Kevin Standlee: Fandom Is My Way of Life

Yesterday evening, I heard the Union Pacific dispatcher bring an eastbound empty coal train into Fernley siding and stop it there, while a westbound train approached Fernley heading for Sparks. The dispatcher told the coal train that they had a "hotbox." That's when the wheels under a train car overheat. If they get too hot, they can catch fire, fail, and cause a derailment. In the days when trains had cabooses, one of the main jobs of the crew riding in the caboose was to watch the train ahead of them for signs of overheated journals, such as smoke or smell. Nowadays, hotboxes are much less likely than they were historically. Sealed journal with roller bearings (rather than flat bearings that had to be manually lubricated) are much less likely to fail. But hotboxes still happen. Railroads have automatic detectors at regular intervals that check for overheated wheels, dragging equipment, and other defects. There are detectors both east and west of Fernley. When we moved here, we could hear them sending automatic messages by radio; however, they no longer appear to announce defects. They do, however, notify the dispatcher of defects, and the dispatcher told the crew which car appeared to be overheating.

Normally, the conductor of the train would get off and walk the train, checking for overheated journals. That was going to be a long slog on this 100-car train, where the detector was saying it was (I think) 4 from the rear. However, with another train coming the opposite direction, they crews could help each other out. The conductor of the westbound train offered to check things out, and the westbound train stopped near the west end of the coal train.

"Oh, yeah, we're going to have to set this puppy out," announced the conductor. After confirming that the westbound crew still had a couple of hours left before their hours of service would expired (forcing them to tie up their train on the spot), the dispatcher agreed that the westbound conductor could help the eastbound coal train cut out the overheated car and shove it into the east leg of the wye that once was the south end of the "Modoc line" but now only serves as a short spur to serve Nevada Cement.

I drove over to the opposite side of the tracks to see if I could see what was going on, but my view was blocked by other cars spotted on the spur that serves Valley Joist, a company that makes steel building joists. I also didn't take any pictures, because everything was blocked. I did see in the distance that they'd cut two cars out of the train, then backed up the coal train (probably to take the conductor of the westbound freight back up to the head end of his train), and then both the east- and westbound trains started to leave. By the time I got back home, both trains were gone.

( The Next Day )

If I'm reading things correctly, this equipment can be operated only at slow speeds by MoW crews for moving cars of ties, rails, and other maintenance gear, just as the MoW crews can operate tampers, aligners, and other specialized pieces of equipment used to maintain the track. This particular unit, with a green-painted maintenance-of-way flatcar, was spotted in the "MoW pocket track," a short siding off the Fernley siding.

Shortly after I took these photos (with Lisa spotting for me), the signals at West Fernley lit up, I climbed back down to the access road, and as we walked home, a local train that had been working the industries on the east side of Fernley ambled into Fernley siding heading west, while a long intermodal train with a "second section" of mixed freight tacked behind it came east. Had I been quicker on the uptake, I would have been able to take a photo of the two trains meeting at the point where the "house track" leads diverge from the Fernley Main Line.

That's about as adventurous as we got today. We spent much of the rest of the day sitting on the porch watching birds feed on the food we leave for them in the lot to the east of our house, and then moving our seats when a little bit of rain started falling. That latter is good news. I hope that not only does the rain wash some of the smoke out of the air, but that it's helping put out the fires to the west of here making all of that smoke

After all of the excitement of the past few days, it was time for Union Pacific's track gang to start cleaning up in preparation for moving on.

( So Much for the Tumbleweeds )

It's much quieter here at night than it was for the past few days, as the track project has mostly moved on from here. I note that the chipmunks seem to have given up on their old location in the yard, as I saw them hiding under the porch at Fernley House.

As I've been writing about, a Union Pacific rail gang has been working in the area relaying tracks on the Nevada Subdivision. They've now reached Fernley. The evening I got home, I saw them working on the tracks across from the house.

( Rail Maintenance of Way Photos )

Later, one of the electromagnet-equipped cranes came through to collect all of the loose ties and tie-plates. The equipment makes a sound I would associate from an SF movie of a particle beam cannon going off, but unfortunately, they never made the sound when I was out recording, and there was not enough light to see anything, anyway.

Yesterday afternoon, after Amtrak had passed roughly on time around 4:45 PM, I heard a slightly unusual-sounding train horn. I went outside and saw an unusual train. I don't have a picture because my phone was siting on the charger. The good part was that it was a Union Pacific business train coming through, which is a great sight. The bad part was that the passage of this train reminded me that UP had been at Sparks yard for the past two days with this train, which is part of the about-to-happen 150th anniversary celebration of the Golden Spike that completed the first US transcontinental railroad.

I'd read about this event. With my work schedule, we would have been able to get to Sparks to see it either yesterday or the day before. Except I'd forgotten to put it in my calendar, and therefore we missed it and probably won't get another chance. If they'd decided to do a day at Winnemucca today, we might have tried to get there, but they're off to Ogden now, where they'll meet UP's restored "Big Boy" steam locomotive that will soon be heading east from Cheyenne. I won't get to see that, either, although I'm looking forward to the Big Boy coming through Fernley someday on a trip to Sacramento.

