Love these humorous rail tails! Anyone have anymore?

Ah, but there are RailTails, friend Mike. Dozens of 'em. And, thanks to the good folks here at Yahoo!, all ya gotta due is click on the photo to the left and navigate to my profile page and from there go to my 360. There you will find Hoghead's Highball, many blog posts surrounding different aspects of railroading, including RailTails, Shortz, On the Point, Since You Asked, Foreign Lines, Roustabout and Audit 1. All rated "G" but with liberal use of euphemisms.

Here is one of them for your answer, Andy.

“You Want What?”

Ah, yes. Sunny California. It’s true, you know. Oh, we get storms to be sure, especially in the mountainous regions of northern and eastern California. But, even when the sun is shining, it still gets cold. Sometimes, it gets really cold. Mt. Hebron, about 15 miles south of the Oregon border is a good example. In the winters there, 5° Fahrenheit is a balmy day. But occasionally the thermometer really takes a nose dive.

One such day occurred back in 1991 at the time we were prosecuting the first Gulf War. A very unusual cold snap wrapped its icy fingers around all of northern California and right down to the floors of the valleys.

So, how cold was it? I was spending the night with my girl friend (who two years later became Mrs. Miller) in Weed, California, just a few miles north of Mount Shasta and its companion cinder cone, Black Butte. The day before, I had my truck serviced, including a radiator flush and new anti-freeze. The hydrometer indicated that the cooling system was good for -35° F. The next morning, after the big chill hit, when I got into my truck and fired it up to go to work, I made it three blocks from my little lady’s house before it over heated and blew a new radiator hose. The reason why? It was frozen up. That’s cold....... but the freeze plugs did their job and damage was minimal. I got it back to the house and climbed into her rig to get to work.

This was the first and only time myself, or even the old timers, have seen the Sacramento river freeze over. Broken pipes and other problems associated with the deep freeze extended far below the city of Sacramento itself. But, in addition to my frozen truck which I had to abandon while trying to make it to Dunsmuir, where I was called to head to Roseville, California, as the engineer on Amtrak train No. 11, the southbound Coast Starlight, other nearby problems demonstrated how acute the problem actually was. There was a popular restaurant and land mark in Weed, where Highway 97 interchanges with Interstate Route 5, called the “Y” restaurant. It had caught fire that morning, probably as the heating system was working overtime to try to keep the business warm against the major incursion of super cold Canadian / Arctic air. The firefighters could do little but try to extinguish the flames with the pitiful sprinkle coming out of the fire hoses. Everything was frozen and the “Y”, the well known purveyor of yummy comestibles was itself consumed by the ravenous flames.

I was called on duty for my southward journey on Amtrak #11, along with my lookout and good friend and across the street neighbor Juan Maldonado, for around 8:45 AM. This day this train was running 8' and 40" late. The extreme cold had taken its toll in the form of ‘pull-aparts’,a phenomenon common when employing ribbon rail. With limited ability to expand or contract, ribbon rail, or more accurately CWR (Continuous Welded Rail), is subject to pull-aparts in extreme cold, and ‘kinking’ in extreme heat. With the pull-aparts in abundance Amtrak had no chance at all for an ‘on time’ run. We began our icy trip southward around 9:45.

All was well for the next 56 miles, at least on the head end. It seems there was a pretty serious problem occurring back in the train however, which we were notified of after we had made our first passenger stop at the depot in Redding, California.

The depot in Redding is in the ‘Old Town’ area of Redding. The town itself has a large population at somewhere over 85,000 and quite a bustling place. There are a number of busy grade crossings in Redding, where the railroad tracks bi-sect the town. At the southward end, motorists had become used to a few minutes delay, as the locals working there often had to perform station switching with long handles (strings of cars), and at least once a day had the two southernmost grade crossings blocked to the maximum time provided by State law, 10 minutes.

