55 Inches Of Snow

[Wes Tausend]

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Ron,

The weather isn't been too good here either. But at least I haven't run any electronic keys through the snowblower this year.

The trip here to Montana was really cold last night. We started at 0415 yesterday morning. One detector was 24 below. I set my brakes right out of Mandan, ND and they didn't want to pump back up my train. Finally they built up enough air to release so we could make some speed without dragging them. The Road Master (maintainance boss) lowered top speed to 40 mph, instead of 60, maybe to resist braking the rail or make a derailment less severe. The ribbon rail (continuous rail) breaks from shrinkage in cold weather. But it was so windy we couldn't even manage 40 most of the time.

Once I had air, I purposely never used the train brakes again all the way into Montana. Then another train noticed a car 106 deep in our train with smoking stuck brakes, so we stopped and the other conductor kindly helped us out. But then his engineer, impatient to go, pressed him to cut the brakes out, which he did instead of waiting for me to give them a hard set and release which might have fixed the problem since it was only 13 below by then. The train can't leave the next terminal with this type brake defect.

We thought we'd fix this when we got to town about 1430 hrs, but even after we did the time consuming full set/release and it worked, the company decided it had to be checked by a professional carman. And not in the train. It had to be taken out and pumped up by a truck to be checked. I bet it was still here several hours after we were in the hotel. I hope Warren Buffett doesn't find out how we are wasting his money.

Wes

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