Crew calling at its finest March Blizzard 2003 in Tales of the Jointed Track

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 am in the morning. It’s cold, overcast, and a chance of snow storms. Well, it’s Colorado, 60’s one day and cold and snowy the next.

A standard set of SD-40-2’s, couple up at 8th Avenue, and here we go. Clouds are low, little light fog around Larkspur. “BN 5517 to the helpers, lined over at 50.5” “Rodger, lined over”. *1 on the 36-36 channel, and the receive call back tone sounds. “DS-16 Newton”. “Helpers BN 6717, need a warrant back north”.
“DS-16 to BN 6717: X in box 1 .. Proceed from Palmer Lake to South Denver on the north N-O-R-T-H track over”. The instructions have been repeated, and OKAY’ed at 1757”. Our ticket home.

Around Larkspur, the snow is coming in harder. There is another load, we pass in the general area, with a helper. We haven’t been notified we are going to be needed for a second shove. At Castle Rock, 10 miles further snow is sticking to the streets as we pass through town and I-25 is also becoming snow packed. We come into town and get the line up toward 31st ST. The authority is given to come through C&S Crossing, and into the house.

It is really coming down. Mike and I tie up, and am a bunch out, but that will erode, as the weather worsens and people start marking off. I call the wife, she made it home. I say, “I’ll head to a grocery store and stock up, I’ll call ya on the way home when I am about two blocks away”.

Safeway I load up on food dinner stuff, fun stuff, dog food,(have the dumb ol Labs). Now is Bacchus Liquors open still ? Yes. Beer, wine, etc. The Jeep is in four wheel drive, and I am about 2miles from home. I call on the cell and say, open the garage door, I’ll need a run at it . It is getting bad, and I get it into the garage with about a foot or more of fallen and drifted snow. It will be worse later on.

The Denver Metro is stalled, and the railroad isn’t doing any better. Snowed in, and not dug out switches. The section crews are strained to the max, and some can’t even make it in. Crews can’t get out.

I am one of them. I have a three foot drift in front of the house. The block, which is a Cul-De-Sac, hasn’t seen traffic. A call comes in for a Load at 500 am.

Crew Office ( this isn’t a regular caller):
Mr Terry I need you for a coal load at 500 am. I say “Sorry, I am blocked in, and can’t get out of the house or the block”. “Three people have told me, they can’t get out!!!” She is shrill and totally BITCHY!!, and she’s in Topeka, KS, like she knows the weather conditions here. “There is three feet of snow, and I am drifted in. Ya think that people can’t make it in, due to conditions is made up?” “You guys just don’t want to work”. Yeah is mid week for the love of mike. “Ya talk to the Terminal, or has your Manager, about the storm that has hit? People are unable to navigate the roads”. “We’ll have a Trainmaster or the BNSF Police come and get you”. Wow, I am trembling, and I’ll bet the current supervision there is captive, because their relief, can’t get in either. That was her final “knockout punch” “Tell em to call me when they are 2 blocks away I’ll walk into them, so they don’t get stuck, plus they have 15 miles in this blizzard to navigate. I’ll call ya then and take the call”. Well this snotty bitch says. “I am MARKING YOU OFF ON CALL!!” Politely I said “Knock yerself out Doll”. I hang up , end of conversation.

It took me a day and a half to get out of the block. I was prized meat now to operate trains backed up. Matt Boyd the Superintendent of Operations, finally told the Crew office and the management for Crew Management to back off. They aren’t making this stuff up. They will report when they can get out of their homes and to work. Yeah Trackside in the Computer age …