Today's adventure; Why those in charge are so much smarter than us.
We start off today working LCHHE, the Markham Local. On Monday, they decided
to change its call time from 0900 to 0600. That lasted one day. They went
dead yesterday and waited forever for the cab and wound up way past dead on
the hours and therefore, not rested until 0915 today. I marked to this job
in the hope of working early today so as to be home earlier this evening.
HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! The railroad gods obviously had other plans.
The day started off OK, or so I thought. They actually had power ready for
us. It was even already in the yard as somebody else had made several moves
with it before we got it. It was GT 5833 (looking really ragged) and IC
9632. Things began to deteriorate rapidly from here though. We had to go
back and forth between A Yard and F Yard to get cars for our train and then
also discovered a bad order that nobody seemed to know about. After amassing
everything all in A Yard, we start to double it up. But wait, I143 must
double up and leave first, and he is still waiting for inbound Q143 off the
GTW with a three-pak to connect with his train. So we wait at the signal
right next to Aurelio's Pizza. An opportunity presented itself here for me
to partake in some of their fine cuisine, and I indeed partook. God bless
delays where there is access to the decent things in life. Most of the time,
we get delayed in the middle of nowhere.
I143 had to use track 3 to depart as there were cars on track 2 (as usual) ,
and a very tardy IO-4 coming on track 1. Again, dividends being paid by
ripping track 3 out between Vollmer Road and Stuenkel. They certainly never
factor train delays, lost productivity and also overtime paid out as a
result of all this into single tracking anything. Just reduced maintenance
costs and the one time shot of cash for selling of excess materials, or
recycling it for use elsewhere on the system.
At the beginning of this tour of duty, we were instructed by the Division
Superintendent that we were to take all of the cars at our Matteson Yard,
plus all of the cars the EJ&E delivered to us at their Matteson Yard to
Kankakee. Without fail!!!! Some of the cars here are several days old
already.
When we finally got the highball and departed at 1245. We had 103 cars for
7930 plus tons and 6045 feet of train. Those two GP38-2's struggled and
fought and finally got that train started and up the side of the hill out of
Homewood. "I think I can, I think I can....."
Our arrival at Matteson was less than exciting. Looking down into the EJ&E
yard showed only one clear track (6) and it is the shortest one one the
yard. We had 63 cars for them today. So it was down lite engines and gather
up their deliveries to us. Our Matteson yard had track 4 chock full of cars
and 3 pretty full. 1 & 2 were clear though. So, we double up the cars in the
J yard and drag them all up and stuff them into track 3. We deliver our cars
into three tracks there and filled them up. They have storage cars in tracks
2 and 4 and now today, also in track 1 (the longest track in the yard).
Figures. We then make moves on our industry cars to line them up and our pal
Redbone passes us with the 1017/1034, 75 grain and 100 plus empty NIPSCO
hoppers enroute to Clinton and points beyond. All of our cars at Matteson
are gathered up and doubled back to our remaining train on the main. We
proceed to Georgia Pacific with just our industry cars as they won't even
consider us taking out entire train up there and tying up the world. Lots of
cars in and out here again today. Our industry cars for Governor's Gateway
Industrial Park are left on the GP lead as we are instructed not to service
industries there today. More happy customers. We had to get in the clear and
lock ourselves in at GP to get Amtrak 391 past. We finish our work, leave
our outbounds there with a plan to pick them up as we head south with our
train. Noboby has the desire to shove them all the way back some 5 miles
while hanging on the side of a car.
We get back to Matteson and start to pump the air on our train when the
dreaded voice of "Car 5", the Assistant Superintendent calls us. He wants to
know why we are taking all of the EJ&E delivery to K3. I told him "because
we can, that is what we were instructed to do." I can be such a smart-ass at
times and this was one of them. Well, he decides that we won't. This, after
we spent three hours jacking around trying to get al this work done here and
everything lined up, airtested and ready to go. No no no, why allow progress
to happen when there is delay to spread far and near?
So, under his knowledgable instruction and guidance, we proceed to set out
60 of the cars we had already picked up. And no, not just a straight set
out, but "blocks" of them. This took well over a hour. When all was said and
done, we had 53 cars for K3 instead of 113. We also had labout two hours to
work. We met MEGL at Stuenkel and headed for Kankakee. Now, we're hot. We
higball picking up the empties on the GP lead. Champaign Freight tells us to
take the train to Otto Pass and leave it there. "So it is written, and so it
shall be done."
Chicago South wants to get us out and back to the K3 Team Track where we are
supposed to swap power ahead of Amtrak 392. So off we go, highballing the
marker and hellbent not to delay 392. I get called by Chicago South again
telling me I am to call the caller. Ah ha, bumped again! I remind him that
we now have about 35 minutes to work and assuredly will never make it home
alive. He agrees and informs us a cab will be called and once again, the
trip home will be on the interstate system.
We tied up at 2330 hours, being on duty a total of some 14 hrs, 15 mins.
Now I realize that things look different in the dark and the light, but all
this screwing around to the tune of four hours and we got virtually nothing
done. Then engines at Kankakee that were supposed to "without fail" get back
to Markham, didn't. And somehow, we will probably get blamed for all of this
when all is said and done. I guess under the cover of darkness, maybe it was
figured nobody would see the changes made in our instructions. Managers
never make mistakes, just ask them. We just don't see "the big picture" is
what we get told time and again by this very same Assistant Super. I often
wonder if he does?
"We the willing, led by the unknowing..."
Tuch
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