Track 4362

Track 4362 is a mainline section of railroad track owned by the BNSF Railroad which runs inside the southern perimeter of the aluminum smelter I worked at for 34 years. It ran a little over a quarter mile to the cast house where flat cars and box cars were loaded with aluminum for shipping to customers. Joining track 4362 were many side spurs which allowed railcars to be moved to other areas of the plant also.

I was first introduced to 4362 in 1979. My job as a pilot was over and I needed work. One of the men from my church named Joe had a business which repaired railroad tracks. Joe was in his 70s and started as a young man working on the railroad. At his youngest, the train engines were steam powered.

Joe would contract with companies in Whatcom County to maintain their private spurs. All the work was manual labor. He used men in their 20s, most of whom were farm boys and football players because every aspect of the job required upper body strength. At that time of my life, I was strong, and Joe was short a man, so he gave me a job. I became a Gandy Dancer.

Most of the time, he would load all the track repair tools from a shed at his house into the back of his truck and drive out to a jobsite. The smelter though had their own tools which they kept in a steel shed alongside one of the spurs off the 4362. At the start of the day, the crew of men would meet Joe at the smelter parking lot and would ride with him into the plant to the shed. After placing a pushcart on the rails, we loaded it with rail-jacks, shovels, point bars, picks, ties, bolts, and spikes. Everything needed for the day’s work.

Now, I want to make note here that 4362, from where it entered the plant all the way to the cast house, was on an uphill grade. The crew, which had a minimum of five men, pushed the heavy cart loaded with tools up to the switch. One of the men would then open the switch which allowed us to roll the pushcart from the spur onto the 4362 mainline. Once the cart was on the mainline, clear of the spur, the man on the switch would then close it again so that when the BN Railroad came onto the property, they would have a straight run up to the cast house without encountering any closed switches.

It was a long hard push of the cart all the way uphill to the cast house to replace some bad ties that morning. Upon reaching the bad section, we put up flags to alert the BN that we were working on the track and then began unloading the tools. All day long we would pull spikes, jack up rails, pick along the ties and using tongs, pull them out. We would then use tongs to fill the space with a new tie and we would spike it down. The last part of the job was to tamp the ties with flat tipped shovels, so the rail was level. In the seven years I built track, I gained a lot of strength while at the same time ruining my wrists and back.

There was great camaraderie with the men on the crew. Except for me, they all lived in the county and three were brothers and Joe’s grandsons. When Joe wasn’t looking there was considerable horseplay during back stretches and water breaks. There always seemed to be a competition of some sort going on.

At the end of the day, we would dress up the gravel shoulders, take down the flags and load the tools back on the cart. Then Joe would hobble back to his truck and shout, “Meet you back at the shed!”

Now here is where the typical competitive horseplay started. From the cast house to our shed spur, it was downhill all the way. There was no reason to walk. We could ride. The problem was that someone would have to throw the switch at our spur to turn us off the mainline track. Whoever thought they were the fastest runner would have to jump from the moving pushcart, run ahead and throw the switch. That man, named Brian, was chosen and we started the cart downhill.

The weight on the cart included 600 pounds of tools and five 200-pound men. Leaving the cast house, the cart rolled at a fast walk. Reaching the curve at the south end of the property the speed turned into a nice trot. On the eighth mile straight-away to our switch, we were rolling like a runaway locomotive. The rapidly increasing clickety-click of the wheels on the rails reminded me of the last time I rode the giant wooden roller coaster at the PNE in Canada. We were all a little anxious because we were picking up speed with each foot that we rolled. The question was, when should Brian jump off the cart to beat us to the switch. He prepared himself for the dismount and at our pleading he jumped from the cart and ran as fast as he could in front of the us to beat the cart to the switch.

Meanwhile, Joe was standing on the spur outside the shed waiting for his crew.

It seemed like Brian was going to make it, he was at least 20 feet in front of us when his boot hit the edge of a tie, tripping him, and sending him crashing to the gravel. The four of us riding on the cart shot past our spur and the unopened switch. Joe hollered something as we sailed past him but since the speed of light is faster than the speed of sound, no one could hear him. Still increasing our speed, we jumped through the closed main switch into the plant, crossed a main road to the beach, left the smelter property and continued down the BN mainline track. A quarter mile later, we were able to slow the cart to a stop and began the long push back to the plant.

