I remember a couple, the first one I remember, I was riding the second unit when the air went into emergency and the engineer and fireman came out the rear door of the lead unit and smoke following them out the door. Funny, I can remember who the engine crew was but I don't remember what we did next. Long time ago.
The other, happened to a couple of guys I knew, same sort of scenario but I wasn't there.
And on the edit, I remember this, it was our trailing unit, burnt that cab to a crisp and I found this picture someone took of it many years later, which I posted.
-- Edited by Cy Valley on Sunday 7th of January 2024 06:36:14 AM
It happened on conventional cab second unit I was running when Capn 0train went back and shat. He lit a fusee for air freshener and put it out. Lets just say that the years of trash and crap that had accumulated in the nook and cranny by the sand chest became fully involved well after he left. Melted the number boards and required a lot of splaining. As in, dont have any fucking idea of what happened, we never left the head end.
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I think LAMCo is done with the neo-nazi CSX rejects -- Pipes FC 8/5/23
Snippy triggered my memory with that story. I was told by a brakeman who was a lifetime party child and had the ex'es and the scars to go with it, that one trip, he pitched a fusee in the toilet because he thought it would get rid of the odor and the next thing he knew, the whole inside of the nose was on fire with whatever was in there to burn. Don't remember how he avoided trouble on that one but he went through a lot of life smoked-up, long before drug testing became a thing and then, after he decided not to take the buyout in 91 when they cut the crews to two, a week or so later, he took a fall and ended up on disability. Didn't live to a ripe old age, either. RIP T. J.
Our little fire had a twist, too. It was pretty smoky and pouring out the number boards. Trainmaster Gunny Fennell, the guy who hired Music Marine, because Gunny was a flute player in the Marine Band, was nearby. We separated and tied the engines down.
The fire department came and stuck their hoses in the number board holes and thoroughly douched the schitter. It was an ex-Suthren high short-hood with the huge sand chests. The fire was in the 20 years of ancient trash that went down next to the sand boxes and the crash bars and under the floor of the schitter. Some of the trash and been painted with that gray paint by the aces at the paint shop.
We got relieved. We had to come back the next day for an inquest. There had been a female firefighter on the scene. She drew the short straw and went in the schitter to make sure the fire was out. In soggy mess, she found a P0RN0 magazine!!! This embarrassed Gunny and LAMCO to no end. It was 'offensive material' on company property. Some off-brand dirty book store mag. The thing obviously had been stuck in the crevices for years, but Gunny had to make a detailed report on the incident and give us the third degree. Nothing ever came out of it, but I had forgotten all about the greenhorn female firefighter.
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I think LAMCo is done with the neo-nazi CSX rejects -- Pipes FC 8/5/23
