It's just past 2:00 a.m. on a crisp cold February night. I am
walking down between tracks B11 and B12 heading toward the west end of
the large rail yard in Fort Rouge. I have been sent out by the midnight
shift's chief clerk to find out what cars are on these two tracks. They
are looking for a missing car of merchandise which is scheduled to go
out on "#408 train heading east in a few hours. It was to have been
shunted onto B8 for easy pickup but obviously had been accidentally
switched onto a different track.
I had already checked tracks B2 through B10 to no avail. B2 was where the #408 was going to be assembled just as soon as the east end yard crew finished switching the cars of a local transfer that had arrived from the East Yard at the depot around midnight.
I could hear the cars being shunted onto the various tracks and the sound of the big diesel yard engine as it powered up or down according to need. I could also hear the sound of the cars as they were shunted into a track and the sound they made as they ran into stationery cars already on the track.
The distance from the east end of the tracks was about a mile to the west end. I was still several hundred metres away from the west end and I could see the outline of some cars on B12 near to the west end.
As I trudged along mindful of where I was stepping, my path lit by my switchman's lamp, I thought of what a long day it had been so far. I was doubling through which meant that I had started my afternoon shift at 4:00 p.m. the previous day. When my afternoon shift ended at midnight, I simply started my midnight shift which would last until 8:00 a.m. There would be no overtime pay involved because this was a new day and you could only claim overtime if the shifts ran consecutively on the same day. Since today was a new day I was simply doing another shift at its start.
I was tired and I was hungry knowing my teenage stomach would have no nourishment until I got to the Sal's House at Pembina and Stafford after my shift was over. Glancing up at the sky I could make out some of the brighter stars. They sparkled in the cold air. I held my checking board under my arm as I continued plodding along in a sort of zombie like state.
Suddenly something struck me on my right side sending the checking board flying out of my hands and knocking me to the ground. Fortunately as I fell, I instinctively rolled away from the track on my right. As I hit the ground an empty flat car glided past me silently on the track beside me. It hadn't made any noise, not a squeak, as it had borne down on me from the east end where it had been shunted into B11 track. This 52 foot (about 15 m) long flat car weighed about 20 tons when empty. It had traveled almost the entire length of the track which meant it had probably been shunted in at a fairly high rate of speed. This also meant the switching crew was in a hurry to finish the dispersal of the cars of the transfer and were becoming somewhat careless.
How do you not notice a behemoth like this bearing down on you?
At night with very poor visibility this flat car would not show up on the track obviously like a box car or tank car or gondola car. I had glanced around as I walked ever alert to traffic around me. This is why we never walked on a track between the two rails but rather between two tracks. Why hadn't I heard it? Because sometimes they simply do roll very quietly and if a person was tired and not necessarily as alert as I should have been, this is what happens.
I heard it come to a stop against the cars on the track at the west end. When I got there, I noticed that there was a piece of broken railing that was partly jutting out at the very front of the car. Had this hooked into my coat, it could have pulled me under the wheels and the rail yard would have chalked up another fatality due to carelessness on the part of the employee. I was lucky that I only caught a glancing blow. Ironically the car that the flat car had rolled into which brought it to a stop was the car I had been sent out find. I noted it on my pad along with the number of the flatcar and returned to the yard office.
As I turned in my checking card I told the chief clerk about the flatcar that was immediately in front of it on B11. I said it needed a Bad Order card tacked on as it had some jutting part on it that could injure an unsuspecting worker in the yard. He took the number of the car and its location from me and phoned it into the carshop where someone would look after it. I went to the staffroom and had a coffee and thought for a long while about what a fortunate person I was.
I had already checked tracks B2 through B10 to no avail. B2 was where the #408 was going to be assembled just as soon as the east end yard crew finished switching the cars of a local transfer that had arrived from the East Yard at the depot around midnight.
I could hear the cars being shunted onto the various tracks and the sound of the big diesel yard engine as it powered up or down according to need. I could also hear the sound of the cars as they were shunted into a track and the sound they made as they ran into stationery cars already on the track.
The distance from the east end of the tracks was about a mile to the west end. I was still several hundred metres away from the west end and I could see the outline of some cars on B12 near to the west end.
As I trudged along mindful of where I was stepping, my path lit by my switchman's lamp, I thought of what a long day it had been so far. I was doubling through which meant that I had started my afternoon shift at 4:00 p.m. the previous day. When my afternoon shift ended at midnight, I simply started my midnight shift which would last until 8:00 a.m. There would be no overtime pay involved because this was a new day and you could only claim overtime if the shifts ran consecutively on the same day. Since today was a new day I was simply doing another shift at its start.
I was tired and I was hungry knowing my teenage stomach would have no nourishment until I got to the Sal's House at Pembina and Stafford after my shift was over. Glancing up at the sky I could make out some of the brighter stars. They sparkled in the cold air. I held my checking board under my arm as I continued plodding along in a sort of zombie like state.
Suddenly something struck me on my right side sending the checking board flying out of my hands and knocking me to the ground. Fortunately as I fell, I instinctively rolled away from the track on my right. As I hit the ground an empty flat car glided past me silently on the track beside me. It hadn't made any noise, not a squeak, as it had borne down on me from the east end where it had been shunted into B11 track. This 52 foot (about 15 m) long flat car weighed about 20 tons when empty. It had traveled almost the entire length of the track which meant it had probably been shunted in at a fairly high rate of speed. This also meant the switching crew was in a hurry to finish the dispersal of the cars of the transfer and were becoming somewhat careless.
How do you not notice a behemoth like this bearing down on you?
At night with very poor visibility this flat car would not show up on the track obviously like a box car or tank car or gondola car. I had glanced around as I walked ever alert to traffic around me. This is why we never walked on a track between the two rails but rather between two tracks. Why hadn't I heard it? Because sometimes they simply do roll very quietly and if a person was tired and not necessarily as alert as I should have been, this is what happens.
I heard it come to a stop against the cars on the track at the west end. When I got there, I noticed that there was a piece of broken railing that was partly jutting out at the very front of the car. Had this hooked into my coat, it could have pulled me under the wheels and the rail yard would have chalked up another fatality due to carelessness on the part of the employee. I was lucky that I only caught a glancing blow. Ironically the car that the flat car had rolled into which brought it to a stop was the car I had been sent out find. I noted it on my pad along with the number of the flatcar and returned to the yard office.
As I turned in my checking card I told the chief clerk about the flatcar that was immediately in front of it on B11. I said it needed a Bad Order card tacked on as it had some jutting part on it that could injure an unsuspecting worker in the yard. He took the number of the car and its location from me and phoned it into the carshop where someone would look after it. I went to the staffroom and had a coffee and thought for a long while about what a fortunate person I was.
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