Air Dump M.O.W. cars in Tales of the Jointed Track

I may or may not have written this, either here or on the other site.

These cars were Maintenance of Way, only cars. They were speed restricted, loaded and empty. So just having one in your train, was 35 mph. They basically moved what is called Rip-Rap. Rip-Rap per-Se, is rock material for erosion prevention.

Fountain, CO proper MP 648-647.5 ( old AT&SF )
You come out of the town of Fountain. You go over the Fountain River bridge, then go past the Oil Terminal Storage tanks, just south of town. This facility was pipeline feed, the railroad had no access. There is then a sweeping curve left hand, and you start upgrade again, for a half a mile. The railroad briefly, parallels I-25, then goes around a small bluff, then rejoins I-25 to Bragdon, CO. This area where we leave I-25 so to speak, is where this occurred.

There was a work train called to dump Rip-Rap. The Fountain river is about 10 feet from the Santa Fe mainline. It also is 50 feet down from the track to the riverbed. With the heavy tonnage now pounding the track, and natural erosion, it was determined that an additional stabilization was needed. They’ll use these side dumps, to dump material over the edge, and try to firm up the erosion.

Work trains at this time, were unassigned. They came out of the pool. And unfortunately, they called them out of the Away From Home Terminal (AFHT). Since Pueblo was the AFHT, the first out Train and engine crew got it.

Side note They eased the call from the AFHT rule, so you were not held hostage. This was in the early 80’s. You became FIRST OUT for call, after 8 hours, yeah sometimes ya landed back on the same job. Then you were first out for the next trip back to Denver. Hey.. I have been there and “We”, the crews have been there. It is part of the job, whether you liked it or not. **

Ed Hamilton was the engineer on this trip. A Santa Fe GP 38 was the power and 10 side dumps, and a Caboose. Here is the kicker, you cut-in the air and made the air test. Then you set them up again and closed the angle cock to the trainline. WHY? Psst here is the secret, you had to charge the side dumps, so when activated they would tilt and unload. There was a hose, that connected to the Main reservoir line and to the cars. This volume would drain the air, the compressor would run constantly. These cars had to be charged to dump. Okay the more locomotives the easier the charge up. The railroad uses its power to move what ? FREIGHT!!! A GP-38 ( 2800 HP on 4 Axles) was a big deal. Plus this was the Joint-Line. LOL considered a branch line, but moving 90000 plus tons daily..loads and empties.

Back to the story .... The Air test was made, the side dumps were charged up and to the work site. The M.O.W. foreman will supervise. In my feeble mind Bob Bellew ( yes his name ) will be working this job. I did many a work train with Bob in my young career, and I am not on this crew.

At the worksite, there are 15 charged up, side dumps, so lets unload. The first car is spotted, and the levers are actuated, and the Rip rap falls to it’s appointed place. There is a front-end loader, to move any strays into place. The tenth car, was the problem. It started to unload, then got stuck. They brought it back down, and tried again. The car rose to the dump position, the got stuck again. The the load of Rip-Rap overcame the balance point. Yeah, it unloaded and it tipped that car, plus a chain reaction it took two more cars, with it over the edge and 50 feet below. There are severed draw bars, and they’ll be chained up, and set out to the house track at Fountain for repair. They will fish up, or cut up the strays that went into the Fountain River. This was heavy Rock, so the gate on the side of the car became jammed, due to pressure, or damaged while loading, or was defective and no one knew. The remaining cars were set to the siding. The Bad Orders to the house track. They went Way Car lite to Pueblo.

A video of a side dump

A video of a CSX work train with a bunch of empties, side dumps
How did this end. Years later the excavated about 300 feet into the hill, and re-laid the Mainline. The track re-alignment remains to this day.

unrelated, but yeah this can happen…LOL