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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
Chapter 21
2018 1/9/1981 – 2321 1/9/1981:
C&SL Snowplow Extras One and Two
Lordston Northern Extra 9608
McPhee and Ballard had the rescue train moving well by now. The going was easier than they had expected, as they ran the two old engines up the tracks toward Warsaw. The old 2-6-0 was panting in McPhee’s ear as they passed twenty miles per hour on the tracks that Plow Extra One had cleared so many times now.
McPhee was bone tired, and he was letting Ballard do most of the work as he slumped resting against the side of the cab. He was brought back to wakefulness by the sound of a strange voice on the radio: “Spearfish Lake,” it called, “this is Plow Extra One . . . ”
“That’s Ellsberg,” McPhee said. “He sure is loud for him sitting in Warsaw.”
Bud’s voice continued to pour from the radio in the cab of the 303. “We’ve got critical ambulance cases on board, so have the ambulances waiting. We’ll be in shortly. We’re about half a mile east of the 919 crossing.”
McPhee’s hand shot out to the air valve, and in an instant, he dumped the air with all the strength he had. At the same time, he shoved the throttle out of Ballard’s hand.
Back in the 9608, now without radio contact, Stevens wondered for a moment what was going on, but decided that Ralph must want to stop bad; he pulled all the power off the old engine, and with his hand near the reverse lever, stood by to “big-hole” the engine if needed. With its wheels squealing, Plow Extra Two slid to a stop.
While it was still sliding, McPhee yelled into the radio, “We just PASSED 919!”
Up in the darkened cab of the Rock, Bud was startled by the unexpected response to his call, but in an instant he dumped Plow Extra One’s air and pulled his own power off as well.
Slowing rapidly, Plow Extra One swung around a little bend. Bud leaned out the cab window to try and see around the plow.
The Chessie’s headlight stared back at him.
With a shaking hand, Bud keyed his microphone, trying without too much success to keep his voice level. “Be damned if you didn’t, Ralph.”
Bud let the Rock creep forward to where the two plows were almost nose to nose. Bud’s knees were still weak as he climbed down from the Geep and walked ahead to the waiting switcher. Penny climbed down from the plow, and struggled with him through the snow around the two snowplow blades.
They climbed up into the cab of the switcher. “Hi, Bud,” McPhee croaked. “Fancy meeting you here.”
The old man’s voice was unexpectedly weak and trembling. “You all right, Ralph?” Ballard asked.
“I’ll be OK. It’s just my chest hurts a little . . . ” the old man said as he collapsed to the floor.
“John . . . ” Bud started to order, but Penny had already started running to get the doctor from Plow Extra One’s way car. Bud knelt down in the Chessie’s cab. McPhee was still breathing, and his pulse was weak – but it was there. Maybe Bud wouldn’t have to remember what little CPR he had once learned. “Where in hell is that doctor?” he swore, knowing that he couldn’t be here yet.
While the doctor was working on McPhee’s inert form, the group of railroad men cleared out into the leeward side of the Chessie. “You must be Bud Ellsberg,” one of them said. “I’m Gene Ballard, from the D&O.”
“Glad to meet you, Gene,” Bud replied. “Given a choice, I can think of better circumstances, but I’m glad you got here. Is Harold still running the 9608?”
“Him and Bill Lee.”
“Lee?”
“Yeah, he rode over from Lordston on his snowmobile. Met us at Meeker. That old thing wouldn’t DARE crap out on him.”
“What happened to your switcher.”
“Injector went to crap. We left it sitting on a siding at Albany River. Let me tell you, we had one hell of a trip. We had to have the passengers dig us out any number of times, and one time we had to get rescued by a front-end loader. What happened up here.”
“We keep going back and forth some way or another,” Bud replied, not daring to bring up the subject he really wanted to talk about. “We left our switcher at Warsaw. We haven’t had two engines on the shuttle run at the same time since yesterday.”
“How are things in Warsaw?” Ballard asked, like Bud, avoiding the subjects of the near-collision and of Ralph McPhee.
“Still burning like hell,” Bud said. “The paper plant and the fertilizer plant’s gone, a lot of houses are burning, and the fire’s getting too close to the oil company for comfort.”
“Here’s the doctor,” a voice said. Bud bounded up the Chessie’s steps to meet the doctor at the door.
