Derailments are the number one disaster on the lines. There are plenty of other more dramatic catastrophes such as Tunnel Fire, Bridge Collapse, Washouts and Landslides but they are rare compared to the nearly daily occurrence of falling off the track. When you get called out for a derailment you never know what to expect.
Derailments come in all sizes; sometimes just one wheel on one car is off the track and can be put back with a simple frog device. The frog is a 300lb flange that fits over the rail with a channel to guide the wheel back in place. There are two flavors of frogs; inside and outside so if more than one wheel is off you will need one of each. Other times the whole car comes off but is still upright and can be corrected with two frogs. A whole string of cars can be re-railed in this way, all that is needed is the engine to pull the cars over the frogs. There is no better feeling than watching the wheels magically jump back on the track. That is an example of an easy derailment.
Sometimes the whole train comes off the track and falls all the way over clear down in the ditch with broken rails everywhere, no easy access, and you might not get back home for a few days. They bring a special Work Train accommodated with sleeper cars and a cook car where you can get all you can eat and best of all; free cigarettes. The workers would be fed three squares during 16 hours shifts on duty and 8 hours sleep until the disaster is over. That is an example of a bad derailment.
Derailments come in all different locations. The most common place is on those little spur tracks that go into the mills and granaries along the line, where the maintenance is lax. In the railroad yards along the way there are lots of old side tracks where it is common to have simple derailments but the trains are never going very fast so not much can happen. They never work late in the yards, it can always wait until the next day. Out in the field along the line the trains go faster and the derailments are more dramatic and the repairs more urgent. Derailments also happen at all time so it was a running joke that any good weekend or holiday will be sure to get interrupted with a call from work.
When the wheels are too far away for the frog to reach but still close enough to save, then the car has to be lifted. If the car is empty or lightly loaded in can be lifted one end at a time with the Big Boom Truck. There was a little boom truck for little lifting jobs but only the Big one could lift a car. If the car is fully loaded, or for lifting an Engine the only thing that can handle the load is the Hook.
The Hook is a work train specially designed for functionality and not beauty. To look at the hook you would think the boom is too short to get any work done at all and the overall appearance is one of more wreckage rather than the solution. But that ugly monster was amazing at snatching the heaviest loads even though it was only a few inches at a time. It could take up to 20 minutes to set the blocks needed to stabilize the hook but we had to be sure, after all, we wouldn’t want it to fall off the tracks too. After all that setup the Hook would take two minutes to move the loaded car or engine another 6 to 10 inches closer and then we had to reset the blocks again.
My first derailment was also the first time I saw a worker get killed. That is the next chapter in the Railroad Series, Chapter 7: Fatalities.
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