Chapter 5: Maintenance of Way Cars

When it comes to railroad cars there are those famous train cars, the flatcar, the boxcar, the tanker, the refrigerator (or reefer) but there is another class for the maintenance department. The Maintenance of Way Department gets its name from the old “right of way” concept that was leftover from the “Eminent Domain” loop hole that all railroads used to make a land grab back when that was still legal.

In all my years working on the railroad I was always on the lookout for one of those hand cars where two people would push the handle up and down in a teeter-totter motion to drive along the tracks like the ones used by Charlie Chaplin in the old movies. I never did find one of those hand powered cars even though I made a thorough search through all the scrap heaps in all the train yards and camps up and down the line. But I did find a heap of other kinds of track cars such as these.

Gravity Car:

No more than six inches tall it folds into two pieces and can be removed by one man in a single move. Weighing no more than 45 pounds the gravity car may sound light weight but in fact is a heavyweight contender being capable of carrying over 2 tons. It is composed of heavy metal diamond shaped wire mesh of hollow pipe frames for an incredibly strong yet light little piece of equipment. These are loaded with everything from spikes, creepers, plates, ties rails and even workers though not recommended. This car was responsible for a number of ankle and foot injuries beyond the protection offered by the mandatory steel toe boots.

Track Car:

This small square box was nothing more than a frame with a lawn mower motor in between the two passenger seats and barely room for any equipment. These were light enough for one person to take them off at a crossing though two people was the minimum under the book of rules, though we often went out alone. These small cars were only meant for inspection purposes and light weight tools though they invariably were overloaded with tools and extra workers.

Motor Car:

This is the four cylinder version of track car with room for 6 workers sitting on ¾ inch plywood top over the engine and it was so heavy it could only be taken off the tracks using a pair of runner rails that pivot on a center allowing the car to be turned out into a tool house or take-off ramps conveniently located at regular intervals between stations.

The minimum crew for a motor car was 4 men but 2 experienced employees were generally allowed to skip that rule. Yes, I have done it alone several time but only using the best take off rails and pivot that were supposed to never leave the local tool house.

We used to have a morning ritual to fill the gas tank without a funnel and not spill a drop. It may sound droll if not dangerous but I remember practicing and finally getting good enough to volunteer for the morning fill up without a funnel.

Crew Car:

These Diesel powered trolleys were up to 10 feet long and could carry as many as 40 men and equipment by attaching push cars. Crew cars did have take off rails but they were rarely used and crew cars were always used in conjunction with work trains and would simply stay on the sidings with the trains.

Push Car:

These are low flat cars that can be attached to any of the motorized cars but are just as frequently found to be pushed by hand. With two push cars you can accommodate even the longest rail using one at each end. Railroad rails will easily turn from side to side but not very much in the up and down direction. You can load ties and even loose gravel on a push car and then move it an dump like a wheel barrow. It still takes two strong men to take a push car off.

The first fatality after I started was a runaway push car that went 17 miles down the hill to hit an unsuspecting welder sitting on the rail. His helper never heard or saw anything because the push car is so low to the ground and runs silently. We all had a different view of push cars after that.

Hi-Rail Car:

This is any motorized vehicle with the necessary attachments to allow it to drive down the rails. It is mostly heavy trucks for work but can be more suburban looking passenger vehicles for the big shots to have a special close look. The bigger the shot the fancier the hi-rail car all the way up to actual Cadillacs just so they could remain comfortable during their track inspection while we had to poke along in our motor cars.

I never did find one of those hand powered push cars like Charlie Chaplin used but I did find out that they were outlawed in the 1940’s for causing too many injuries and were thereafter banned for life nationwide. I am sure they still exist somewhere and I would even pay money to ride one despite the risk if they ever put one in at Six Flags.

Molecule Missed

Whatever happened to the lowly molecule. When I was a kid there was plenty of news about molecular studies but then everything moved on to Atomic science and we never looked back. It’s not that we should stop working on the atom but by now we should have completely mapped out the molecule when it turns out that no one knows a thing because they stopped working on it anymore. They all moved on to the more sexy stuff in bigger or smaller fields of study.

Somewhere between the elements and the atom is the Rodney Dangerfield of all Scientific subjects; the molecule. When the scientists who study physics first went in search of how things work, the molecule was their first theory as the chunk of matter that could not be seen but must exist to keep things together. The molecule was soon found boring and they next invented an even smaller bit called the atom which also cannot be seen but must exist in order for molecules to exist. They are driving so fast they have not time to look in the rear view mirror to see what they missed in their blind spot.

And that was the last time anyone gave a darn about the poor maligned molecule. Those scientists were on a mad dash to find even smaller stuff they called sub-atomic and they would be happy if they turn up sub-sub-atomic dinkies but what about the molecule? Does anyone know how it works? No, they are too busy going the other way.

That same thing happens everywhere we look. The computer engineers are trying to make the smallest transistor possible but they still don’t understand the potential of a big one. The Doctors only want to cure obscure corner cases but no one works on the common cold. The weatherman wants to talk about a hundred year flood but can only predict the rain a few days in the future.

It’s like trying to fly to Jupiter without stopping at Mars first. It’s the least we can do on the way out there, for practice at least. And if we ever do get to Mars we would soon lose interest in the moon no doubt as we work our way out to Jupiter and beyond. So we should also find our way around the molecule before we go any further in, as it were.

There is definitely a missing link between what we want to know and what we need to know let alone what we should know. If we are all that smart then we should know more by now.

Get Out of My Road

There is a well worn analogy in general use lately that states that any given amount of energy can be translated into the “Equivalent of taking thousands of cars off the road”. The favorite number for the amount of cars is 280,000 but it can be as much as millions and as little as a few thousand depending on the subject in question, but in all cases the formula is clearly meant get an emotional response. We are either scared of all that pollution if we don’t do something or delighted at the idea of taking all those cars off our road. Who hasn’t been stuck in traffic and wished all the other cars would just go away.

This verbal sleight of hand is an equal opportunity deception used by any speaker from any political party and can be tailor made to fit any scenario. Of course it can be used by the Green Team to make a case for turning off the lights or recycling paper but the other side can use the same logic to prove that we need to drill for more oil or add another nuclear plant. The problem with this line of thinking is that none of those things will actually reduce the number of cars on the road. We can turn off all the lights and build a big new power plant but it won’t take any cars off the road.

The theory states that if everyone would just start to do the right things it will be like taking so many cars off the road, but no one ever bothers to mention what year, make and model of car. Are those Hummers or Fiats? Eight Cylinders or 4? Do all those cars have good tires and a tune-up? What will happen to those cars? The whole idea is based on a ridiculous assumption to begin with and if we try to analyze it logically it only gets more meaningless.

Some of the blame goes to the word “equivalent” because it is so close to the word “equivocate” which means to “ deliberately mislead with the intent to deceive.” That sounds exactly like what is happening when we start out by assuming the positive outcome (fewer cars on the road) but end up with a negative result (fewer lights and more nuclear power plants). Whenever an argument uses an equivalent statement you can start to worry about equivocation.

Why can't paper reduction be compared to trees, lights compared to electricity and plastic bottles compared to…: Plastic. But instead we keep dragging the image of those cars being taken off the road like a tired old movie plot twist that is guaranteed to satisfy the viewing public. Why can't we just take cars off the road if that is the result we crave so much? Because we only want to remove the other cars, not ours.