxcar from the train and headed into an area of the yard we we store all of our unusable stuff. I took a blowtorch and melted the couplers - but I'm pretty bad with a blowtorch so I accidentally melted the rails and part of the loco, and lit the boxcar on fire. Now we have a ruined boxcar and a deformed locomotive with broken couplers that are never gonna move because the rails are melted.

All in a day's work
 
XD Good stories guys! Another one from me:

December 19, 2002: Conrailfan was switching the Cliff Side (East Side) of Summit Yard. He usually switched this side because the Cliff Side was and still is the only part of the yard with a drill track. His switcher of the choice on this day was A&SE U28B 1808. It was snowing, so whenever possible, the switchman was in the cab warming up (we Alabamians don't typically dress very well for winter weather). So Oliver and that day's switchman were in the cab, they get a call from the yard tower telling them to clear the main for a northbound freight (would've been MF-767 in those days, we didn't swap over to the current system until 2004). They're already clear, and they're about to make another switching move, so the switchman throws the switch off the yard ladder and on to the drill track, then sprints back to the cab (the crews liked 1808 because she had an insulated cab and a very good heater. Very toasty in winter months). Now while the drill track was useful, it was also very dangerous, it was roughly three feet away from the cliff to the right, the mainline was to the left, and the tracks ended on a ledge. So conrailfan enters the drill track, and about halfway in he gets a call from his girlfriend. I have no idea what the hell they were talking about but it must've been pretty darn good because conrailfan quit paying even a lick of attention to what he was doing. Suddenly, he gets snapped back into reality by both the yard tower and the switchman shouting his name. He looks up and feels the bottom drop out of 1808. The 1808 and its occupants went over the cliff. Luckily the next car derailed and prevented the rest of the train from going over the cliff, I'm not sure if he realizes this but that little ballast hopper probably saved his life. So they go over the cliff. They free fall for over 400 ft before the 1808 hits a ledge. The engine landed on the corner of the roof on the engineers side. Oliver ended up cut up (broken glass from the windows) and got a concussion. The switchman was worse off. He got thrown across the cab, smashed a window with his head, resulting in both cuts and a concussion, and then smashed into one of the cab walls, breaking his right arm and dislocating a hip. Oliver, dazed, cuts the engine and fuel pump to keep the unit from exploding, then radios in to tell the yard tower they're alive. Then they hear a loud cracking noise. They look over and realize that the force of their landing caused the ledge to begin to break away, as they saw a crack already opening up about two feet away from the cliff. So there's a cut up and concussed Oliver, and an immobilized switchman, and they have roughly thirty seconds to escape 1808's mangled up cab. So Oliver grabs the switchman and climb his way over to the conductor's side door. Surprise! It's jammed by the crash. So Oliver begins trying to beat the door open, dropping the injured switchman in the process. He finally busts it open, crawls down to grab the switchman and comes back up to find the door shut again (stupid gravity). The switchman shows some muster and knocks it open with his good arm, and with two seconds to spare, they make it across the crack. Then the ledge breaks off sending 1808 crashing to her doom. Both of them watched her fall while seeing double or triple. Conveniently for us, she landed in a scrap yard. Oliver and the switchman were stranded on the two foot wide ledge for four hours (too bad you didn't crash with a girl Oliver) before rescued by helicopters and a brave group of men who went down to them by rope to help. They were in the hospital until December 23. After the incident, the switchman went threw conductor training and was reassigned to mainline trains out of Oak Mountain (at least he gets to say hi to his friends at Summit when they pass by) and I started up Oliver in the corporate side of the A&SE, simply because he'd had to dang many near-death experiences on the railroad at this point.

Afterwards, the derailment left on the ledge was cleaned up, and a concrete wall was put up around the cliff sides of the drill track. And ever since then, a sign has been on the end of the wall: "Oliver once drove a train off this cliff. He landed on a ledge and lived, but that ledge ain't there anymore, I don't think you'll be that lucky. Don't be that guy, stay on the tracks."
 
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Well, as this thread is partially for me I might as well contribute...

I was switching the Greenwood Branch the other day and made a stop in Harriman, AL (not the best town to stop in). I left the engineer in the cab and went to get us coffee, it was 4:00am and we had just woke up and taken the train from Montgomery to Harriman. Well, turns out a guy in the same clothes as me hopped in the cab and asked the engineer to get out and sign some paperwork he was "assigned." Little did he know I was still at Starbucks, next thing I knew the horn blasted and the 1901 was taking off in reverse. That was a tough day, explaining to your boss that you and your engineer violated code, and lost a locomotive in the process. Authorities recovered the loco in Autumnville.
 
Hi guys, interesting thread and posts here.
I worked for SAR , (South African Railways - some called it Sit and Rest jokingly but we worked hard ), SAR&H (South African Railways & Harbours ) and later Transnet for 38 years, starting my career as Blacksmith in 1968 , then Steam Fitter , then converted to Diesel Electric locomotives where I became Supervisor and thereafter Snr. Training Officer. Most of these 38 years I was involved in recovery work too as part of the crew and later supervisor on the team. I am on pension now ..
I relate to all these stories as I have been there and done that and I have stacks of stories to tell from all aspects to do with RRoads, all types of traction and rolling stock and dangerous goods and commodities, trained the guys on many types of recovery equipment like dozers, loaders, rail cranes . I can thank God too that I am still around to tell stories to those that are interested :D
I have also had opportunities to ride in many cabs of many all of locomotives, steam , diesel and electric, and also to drive all of them ( illegally of course ). Never alone though, except on night shifts when the bigshots are not around :) There was a shortage of diesel and electric assistants at one stage and the maintenace staff could work overtime to fill in the gaps as drivers assistants after some minimum training and i was one of the lucky ones too , that is another story..
I still have flashes of dead people and children that were killed in horrific accidents and derailments, ( 80% human error I would say ) which was the worst part of the job and which I do not like talking about just for the sake of talking.
If you's are bored I can tell some stories here from picking up whales that fell off their trucks to what it feels like to drive a train the first time without any training but I don't want to be boring .
Cheers
 
Hey southern, I want bentrain off the Greenwood branch, the other night he came through on a mixed freight and was running low on fuel, so instead of using our fueling station he took the two switch engines with him, get the 105 and 1201 back to Greenwood ASAP! The yard is a mess...
 
They're on the next train back north, I think it's F477, be sure to call them in and drop those units off.

I'll send Ben over to Birmingham, I have a hot shot stack train heading out for Mobile in 25 mins with his name on it. Ben, look for train Z912, A&SE 7000 is on the point.
 
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