But, when Amtrak spots up at the depot for loading and unloading of passengers and baggage, the four crossings at the northern end of town are blocked for a few minutes, of necessity. When Amtrak Nos. 11 and 14 are on time, these stops in Redding are in the wee hours of the morning when vehicular traffic is quite minimal. Even so, the stops are not usually very long in duration, so not many feathers get ruffled. But, this day was quite different.

As we rolled into Redding across the high bridge over the Sacramento river below Shasta Dam, the river began to look more normal, but with ice still formed along the low banks of the river below. On down we went until making the spot at the depot, as usual. Then we waited for the ‘high ball’ to continue our little trip. Then we waited a little more. Then we waited for a short time. And waited more. Finally, well after our 10 minutes of ‘free’ time on the crossings had expired, the conductor walked to the head end and informed me that we needed to back the train out of town, and that the brakeman was walking back to protect the move. A short time later, the brakie’s voice crackled over the squawk box, “Amtrak No. 11, I’m in position Bob. Back ‘em up.” So, we headed eastward until far enough out of town to allow the crossing gates to rise. We had no sympathy from the frustrated drivers we had delayed, however. But, unlike freight locomotives, Amtrak engines are difficult to board, even for the experienced, so we didn’t worry about anyone wanting to try to kill us.

We sat for about 45 minutes, still unaware of what the problem was. When we were finally called down to the depot, the reason became apparent. We saw something that day that had never been seen before, and with a high degree of probability, never will be seen again.

Amtrak had an Amtrak Trainmaster aboard. He had to make several phone calls from the depot which I would have paid to have heard, but it went something like this, as told to me by our conductor that day, Dave Korn.

“Hello, Kentucky Fried Chicken, how can I help you?”

“Hello. This is Amtrak Trainmaster So-And-So. I need to order 328, 3 piece chicken dinners.”

"You want what?”

“328, 3 piece dinners.”

“Very funny!” Click.

This same scenario played out at least three times, with slight variation in the responses on the other end, some of which were less than cordial, as I understand. Finally, after the Trainmaster persuaded the different franchises to speak to one another, it was decided that the call was genuine, and the dinners, 3 piece, original chicken dinners, with mashed taters, gravy, corn and a biscuit were delivered to the depot and ceremoniously loaded aboard the dining car. Mmmmm Mmmmm.

Since everything else was frozen, the diner was no different. The problem? The water tanks had frozen, and there was no way to wash the plates and silverware after the breakfast meals were over. Once again, Colonel Sanders had saved the day, reluctantly at first, however.

But, they should have ordered 330. Me and Juan didn’t get one. Though bummed out, we continued our trip to Roseville, further unmolested.

So. What was that ‘once in a lifetime’ sight? 328 chicken dinners loaded into the back of two compact pickup trucks. KFC used to deliver, as I remember as a kid, but that practice had long since been discontinued by this time, so it can be said the final delivery of KFC products occurred in 1991 and numbered 328, 3 piece dinners with all the trimmin's, if ever a bit of trivia is needed.

Hey, do you think this would qualify for a Guinness World Book of Records entry? Maybe yes, maybe no. But it does qualify as a RailTail..........

Oh, I forgot, Mike. "RailTails" is a play on words. In flat switching operations, sometimes the engine will run out of room to make long back and forth moves when lined for the regular route.

Often times the engine must be lined into another track for the extra room needed, and this is called a "tail rail." So, I played on the word "tale" as a story and reversed tail rail. Hence, the RailTail was born.

Thanks to Rango for getting the ball rolling to inject a little humor here in the Rail category Q & A, and although this answer may sound "spam-ish," it is not in violation of the new Community Standards.

Have fun!

I think anyone "out there" would agree it is the characters we work with that make the job so interesting.

We had an old boy here for years, was a Scandinavian wheat farmer from the hi-line and I don't think he'd ever been off the farm before he started railroading.

Great guy, Frank would give you the shirt off his back but you wouldn't want to touch it.

Un-washed, un-couth but funny as hell to be around. I always maintained everyone should make a couple trips a year with Frank just for the stories.

