I wish I could count exactly how many times you need to put yourself above everybody else.
More like putting someone in their place young grasshopper. You've got 2 winters out here (if that?) and last year didn't count for anything as far as "winter". I've heard the 'horror' stories of the Blizzard of '78 where guys didn't get out of the yard for a week. Before the storm, they grabbed any cabooses they had laying around and even some old sleepers from AMTRAK and put them behind Building 5 at Avon. The wreck train had a full time cook for wreck duties, and he was put to work making meals and feeding the guys stuck at the yard. You worked until your hours were up, grabbed a bunk, and they shook you awake to go back it on your rest. Another guy got 'stranded' at Anderson and the only way to get back to Indy was to take a van train to Crestline, and then another Van train back home. One of those trains derailed while he was trying to accomplish getting home. No other way to get him back into Indianapolis. He ended up with Frostbite and a big settlement from Conrail for having been on duty like 48 hrs or something crazy without medical attention.
Another Blizzard of '78 story I heard was of a guy walking a train south of Deshler that was in Emergency. He left the caboose headed towards the head end to find the problem. Got back 2 hrs later and had never reached the head end. The drifts were so bad he ended up walking up and over the train, without realizing it, kept the cars on the same side of his body, and ended up back at the caboose.
Had the 'luxury' of working into Chicago one year when the Metro area got 24" to 30" of snow back in the early 2000's.. They just didn't have anywhere to plow it to. They were using dump trucks to haul it out of the loop. I didn't see any 'unit snow' trains, but CSX did have some gons loaded with snow that they stuck on one of the trains headed to Georgia. We got lucky and caught something going 'out' of the city. There were trains from Dolton all the way to Wellsboro, nose to tail, at any location they could park without cutting crossings. I think we counted like 20 trains parked waiting to get into the city. When we got to Walkerton there were two more WB's that were told pull up to Wellsboro off crossings and get comfortable. Other trains were parked at Garrett because they stood no chance of getting where they needed to be. That was just 2' of snow. Line of Road was fine because you just ran it as two one-way streets, but terminal was all kinds of jacked up from that one. The DED's up there didn't like the blowing snow, and would throw out a "Detector Malfunction" which meant you had to walk the train, both sides. Walked a lot of trains that winter because of that. One trip on a Q351 I was so exhausted I literally had to climb and pull myself back up on the engine from walking through the drifts. That was when I started to hate snow.
I'm not sure if it was the same storm or not, but was working as a switchman at Defiance Yard which serves the big GM Foundry there. It was the jobs regular off day, but they asked us if we'd work it. I hadn't looked outside, and asked if the roads were bad "They're just a little snow covered." "Ok, I'll work it then." Took almost a gallon of hot water to just unfreeze my door to get into it, and a fusee to the lock to get the key in. I saw one plow on I-69 and that was it. The whole way up muttering "this is stupid...this is so stupid." Thank God for the All-wheel Drive Blazer! They deadheaded me and the regular conductor from Garrett on a coal train to get us out there. All we had to do was shove cars to GM, and get the heck out of there. Took us about 4 hrs to pull about 30 cars from 3 tracks, and shove them across SR 18. A move that would normally take an hour to an hour and a half from start to finish. It was snowing and blowing so hard, after every move you had to sweep your switch again. Sweep a switch, throw it, pull cars out of a track, sweep it, shove them off, sweep it, put the remainder back. Trainmaster had already had the track guys blow out the switches we would need, but within 10 minutes they were filled back up. Deadheaded back home on an empty coal train to get home. I remember the old head talking to his wife and trying to get her to understand he was on a train. "I can't get a gallon of milk on the way home, I'm on a train. I SAID I'M STUCK ON A TRAIN I CAN'T GET ANY $&*% MILK RIGHT NOW!"
Last weekend Avon came pretty close to shutting down, and that was with maybe an inch of snow. Conrail never saw the need to install switch heaters anywhere inside of terminals. Until about 3 years ago, 2 groups of switches on the hump end didn't even have blowers on them! I guess they just figured maintainers would be withing range to come sweep switches. That, or the relied too heavy on the 'smudge pots' to keep points clear of ice and snow. I think the EPA banned the use of those, because they've disappeared at Avon in the last 5 years. Used to come in the east end and the points would be all on 'fire' with the kerosene pots lit up. Worked great, but like most things that work great, the EPA doesn't like them. So the rain that fell before the snow turned right into ice and froze everything up. I've heard stories of working the hump, and not humping anything for 16 hrs. IF you stopped humping at Avon for 5 minutes you better have a good reason. They'd chew your butt for stopping the hump because a car derailed. "Just swing around it and keep humping!" So, being 'stopped' for 16, that qualifies as 'shut down'. Better off to let it blow through, clean up, then go back at it then make a bigger mess of things with the packed snow and ice causing derailments.
Two winters ago during that terrible ice storm we did just shut down until things thawed out a bit. Just brought the pullers in, and stopped the hump, no sense causing a big derailment trying to move a couple of cars. They actually had the hump engines going into all the tracks after it stopped to knock the ice off the rails before they could start humping again. I've been in freezing rain, but that was the first time I've ever seen it rain 1/2" to 1" and it all freeze. Every time the wind blew, I expected us to lose power, but it stayed on. Thankfully the sun came out and thawed things out. Ice and snow falling from cars was a problem though, so the pullers had to be careful around the equipment that had been sitting.
Anyway, snow wasn't that bad until about Kokomo South. NS and CSX across Northern Indiana were moving, as I saw AMTRAK (Capital Limited I assume) on the east side of Elkhart, CSX had one at LaPaz, and there was a WB on the Wabash at US 31 as I came south this morning. Worst of the snow wasn't really until you hit Westfield. My parents in Michigan received about 2" of snow, but other places up there were just a dusting.
Practice Safe CSX
