Entries by Frank DeVries

Saturday's gang completed work by 10AM... but I'm getting ahead of the story.

A plan was hatched to get the gang together Friday night and go out to spike and plate.  Marcus arrived way early and was out plating from around noon to 4 with Bob Olson.  Around 6 the gang changed to  Marcus, Mark Gelman, Mark Riemers, with a special guest visitor  Bobby Ryan, and myself.  First we loaded the last 12 kegs of spikes into the spiker ... just in case, and then headed out onto the main setting up an out of service at East Switch.  We got out just in time for the Switch Fest 2013 to begin prep for the Trolly parade.  We went out to where Bob and Marcus left off plating, and set to work.  Mark Riemers started spiking the north rail and working his way back west, while Marcus and Bobby Ryan ran the plater, working East.  Mark Gellman and I set plates and cleaned out cribs for the jaws of the plater to grab the rail.  We worked till almost 10PM when we ran out of light.  Somewhere towards the end Mark Riemers turned the spiker on the wye.  We tied up for the night, with Bobby heading to his hotel in Rockford, Marcus going to pick up Gwen, and Mark, Mark, and I going to Joes for dinner.

Saturday Morning,  The plan...  Finish the job.  Start time 05:30  We tied down the machines on the main in our out of service Friday night, so it was simply fire up and go to work.  And work we did.  We were slightly better equipped for the cribbing job, having grabbed a couple picks and the job went well.  Mark went back to spiking - South rail this time,  Mark Gellman,  and Marcus ran the plater, and were helped when Bobby Ryan joined us again, and I went to cleaning cribs.  Mark Riemers helped with cribs when he caught up with the spiking.  As we reached the end of the work, I also did some tie crane work stacking the dead wood for pick up later.   In the end we completed work, picked up the plater and put it back ont he flat, and ran back to our OOS limits. On the way  Bill Lygiros  was found to be stacking old spikes as he walked in from Karstens.

I think we surprised the dispatcher by showing up before being called to clear up.  We were in 24 track long before the first revenue train left. He also left with a great deal of relief on the slow orders.  Thanks to the final push by the gang, we picked up two slow orders, annulled one line of the Summary GO, and gave them a railroad they can run on.  Only one slow order remains, and that is due to the swerve left over from the tamper losing it's mind.   I'm working on a plan to go out one evening with the a loco and  use jacks to smooth out the dipsy do, and air tamp the ties to get that last slow order off.  After the paperwork, and anulling the bulletins with the dispatcher,  the crew was off to breakfast at Dino's...

Of course the RR gods could not let us accomplish this much without their games.  As I was rolling into 24 track with the tie crane, she lost power and started smoking like an Alco going from start to run 8.  It was discovered the Temporary fix of the air box intake pipe had failed, getting partially sucked into the intake.  Mark Riemers delicately ripped it off the machine, and replaced it with the proper flex steel pipe we picked up later from Napa.

A new battery was also picked up for the hydraulic power pack and a  new battery terminal crimped on.  JD is still working on a replacement hydraulic hose to replace the one that was damaged when it shorted to the battery.