Pueblo Yard mid '74 to '76 Part 2 in Tales of the Jointed Track

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 that everything is up to snuff. Micro managing, you may call it.

The Rio Grande hasn’t pulled the transfers for two days. Why ? I don’t know. We have to pull the interchange cars for us, then shove more in for them. We have 20 cars, and will shove in after pulling interchange 3 and 4. We grabbed our interchange stuff, and shoved it up class 12. The hump job will grab that, and distribute. Well 20 cars, turned into 55, and enter Mr. McKinnon.

He is going to supervise these moves. He is more hindrance, than help. He has a packset, give it to the switchman, and lets get this move done, seriously? really, Plasma Physics again.

Ronny Charleston, the yard master is protecting the move with binoculars from the tower. Okay really. Paul McKinnon is orchestrating, saying this is on you, if we foul or go on the ground.

I am around the “pond”, so I can’t see hand signals. So signals are relayed by radio. “Steve Carter, shove in 30 cars”. Well, I know this for me, but I aint Steve Carter. “Trainmaster to Steve Carter, shove 30 cars!!!”. We’re agitated now, and we don’t know who the crew is working the job. “Steve Carter !!!!, can you READ this RADIO!!!!” “Yes sir I can, but this is not Steve Carter”. Silence, gotta love it. “Well whoever the engineer is on this 202 job!!! Shove in 30 cars”. “Roger, shove in 30 cars”. We begin the move, the yardmaster, watches the shove and we stop short about 3 cars, and double over the rest to Interchange 4 track.

During the transition, our wonderful Paul McKinnon, decided to board the power. He drove up the road, between the Santa Fe and Rio Grande yards. He got on the rear end, on the opposite side. Was gonna sneak up and read me a riot act. I locked the back door, before I saw him come up the catwalk. LOL sorry this guy is more stupid then a supervisor. He tried to get into the cab. BANG BANG, while I was watching for signals from the switchman. I yelled out the window, “The lock is jammed come up to the front”. It wasn’t, but I had pliers in case I had to prove. His face is red and bails off, I never saw him the rest of the shift. This was someone that had no business being a trainmaster/road foreman or anything else. Unless they were head hunting.

If he had a radio, why wasn’t he around the work? Helping out with the moves? I know, he was trying to pull people out of service. I always hated being set-up, but if ya paid attention, you can figure out what the dumb asses were trying to pull off. He was not a Company Officer you respected, but one you loathed. We did, what we were told unless it was unsafe, or breached ethics. Even then, these were 25-35-40 plus year railroaders, and a tough bunch. Paul got run off, I don’t know if he got transferred, or went back to Chicago to run an engine. If his engineer skills were as bad as his managing skills, the crews were probably not glad to see him come back.

We got the transfers switched. The Santa Fe didn’t deliver for next three days, till the Rio Grande pulled the transfer. We filled them up again, but they did pull the tracks. Railroad semantics … In forty years, never figured out why they did stupid stuff.