Brakeshoe Bob ⋅ 72 ⋅

I am a retired Railroad Locomotive Engineer. I hired out with the BN in September of 72 as a machinist and went with the Santa Fe in engine service in 1973 as a Locomotive Fireman. I was promoted to Locomotive Engineer in July 1974. I retired in September 2012 after 40 years. During the period I ran the Joint-Line (Denver to Pueblo,CO) and the Interdivisional between Denver and La Junta, CO. I had almost 8 years in management with the Santa Fe and BNSF.

Entries 464

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I worked power with these guys in Ft Worth. Gary Schimdt, was a former Dispatcher, Assistant Chief with the old BN out of Laurel, Montana. I worked with Gary off an on in odd power rotation....


Okay, I never condoned this, I never was pulled for Rule G, which and still is substance abuse. It is what it is, we policed ourselves, and if ya had to ya bad ordered a crew. Train 151 ...


Yep, the “road guy” doing penance in the yard. I am on an afternoon goat, we did a few chores on the south lead, and now it is Rio Grande transfer time. Paul McKinnon is going to see tha...


I may have written this in OD for those that remember the site. So if a repeat, bear with and old fart lol. I got forced to Pueblo Yard many times in my career, and a funny thi...


It is a cool Sunday morning. Yes like a heathen, I missed church this morning. My old left knee is swollen, why I don’t know, but its working itself out. I need to bring out a ...


Okay.. you’re thinking, a brakeman, giving signals to back up into the consist. This is what I see. I may give two scenarios, but what do I know. Your eyes see two locomotives, yes a Milwau...


The Train 424, which we dubbed the “Night crawler” and 800 pm on duty, wow how lucky are we? Usually the 424 was a 0001 to 200 am, beat down after the 152 was called. We had our usual ...


I wrote a few times back on the Santa Fe 444 southbound and 434 northbound. Well our “friends” the U-28-CG’s and U-30-CG’s, managed to find their way up here. Along with a mish-mash of GP se...


The U-28-CG and the U-30-CG model series were General Electrics move into Passenger locomotives. They still, may “dabble’, with orders from AMTRAK. The U-28-CG ( U, Universal-28, 2800 horsepower...


It is a waning late winter or an early spring. We had a good size storm, but most was due south of the Denver Metro. It was on the route I worked. I was holding a regular pool turn, I am st...


Ya think of stuff. We all do White Hog: The White Hog was a tagged D&RGW Bulkhead freight car, it had a crude stick figure Pig with the words White Hog. Importance, none, but we p...


The Oxford Hotel fell on bad times, before I hired out on the rails. It was “classified” in the Larimer Street area. Bums and it was a Mediterranean or Baltic Avenue type of property. One th...


I wrote about Jack, many entries past. We, us young ones, laughed at Jack, not to his face, because he had several bowling shirts, with “JACK” on ‘em. Jack bowled in several leagues, at the M...


This is a great event. RockyGrass is up this week in Lyons,CO This is a good line-up. KGNU is live broadcasting/web casting. Bluegrass N Beer Keystone, CO 2015: I call it Beer N Bluegras...


I always enjoyed a helper run. Yeah sometimes it was a shove or two, routine and back home. Wait the next call. Winter 2003: Mike Fitzpatrick and I got called for a set of helpers about 1000 ...


We were called on Sunday morning for 430 am. A Coal Load, and again a routine run up hill. I caught this off the extra board, and I hadn’t been to Pueblo for about 2 months. We cut-off the hel...


I am holding the Denver Engineers Board 8, by choice. Living out on the road, does not appeal to me, at this juncture. We are still short of qualified engineers, on this sub-division still into...


93 AND 94 were the BN’s attack for the “Q” trains out of Big Lift. It was intermodal TOFC and stack traffic south. East Traffic went via 100 to Chicago on the former CB&Q main. These were ...


We were called for a coal load about 1030 to 1100 am. Typical BN, crew change and go, add the helpers, and assault the grade. So whatever delay or late arrival into Denver, we were on our way. ...


The Hostlers have arrived at the rear end of the train. Permission from the yard master has been received to couple in and set up or “Condition” the rear DP. The train order operator ( if still...


This also may have been an Open Diary, that I forgot to include in the transfer. I may have said the term “DP” in some of my entries. DP is an acronym for Distributive Power. Depending on wher...


This will deal with the Automatic Brake Valve. No we just don’t go to release condition to a full service application position. When you brake your car or truck, you adjust your foot pedal pre...


Remember my last statement in Part 1? Air pressure opposing air pressure. There are many components in the braking system. Let’s simplify this, and I did this with my fireman. Lets make t...


A train passes by you. The locomotives blast by, and car after car passes. Is this thing ever going to end ? The the last car with an odd looking device on the draw bar ( the ETD) or a locomotive...


I caught a trip south off the Denver extra board. The Inter divisional run-thru hasn’t started yet. We are called on rest at Pueblo,CO. I notice three SD-70-MAC’s on the old fuel track. Th...