Today I heard a train coming by somewhat slowly and had a peek out the window. I'm glad the train was moving slowly (it was taking the siding) because that gave me enough time to grab my phone and get the camera activated.

( Katy Coming Through )

That was one of the few breaks I had today. I had something that needed extra hours this afternoon, and it's just as well because I have to take Lisa to the dentist in Reno on Thursday and thus I needed to log some extra time by then anyway.

On Sunday morning, I was walking home from bowling after breakfast when I saw something unexpected on Fernley rail siding.

( Stopped At the Old Station )

I got Lisa and we had another look. We didn't want to get too close because it's trespassing, and we didn't see anyone in the cab anyway. The train did not seem to to be disabled. I went back into the house and Lisa went into the trailer.

Inside the house, I could hear on the radio scanner what had happened: a Union Pacific freight train was stopped on the single-track section west of Fernley because they'd set off a defect detector, and the crew was inspecting their train. They could find nothing wrong, and the dispatcher gave them permission to proceed at slow speed up to Fernley. They needed to be very careful, because they were a "key train" (one with more than six carloads of hazardous materials), which requires special handling.

I went back outside, and lo and behold, there was a member of the Amtrak crew walking toward the house. I went out to meet him, and it turned out that he was actually coming to the house to look for us. This was the Reno-based Amtrak engineer who regularly whistles as he approaches our house and waves at us. He wanted to see who we were, and that's why he stopped his train where he did. He had been reading a magazine while we came out to look at his train so he missed us initially.

We walked back out toward his train and I explained that we'd bought the house partially because we like trains, and that we appreciated him signalling to us. I would have gone into more detail, but the assistant engineer on the train called out that he could see the headlights of the UP train approaching, so they needed to get moving. The engineer said he and his wife may stop by sometime. He's based in Reno and works out to Winnemucca, overnights there, then returns on the next day's train.

( Train Meet with UP )

Eventually, the train came to a stop. In front of us was a car whose air hoses were leaking pretty badly. If enough air leaks from the hoses, the car can be a "dynamiter" that puts the train into emergency stop.

We went back inside. Again listening to the radio, we heard the crew would replace leaking hoses (they carry spares). This took a long time, and other trains were routed around it through Fernley. They could find no other defects, but speculated that the way the air was leaking was causing brakes to seize up, and that was what set off the detector. Eventually they got all of the leaky hoses patched up enough to where they could continue at something approaching normal speed. Just another day on the railroad, but now we know who our friend on Amtrak is.

Yesterday morning, I could hear on the radio scanner the Union Pacific dispatcher working with maintenance crews to try and thread trains through the area while a UP rail testing car was inspecting the line. The test car moves slowly along the tracks using various tools (possibly ultrasound; I don't know the specific technology this car uses) to check for hidden defects in the rails that, left unaddressed, can cause a rail to shatter under the load of passing trains.

( Test Car Coming Through )

This afternoon, as Lisa and I came back home from a short errand, the UP maintainer was parked in front of our house talking to the local cable serviceman. Lisa went and talked to the maintainer, who said that they've been changing out rails where the detector car found faults, and that's a good thing, but it ties up traffic on the railroad. It probably doesn't tie things up as much as a 17-car grain-train derailment that happened up at Flanigan NV a few days back. Lisa surprised the maintainer by telling him that she'd been there. It's a pretty desolate place, but we did visit it once.

This morning, we had a 4-for-1 special on trains here at Fernley, which is really something considering that there's only one main line and one full siding.

( Squeezing the Trains Through )

The light is not what I would have liked, but you have to take these photos as they come.

I woke up way too early this Sunday morning, and inasmuch as Lisa told me not to wake her as she'd not gone to bed until about two hours before I woke up, I had time on my hands. Based on the advice from some of you on the wiring work, I decided to go over to Lowe's and buy an electrical fish tape and some wire lubricant. Even though Lisa has decided to replace the 1-inch conduit with 1 1/4-inch conduit and thus to run both the original RV pedestal lines and the new water heater lines through as new runs, having a 125-foot fish tape will be generally useful for this and other projects like running Ethernet lines up through the walls to the upstairs office.

After picking up the stuff from Lowe's, I thought that a quiet Sunday would be a good time to have a look around the Fernley Industrial Park without blocking traffic. Since msconduct expressed an interest, I included the Amazon facility. All photos here were taken either from public roads or parking lots (like Lowe's) where I had the right to be. At no time did I trespass on private property, particularly Amazon's.

( Warehouses and Trains )

After this spin through the park, I headed home. As I parked the Astro in front of Fernley House, the Fernley Flyer, having been cleared out of R-Max by the dispatcher, passed on the main heading back to Sparks.