tehluggage

Dun' wanna go north. Ick.

On the other hand, if I find myself with enough downtime, I may do some writing. I has ideas, oh yes I do.

That is to say, I had expected and prepared to be conductor on a lovely little 1900 switcher. (Note: That was sarcasm.)

Instead, I find myself as conductor on 115 going west, with a great engineer.

Cool!

I have an admission to make. I-it's not easy, and I hope it doesn't change anything, but I understand if certain people won't want to continue associating with this journal in the future.

Here goes.

I...I have Sue hair. I'm sorry.




Aaahh running late aaah wtf am I doing on here where the hell is my watch

No more work train for me, but boy was it good while it lasted.

I had the caboose all to myself, and while the one day the heater didn't work was the one day it was fucking freezing, it was pretty damn awesome otherwise. We ended up shoving all the way out to Gap, which was a little nervewracking. It's one thing to head out with two people always keeping an eye on things, and the hoghead able to react to what he sees, not just what the conductor tells him. It's another thing entirely to have one person on the point, having to keep a very close eye on sixty miles of track. I'll say this much, though - it did wonders for my confidence.

After the work crew finished yesterday, the hoghead and I put the train away in Gap, then brought the caboose and light engines back to Calgary, which was a very fast trip. (Holy track speed, Batman!)

All told, it was a great week, I got to sleep in today, and I have the weekend off.

This means (finally!) gaming time, possible ficcage, because I have the plot bunnies, and general R&R. Yay!

Woo, goin' west on the Mountaineer! It appeared to be that or a morning switcher, so I am very pleased.

Here's hoping it's a quick trip, with a short layover.

Wow. Thirty-three hours round trip to Field and back. If I hadn't had a great engineer (only the second time I've ever worked with him, and it's been a lot of fun both times), that would have really sucked.

But I did have a great engineer, so it was actually a pretty awesome trip. There's nothing quite like taking a train through the mountains to Field and back again, laughing like idiots the entire way. Over ten hours without giving our notice - both ways! - so that's a nice chunk of extra change right there. Then add heldaway, a nice little unit set-off at Keith, and I made out like a freaking bandit it was awesome!

And because we sat at the top of the hill on the way out, for something like two hours, the engineer and I had a great nap. Rolled back the seats, kicked off the boots and curled up. It really was great.

We also came up with increasingly bizarre theories as to why we were getting shafted, while on a supposed hotshot, while guys behind us on garbage trains were getting taxied through to Field. The favourite theory was that there's a giant beaver in the headquarters here in Calgary, and that it demands ass-kissing and virgin sacrifices to deliver a good trip. KALI MAA!! Obviously, we didn't kiss the ass of the beaver.

....I swear that was a lot funnier at three in the morning.

Redesigned Ye Olde Blogge, as you may or may not have noticed. It is now predominately green-themed, in keeping with my mildly unsettling and probably (hopefully? We shall see!) temporary thing for the colour green.

Also did quite a bit of gardening today, which resulted in many, many more freckles for me, which is not a bad thing, and a rather pretty new look for the front flower garden. ...Which is also not a bad thing. I might have gotten a tiny sunburn, but I'll wait and see on that one.

The Big Trip was awesome, every part of it, and I fully intend on putting up selected pictures of the trip/taking pictures of the souvenirs I bought and that likely only I will find interesting. Pretty green skirt is pretty.

The dog is still a moron, but is a friendly moron, so we'll keep him around for now. Frank is like a little kid whenever he goes outside. He scrambles down the front steps and flails around in the grass, pretending to hunt. Fuzzy is back, and it's like he never left. He's decided to tolerate Frank, which apparently translates to happy play-fighting, and then teaming up with Frank to come and sleep on my bed, thus immobilizing my legs in the morning. He'd like to be mutually ignoring the dog, but the dog hasn't figured out the ignoring part yet. Broom tries to play, and winds up getting a swat on the nose. Most amusing.

Still haven't been called back yet, and I may end up getting another job in the meantime. ...Really not something I'm looking forward to, as I've been spoiled by the railroad.

"Whaddya mean, I can't wear my coveralls or my boots? And...you're *not* going to call me when you need me, I have to follow a schedule? What kind of job is this, anyway?"

Ah well. I'll live. Somehow.

I was not expecting a road trip, I'll tell you that. Unfortunately, it's not a west trip, which sucks. Going north, on what sounds like a grain train. On the one hand, it's a nice simple train. On the other, it's a really long, heavy train. That has the potential to be bad.

Ah well, I need the money, and since I'm done in a few days, this'll be a nice little chunk of change.

...Also, I totally need a train icon. Gonna have to find/make one eventually.

Before I embark upon, yet again, another bitch-fest, a bit of terminology.

Sometimes, the Operations Manager, or OM, will call a crew on a road trip, and ask them if they want to protect a certain train at, say, Red Deer. To protect the train means that once they reach Red Deer, if that train is there, they'll hop right back on and head home, with little to no delay. The downside is that instead of a twelve hour clock, you're working on an eighteen hour clock, and if the timing is off, you'll end up working a very long shift with little sleep. The upside is that you don't rot in the bunkhouse for twelve hours, but instead are headed home right away.

Anyway. I was about thirteenth up on the spareboard yesterday afternoon, and figured I wouldn't work until at least tonight. Ha. Ha ha. I get the call at quarter to four, telling me I'm called for 103-06 at 1710. Good thing? It's a hotshot, so everyone gets out of my way. Bad thing? It's a late call, which means I'll be scrambling like mad to get to work somewhere on time.

So I head to work, and I find the brownhouse absolutely packed with train crews. Apparently there'd been an avalanche on the Mountain Sub, which is the Subdivision west of the Laggan, which is the one I really like, so there was no west traffic going that night. At all. There had to have been at least four west crews, another four north crews, and for some reason, a yard crew that apparently just wanted to hang out with us.

Of course, being railroaders, we took immediate advantage of the wonderful opportunity afforded to us to gossip like mad. It was great! The chatter mostly revolved around the avalanche, and if/when the west crews were going to be canceled. Ultimately, the Train Yard Coordinator gave us a call after I'd been there an hour anna half, and he started canceling crews right left and centre.

"Okay, where's the conductor for 199? Hey there, you're canceled, have a good night. Grab the guy for 403, would you?" And so on, and so forth. I believe I watched four crews get canceled in the space of ten minutes. It was oddly amusing.

Regardless, a very long story short, we eventually caught up with our train and headed north. Along the way, the OM rang us up on the radio and asked us if we'd like to protect 260-09 up at Red Deer. 260 is a big money train, and we were making great time, so we said sure, why not.

And...it wasn't a bad decision, per se. It was just that our eighteen hour clock ran out at eleven this morning, we tied up at ten am, and out of that seventeen hours, about fourteen of them were spent on a train. The rest of it was at the Red Deer bunkhouse, the brownhouse and me, outside, wading through knee-deep snow. That was good, 'cos it kept me awake.

So I had a long night, but I made a pile of money. All in all, a good day.

...Good lord, 33 hours round trip to Field and back. That's a long fucking trip. Of course, that does include 15 hours sitting at the Field bunkhouse, but still. Ten hours on a train west, and then ten back out east to Alyth. ...Man, I think I'm so tired now I'm not actually tired anymore. Also, it's like minus 40. I like the cold and all, but YUCK.

( Be warned: it's lots of chattering about railroads. )
Anyway, that's kind of an average west pool train trip in a nutshell. And even though it sounds like a lousy trip...I can't wait till I can go west all the time. I'd forgotten how much I missed it.