I have long been fascinated by trains and enjoy this section of the MB. Unfortunately, I don't have the train history that some of the other folks on the MB have, but I wanted to relate a story that my father used to tell me. He said that it was one of those things that always brought him back to his childhood.

He was born in 1919 in a small town in Southern Illinois, just off the tracks. When the steam locomotives stopped at the watertank and to pick up coal, they were located on a slight uphill grade. As they departed under a load, they often would spin their wheels (puff....puff....puffpuffpuff..puff....puff) and finally regaining traction, continue along their slow retreat from town. He said that it was one of those sounds that, wherever he heard it, would always bring him back to his childhood.

If you like, I'll relate how he stopped a troop train in England with a roll of toilet paper

Mike Miller
NAWCC Member# 154831
NAWCC-IHC Charter Member# 27

Yes Mike,do tell!

The only train story I know had to do with a few buddies of mine who thought it would be cool to put a dept.store dummy on the tracks to see what would happen.They dressed up the doll laid him out and awaited the next train.they later related what happened.The train[a freight] hit the brakes,but were unable to stop before running over the dummie.When finally stopped,an engineer ran back to find the expected torn and mangled remains.When he realized what it was,he hollered back to the others,and of course figuring such a practical joke would not be unobserved,they soon routed my friends from the woods,wherupon a merry chase ensued.By the time the miscreants lost the train crew,they guessed that they were in BIG trouble!Sure enough,the next day lawmen of unknown status[rumored to be the FBI]made the neighborhood rounds.They were never caught,but it was many months before we got the story out of them by swearing on our lives not to ever tell.

I often wonder what other boneheaded stunts were done by kids playing the rails.

Sam Williamson
NAWCC 154312
IHC Charter Member 14
Member Chapters 96 and 185

All,

I have heard or read that in the days of the "knights of the road" (as in hobos), it was common practice to grease the rails with pig fat on an upgrade in order to cause the drive wheels of a locomotive to spin, thereby slowing the train down and making it easier to board. Was this just a figment of an overactive imagination, or was there some truth to it?

My late father spent the years from about 1916 until 1920 "riding the rods" back and forth in Canada, working farms in western Canada during the summer and at harvest time, and the logging camps and lumber mills in eastern Canada over the winter. His mode of transportation? You guessed it! An empty box car would have been his first choice, but I guess there were other choices on a train as well.

He worked for the CPR in Calgary circa 1916 for a short time "wiping engines" at 7 cents an hour on the grave yard shift. He was always a bit of a redneck, and he only worked long enough to put some money in his pocket before he moved on because he was the only "white man" on the grave yard shift. These were the days when you could buy a pork chop dinner with apple pie for 25 cents. He often spoke of how he had to fend off the cockraoches as he ate. Oh how I wish he were around today to tell those stories again!

I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia while he was in the RCAF. He took a medical posting from Halifax to a drier climate (Calgary) after he recovered from pneumonia (58 days in hospital). He, my mother, and I could travel by train for free, provided he wore his woollen uniform. We stopped off at Belleville, Ontario, for a few days to visit my grandmother and his step-father on their farm. He helped with some tractor work that was being done on the farm, making the mistake of not wearing protection from the sun! Oh how he suffered for the rest of that trip, wearing the heavy woollen uniform. He was sleeping in an upper berth, and often spoke of the night he fell while trying to make it to the bathroom. The agony he suffered when the train lurched, he fell, and tore open the ravaged skin around his shoulders. Ouch! For days after that the uniform would stick to him during the day and rip open the blisters again that night when the uniform would come off.

Oh my how I tend to run on!

Regards,
Doug S.

Believe it or not, the traction of a train wheel is the size of a dime on the track. That's why it takes a train forever to stop in an emergency. What Mike described (the huffing and puffing of a steamer leaving a coaling or water tower or the slippage of the drivers) I heard every night in Portage ( a sound that lives with you forever). And, Portage is flat as a pancake. My only explaination is the engineer was a little too excited after taking on water or coal and applied a little too much throttle. These were all freights. Very rare happening with a passenger train...

Jim

When you hear the wheels slipping when a steam locomotive starts out, it's similar to driving your automobile flooring your gas pedal and spinning your wheels on pavement, gravel, or ice. To start out a stationary freight or passenger train the throttle on steam and diesel locomotives must be opened gradually even when on level track, this is due to the resistance of the cars to be moved as opposed to the horsepower of the locomotive. If the throttle is opened too rapidly against this resistance the driving wheels will start spinning this is the sound you'll hear from the smokestack as the wheels slip. Running a locomotive and handling trains whether they be freight or passenger takes great skill on the part of the locomotive engineer. Let's say for example you are handling a freight train of 100 cars which on average was 60 feet in length this train would be 6000 feet long which would be over a mile in length between each car is a foot of slack between the couplers in order to start the last car of this train moving when the slack is bunched the locomotive will have to move 600 feet before the last car of the train starts to move in order to do this the throttle must be opened gradually or the results can be disastrous either the wheels can start slipping or worse the sudden running out of the slack can cause of the train to be torn into two pieces as the couplers between the cars can be torn apart. This would not make the engineer popular with the conductor, trainmen, fireman, or dispatcher as the train crew would have to go out and walk a half a mile to repair the damaged coupler, the fireman would be anoyed because when you hear those wheels slip the sound from the smokestack also causes all the coal in the firebox to be sucked out through the tubes and flues with the exhaust, and the dispatcher would have a delayed train. The other consideration is rough train handling causes damages to freight being handled. With a passenger train the results could be passenger's being hurt, or all the dishes on the dining car being wiped off the tables, or worst of all spilled drinks in the bar car.

Buchaneer