Joe said that all he saw shoot by him was the yellow blur of hardhats and the white of bulging eyeballs. He mentioned that he also heard what sounded like the howl of four coyotes.

And now we fast forward 37 years. I am an employee of the smelter and have been for 34 years. My job, as I am ending my career, is to run a track mobile. A track mobile is a diesel vehicle which has rubber tires for driving on the road and steel wheels for riding on train rails. The purpose of the track mobile is to push and position railcars inside the plant site after the BN has dropped them off or to position them to be picked up by the BN. The track mobile, though heavy and powerful, does not have the power, traction, and braking ability of the double BN train engines.

The spur we used for our work was just uphill from the spur of the old tool shed and again, off the 4362 mainline. The track mobile was powerful enough on our spur to move three empty railcars. Our spur also had an uphill grade and on days when there was rain, snow, or ice on the rails, it was very difficult to push the cars up to our loading/ unloading area. We had an agreement with the BN that only three cars would be placed by them on our spur and that they would be placed in a specific order. The BN did their moving at night and by the time we started our shift, their moving was done, and they were gone.

Coming in one morning we found that the BN had placed four full cars on our track and the last car should have been first. This meant that my partner and I had to switch the cars around by ourselves with the track mobile to park them in the right positions.

My partner, Jake, was a younger man who I was training to operate the track mobile.  Being that someone had to be on the ground to open and close switches, I asked him to run the track mobile while I worked the switches and locked brakes. He expertly placed the mobile on the rails and rolled up and attached it to the end car. We then hooked up the air lines from the mobile to the cars. (The air lines operate the railcar brakes.) We then walked through and released the railcar manual brakes.

Climbing aboard the track mobile he started the engine and charged the brake lines with air. Our plan was to pull the railcars off the spur onto the 4362, push the cars uphill, lock the brakes leaving the three cars in front on the mainline. We would then disconnect the number four car, push it back on the spur all the way up to the loading area in the #1 position and push the other three up behind it. In the past, the same switching move had taken over an hour.

I walked down to the spur switch on the mainline and opened it. Calling the track mobile on my radio, I said, “Ok, the switch is open. Bring the cars down the hill.”

From up around the curve of the spur, I heard him toot the track mobile horn and rev the engine as the mobile strained to move the four fully loaded railcars. Slowly the four cars began picking up speed as Jake kept the engine RPMs high.

Now, I know he had experience moving empty railcars around, but Jake was not taking into consideration the weight of four full cars coming downhill. Assuming he could pull them at a good rate of speed, he was not experienced with the ability to stop them. I could see the track mobile and the four cars coming at the switch at a rate of speed which was far too great for the track mobile to stop.

“Slow it down Jake! Slow it down!” I warned him on the radio.

Jake cut the throttle and applied the track mobile brakes, but this did nothing to slow the speed of the train. The four full railcars with the track mobile in front passed through the open switch and started down the grade on the 4362. Jake hit the emergency air brake release button in the cab and although the brakes on the railcars eventually locked up, the steel wheels on the steel rails kept sliding down the tracks toward the plant gate and the BN mainline. As he passed me, I was reminded of the sight old Joe had witnessed with his crew on our runaway pushcart:  as the cab of the track mobile raced by, I could only see the blur of Jake’s red hardhat and the whites of his bulging eyes. Of course, there was also the noise from the frantic blasts of the track mobile horn and the sound of what appeared to be a single coyote howling.

Luckily, before the five units left the property gate, they slowly skidded to a stop. After Jake changed into a new pair of unsoiled coveralls, I helped him push the cars slowly back uphill and into their correct positions.

The 4362 has been a track of concern since it was built in the 1960s. It has been the site of numerous derailments and as you can imagine, a Bermuda Triangle for railcars parked on it which suddenly disappeared on their own only to be found on the mainline by an angry BN switching crew and the embarrassed smelter employees. It was though, always a cost-effective way to send and receive product for the business.

On my last full day of work before I retired, I walked the rails. The plant production had been curtailed and the cast house was producing no more metal. What was left was being shipped out by semi-trucks. As I stood by the shoulder of the track picking blackberries, I heard the faint clickety-click of the rails in my mind and felt the puff of a breeze on the back of my neck. I had to smile because once again I was reliving my ride on an out-of-control pushcart down the 4362.

Faith Family Life Getting Older Growing Up Misadventures Music Patriotism Pets or Pests? Snips Tributes