What you hit with trains. Besides crossing accidents. Part 1 in Tales of the Jointed Track

I have hit some interesting things in my career. These are a few I remember.

Single Track Tie and Rail replacement 1978:

They are still getting the track in shape to hold up to the pounding of loaded coal, ore, and grain trains. Welded rail is laid out along with wood ties and major ballast trains to follow. Kelker siding to Crews..

The single track is coming into cycle. I have been on some of these work trains, with Bob Belyew ( Like Bob .. bob ooh-Loo) as General track Supervisor.... No Desi Arnez wasn’t giving a concert. We have a slow order from MP 70 to MP 82.7 40 mph. We are now riding on new welded rail,and old rail on the opposite side. They will lay the other side next day.

200 am Kelker MP 79.9 to MP 83.2

Between these mile posts are the towns of Widefield and Security. This is right around the old Skinners siding..

Read yer timetable folks, ya know Skinners. LOL Psst I was also the last train in Skinners, a work train, and yeah that was a shaky one too.

The block signal is “high green” and 2 miles further a Red over Green says we are lined up for Main 1 or the old southbound at Crews. We have a running order and are Pueblo bound. 16,750 plus tons of coal, they are handling nice. And up ahead is something odd. Yeah a pyramid of spike kegs. These are 85 lbs, so there was a group of people that orchestrated this. It was three wide and three deep. Two more stacked on top of those and one making the pinnacle. It is dark, very dark. Besides the headlight and the odd passing car on the highway, a few houses have a rear porch light on. CF&I dark painted green kegs, full of spikes, all new from the Mill in Pueblo. We hit them around 35 mph, due to the slow order.

To say it made a big explosion of sound and the shrapnel of spikes, was an understatement. It broke and shattered the two nose windows on the U-30-C.
The fireman’s side window in the cab door, was cracked. There were spikes on the catwalk and on the roof as far back as 3 units. The section foreman said it scattered spikes in a 50 foot radius. Luckily, no one was around when this happened. They had a Burro crane, with a magnet, with the rail laying crew, come and salvage most of them.

The DS was called and the incident and damage reported. I let the yardmaster know about the windows. “Down the main and change out front. The C&S crew says they’ll deal with it in Trinidad”. “Okay, down in front”. The crew was told about spikes everywhere, and off they went.