All the Bells and Whistles

(An alternate title for this post might be "4-4-0 Goes --o-")

With the advent of digital cameras, people probably take a lot more pictures than they used to. With the demise of film and photo-devloping, it doesn't really cost you a penny to bring along a camera wherever you go and take snapshots of anything that is remotely interesting. I recently went on a 5-day cycling trip and took nearly 600 photographs. If you figure that there are 16 waking hours in the day, that's one photo every 8 minutes. That's not enough for a flip-book, but it's closer than you think.

With digital cameras built into most mobile phones, there's really no excuse for missing a "Kodak Moment" (there's a term that will likely fade into antiquity). Nonetheless, two days ago I found myself woefully unequipped in a situation where one should ALWAYS have a camera:

An impromptu ride aboard the engine of a freight train.

Sunday morning was R's day to sleep in past Scott's normal 7 am wakeup call, so I thought I would get him out of the house to cut down on noise and let her sleep more peacefully. On a whim, I turned to him and said, "let's go find a train!" We grabbed our hoodies and launched our Jeep towards the river valley.


In the NW part of Calgary, the Canadian Pacific Railway mainline runs along the north side of the Bow River, and there is a stretch just across from Bowness Park (link) where you can typically find a string of cars waiting patiently on sidings for their turn to be added to a train and pulled away to a fate beyond the mountains of BC or the plains of Manitoba. We have driven past this spot before to peek out at the cars, but today we parked next to the tracks and got out for a closer look.

There seemed to be an abnormally large number of cars present, with trains on at least 6 of the sidings -- several headed by teams of 3 engines. When we exited the Jeep, I noticed that the engines on one of the trains were idling, and there was the intermittent crack of air pressure valves releasing their excess. Scott was quite excited by the enormous red engines -- red appears to be his favourite colour.

We noticed a white pickup truck pull in behind our vehicle and I was briefly concerned when three railway workers emerged -- I wondered if this might be trespassing -- but they simply waved at us and went to work on the trains. We continued to admire the trains, and Scotty found a large threaded bolt (probably 1.5 inches thick and 5 inches long on the ground near a pile of discarded railway ties -- likely the remant of a recent track replacement on the main line. He was very excited when I told him it was from the trains. For the next hour he clasp it tightly to his chest (a two-handed effort) and frequently told me "this is from the train."

As we made our way back to our car, Scott still exulting in his discovery, the railway workers waved us over. One of them indicated to the waiting engines and said, "We're going to shuttle this train up the track to connect two of these trains together. Would you like to come for a ride?"

I was ecstatic. I looked to Scott to show his enthusiasm and asked, "Do you want to ride on the big train, Scotty?" He drew his prized new bolt back protectively and said, "No." Objection overruled -- I quickly told the CP men that we would be happy to go. I suppose this is one of many instances where I will ignore what Scott tells me he wants. In this case I was completely right to do so.

We literally had to climb aboard the enormous machine. There was a ladder up to the top of the front end, where you could walk across to the entry door to the cab. Inside there were three swivel chairs mounted on the floor, one them in front of the engineer's console. In between radio communications with those involved in the operation, the engineer explained the various details of what he was doing. When the time came for him to ring the bells and start forward, I was surprised how easily and smoothly the train started forward. I half-expected the engines to have to tug and strain at the load. I guess with three 2,000-horsepower engines at the head (type EMD GP38-2), you have plenty of pulling power.


Alas, no camera -- but I found a photo of the same type of engine

With two toots of the horn, we were on our way. The engineer offered to let Scotty pull the lever that controls the horn, but he was too chicken. He liked to watch everything from a safe distance. However, he was happy to accept the CPR-brand water bottle that we were offered from the fridge. I noticed a hot-plate as well -- these trains appeared to have all the literal as well as figurative bells and whistles.

We were on board for about 40 minutes, pulling our 75-car load forward about a mile before we backed onto a different track to couple up with another train of about 25 cars. Scott got to watch out the front and poke his head out out the side window. It was fantastic.

After the fact, I wondered why we had both bells AND whistles going when we started forward on our run. I also wondered if there are specific patterns that the whistles/horns follow when they approach a crossing or it's arbitrary. After poking around in Wikipedia, I found out that North American trains usually employ bells to signal a train in motion (mounted on the train and installed at crossings), as opposed to the UK, where tracks are all fenced in so they only put bells on streetcars (ie: "Clang, clang, clang went the trolley...").

A train can convey a host of meanings through its whistle/horn, of which we heard at least two ('-' is long blast, 'o' is short blast):
-- Proceeding. Releasing Air brakes
--o- Approaching highway crossing

From our house 7 km away, we can sometimes hear the distant whistle of the train. Regardless whether its a '--' or a '--o-' or even a 'ooo' (backing up), I'll let it be a reminder to always carry a camera, because you never know when a locomotive engineer is going to invite you to ride the rails.

comments:

Eric said...
Oh my lucky!

margo said...
Oh my double lucky!!

lynne said...
Grandpa Anderson would have loved to have come with you. He was a real train lover as well. I can just imagine Scotty sitting there taking it all in--those big eyes of his even bigger at all that was going on around him. What a great dad/son memory !

Grandma Walters said...
Well, that was better than a couple of "hobos" riding the rails!!! Times have changed! Scotty is so lucky to have a dad who likes to always see what is going on!