From: schumann@msus1.msus.edu
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: Empire Builder Lost? (was: LIRR Joke)
Date: 7 Oct 92 23:01:26 GMT
Organization: Minnesota State University System

In article <16094@mindlink.bc.ca>,
Steve_Hooper@mindlink.bc.ca (Steve Hooper) writes:
>> Dan Meyer writes:
>>
>> This supposedly happened, shortly after Amtrak took over the actual
>> operation
>> of their own trains in this part of the country.  The westbound builder
>> didn't
>> throw a manual switch to get on the BN line to the west coast, and ended up
>> traveling up some industrial trackage on the Minneapolis - St.Paul border.
>>
>> when the train did't show up, the dispatcher got worried and called by
>> radio,
>> asking about the train's whereabouts. they replied that they went through
>> park junction about 20 minutes ago; the dispatcher said that they hadn't
>> shown
>> up on his ctc machine so he asked somebody ( probably a frieght waiting for
>> amtrak to pass ) if they had seen the train. finally, the dispatcher asked
>> the
>> amtrak crewmember to describe what they saw around them, and this is when
>> they
>> figured out that they were seriously lost and took the train the wrong way!
> 
> 
> Call me a non-believer or a story wrecker, but I find this hard to believe.
> Train crews MUST be familiar with the territory they are on, otherwise a
> pilot from that particular area MUST be called.

Yeah, I too would find it hard to believe, but I lived in the Twin
Cities when it happened and I seem to recall it hit the local news
quite a bit ("Train gets lost" and all of that).  As I recall, it
happened in the 1980s, not in the early days of Amtrak (I lived in the 
Twin Cities from 1981 to 1987). 

I had even been out railfanning earlier in the day that it happened 
and noticed that the critical switch was lined differently than it 
normally was.  I remember thinking to myself at the time "I wonder if 
the Amtrak crews will be alert enough to notice?"

(Brief explanation:  the switch in question is railroad west of the 
Amtrak depot by a short distance -- about a mile.  In this case, if 
the switch is lined to go straight ahead, you end up going up a 
branchline, while if the switch is thrown for the turnout, you end up 
following the mainline.  The switch is nearly always left lined for 
the main, i.e., for the turnout.  On the day in question, it was 
left lined for straight ahead, i.e., for the branch.  It should be 
pointed out that both the "mainline" and the "branch" were not in the 
best of condition -- one would be hard pressed to guess which was 
which based solely by looking at the track conditions.)

So, Steve, while it IS hard to believe, it apparently really did 
happen.  I never did hear a good explanation for why the crew was not 
familiar enough with the route to notice the switch was lined the 
wrong way.  If anyone from the Twin Cities has a better memory of when 
it apparently happened, it should be possible to check the back issues 
of the Twin Cities newspapers.  While I don't remember, it probably 
hit some of the railfan magazines too (like _Passenger Train 
Journal_).  (Note I'm hedging a bit by saying "apparently" a lot 
because my memory of the details is rather fuzzy.)

I have several friends who work for various railroads in Chicago.  
While there are requirements that an employee be "qualified" (in a 
formal, "this employee has been checked out on this job," sense), they 
tell me that in practice they frequently don't know what they should 
know.  If you're on the extra board, and if there are dozens of jobs 
you might work, and if you work some of those jobs infrequently, and 
if some of the jobs involve a variety of unusual routes, then they 
tell me it's not unusual to get confused and end up where you're not 
supposed to be.  This isn't to excuse their behavior or the
companies'.  But that's what they tell me, for what it's worth.

Even here in tiny Mankato, the regular crews all have special names 
for certain locations that extra board crews who seldom work though 
town may not be familiar with (e.g., Yardmaster to crew:  "Cross over 
to mainline 2 at the 'sheep shed' crossovers."  Sometimes they'll ask:  
"Where are those?"  But sometimes I've seen them guess because 
they're too embarrassed to ask.  Sometimes they guess right, but a 
couple of times I've seen crews guess wrong, much to the annoyance of 
the Yardmaster:  "You're WHERE?  I TOLD you to cross over to mainline 
2 -- what are you doing?").  If the crew is unlucky enough for the 
Trainmaster to be listening to the radio when they've made this 
mistake, he'll come on and ask for each crewmember's ID number (I
assume for disciplinary purposes). 
-- 
   Paul L. Schumann, Ph.D.           |  VAX:  IN%"schumann@MSUS1.MSUS.EDU"
   Professor of Management           |  Office Phone:       (507) 389-5349
   Mankato State University          |  Secretary's Phone:  (507) 389-2966
   Mankato, MN   56002-8400          |  Fax Number:         (507) 389-5497