Eventually he promoted to Engineer, never a hoghead in any stretch of imagination, he ran every train like he was plowing a field.

Old Frank didn't have much of a feel for the air, to him a split reduction was full service/90 pounds.

He let a train start to seriously get away from him going down the mountain one night, dumped the air, as soon as he stopped he kicked 'em off, and when he couldn't hold them with the straight air away he went again. Did that three times before he got to the bottom, his brakeman was a nervous wreck, kept asking him "Frank, you want some retainers or handbrakes"?

After it was over, Frank just chuckled and said uhyup yup, I call that Hopscotching down the hill.

He had no more control than the man in the moon, if a block would've been red it would have been no more than a suggestion.

Just another of the reasons that make this an interesting job.

Old Frank made his final tie-up last year, switching boxcars in the sky now. RIP buddy.

Tekkamin reminded me of Red Hanley, he worked a local for years and years, most always with the same crew. Going up the country in the fall there would be skunks out everywhere, whenever he ran over one, Red would do anything in his power, including dumping the air to spot the caboose over the skunk, then he'd laugh and away they'd go. Some nights he'd get those guys two or three times, I dont think him and the conductor on the job could ever decide if they hated each other or were best friends.

This didn't happen to me. But to a guy who hired out when I did, and was in my class. It could have turned out very tragic, but it didn't, and fortunately is remembered by me as one of the best "one liners" I've ever heard. The BNSF mainline at Valley City, ND bypasses the town on an even grade. The old mainline branches off the new one, and descends a couple hundred feet down to the city. It's used to service the industries there by the local. It's a steep grade down, and you can expect to make the 10 mph trip with a 20 pound reduction. From the scuttlebutt I heard, there was a cracked reservoir tank in one of the cars, or a bad tank gasket?? This fellow new-hire, Jeff, was telling me about his first student trip.

"We were just going down this long hill into Valley City. I didn't really know what was going on. My first trip. Everything seemed okay to me. That is until the Engineer stood up and said, 'Well boys, do we jump, or do we ride it out?"

Everything stayed on the rails down to the bottom, thank goodness. And the train coasted to a stop. But that Jeff was a real hard luck character. If 50 people stood outside during a storm, lightening would strike him.

If there's a future opportunity, I'll tattle on Jeff again in his flour power experience.

I laughed at the 5 times through Tucson. That's good.

Andy-

I've got one for you guys.

My brother and I used to use Amtrak every summer from Salinas to Chico. One night Mom had put is on the train and we were headed to Chico to see our dad for the summer break.

Along the rails about Gilroy, the train clipped a skunk! Needless to say you'd think that because we were virtually sealed in those stainless steel cars the passengers would not smell a darn thing.

I beg to differ!

We had to put up with that smell all the way to Oakland where they used pressure washers to wash the entire under carriage with bleach and hot water. We were sitting in the yard for nearly an hour before they finished.

But the funny part was the folks that were sitting directly in front of my brother and I. He commented he hoped that was not what was going to be available for dinner!

The other passengers started laughing as my brother and I did!

Just thought you'd like that one!

in no way, your brother is purely accepting a job thats why human beings flow to college to get an practise and then get a sturdy interest, this has no longer some thing to do such as his love for you, through the sounds of it your brother loves you alot, your mom on then different hand sounds like an abusive negative individual, she is verbally abusing you preserving such issues as that and attempting to make you experience undesirable about your father leaving, a moms and dads love is unconditional there is not any longer some thing you've performed to make him go away obviously your mom develop into accountable and is sad that he left he yet through ways she is chatting with you and putting you down i will make sure why he wanted to get remote from her, you should attempt chatting with someone about the way your mom is treating you a counceler or some thing and then perchance have your mom come and search for suggestion from such as her with you, the way she is treating you is negative, its no longer your fault in any respect, i know this and that i dont even know you, it sounds like you fairly love your bro and that i wager hes cares purely as a lot about you, you should search for suggestion from with him about what she is preserving to you.. sturdy luck

It's a TALE. A tail is a appendage of an animal.