“Might have been a heart attack,” the doctor told the group of railroad men crowded on the Chessie’s cab steps. “There’s no way of telling here. He’ll probably be all right, but we’d better get him to the hospital as quick as we can. One of the guys we’ve got back in the caboose can’t take much more waiting, either.”
“Can he ride there, all right?” Bud asked.
“Better than if we transferred him,” the doctor said. “I’ll leave one of the EMTs here and ride back in the caboose.”
“We’ll have to use the engine,” Ballard said. “Is that any problem?”
“No problem.”
“Gene, get moving,” Bud ordered. “We’ll stay clear of you. Let us know when you’re off the main. We’ll talk later.”
Within seconds, Ballard was whistling the 9608 back, while Bud, John, and the doctor struggled back through the snow to Plow Extra One. “Man,” Penny said, “When I saw that light, I was opening the cab door and getting ready to jump. I didn’t think you’d get her stopped in time.”
“Yeah,” Bud said, the reality of the situation now coming to him. “I’m just glad I got on the radio when I did. How could I have been so damn stupid to not radio in from Hoselton?”
“I thought about reminding you,” John said, “But by the time I thought about it, we were already down in the hole. God, I hope Ralph makes it.”
“Me, too,” Bud agreed. “He’s a tough old bird, though.” John began to climb the ladder to the plow’s cab. “I’m going to take it real easy,” Bud told him. “Keep an eye out for them. If we get close, let me know.”
Once Bud was by himself in the cab of the Rock, he let the shakes get to him for a moment. The feel of the Geep’s familiar throttle now seemed almost like touching a snake. He powered up Plow Extra One only by a conscious effort of will.
A mile or more ahead of Plow Extra One, Ballard was pushing the other train for the hospital as hard as he could. As the little train rumbled backward through the night, he heard Ellsberg’s voice on the radio: “Betty, is the ambulance there yet?”
“Both of them just pulled up,” she replied.
“We’re going to have another passenger for them. Ralph just collapsed with chest pains.” His voice grew very hard as he said, “We didn’t hit, but just by sheer luck.”
“Right,” she replied flatly. “We had a call from Walt right after you called. There was a mix-up. We’d understood from the fire hall in Warsaw that you were still there. Walt caught the error and called us, but by then we heard you two talking.”
Fifteen minutes later, Plow Extra Two was parked on Track Two of the Spearfish Lake Yard. Plow Extra One pulled straight in beside it; McPhee had already been loaded into the ambulance.
Bud stopped, cut off the way car, and pulled ahead to the engine shed while the ambulances went to get Joe McGuinness and the other injured firemen. In a few minutes, the ambulances were off, following a city snowplow in a blaze of lights, carrying the injured off to the hospital.
By that time, Bud had the Rock inside the engine shed, and was ridding himself of the shakes with thoughts of the good, stiff drink he would have when he didn’t have to run an engine somewhere. Ed was smart enough to avoid the obvious subjects. “Still shorting?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Bud said. “Not as bad as the Burlington that last trip, but bad.”
“Well, that’s that,” the mechanic said. “We’re going to have to cool it with this engine until we can get it dried out good. I’ve been going through the Burlington’s motors, trying to figure out how much damage we caused.”
“And?”
“Be glad the diesel crapped out. If it hadn’t, you would have had a hell of a repair bill.”
Bud shook his head. “Well, at least now we can let this thing sit for a while. The Chessie and the 9608 don’t add up to the power of the Rock, but they can still get up to Warsaw and protect the scram train. How long do you thing we’ve got to let the Rock sit?”
“Six hours minimum, inside where the wind and blowing snow can’t get at it. I know you were going to put tarps down over the sides in Warsaw, but they must not have helped. After six hours, we can have a look at the amperage and make up our minds.”
Familiar problems were starting to get Bud settled down. It was just as well, for the door opened, and Harold Stevens, Gene Ballard, Bill Lee, and John Penny walked in.
Bud was especially happy to see Lee. The two had much in common, for both of them were short-line railroaders with similar problems, and they were hardly strangers, anyway. “I never thought I’d be as happy to see you and your old Baldwin,” he told Lee. “That now represents maybe half of the working power we’ve got left.”
“I’m just glad we could make it,” Lee said. “That was a hell of a trip you sent us on.”
“I know. Gene here told me.”
“I heard him. You didn’t see me in the dark. He didn’t tell you enough. You don’t know how many times I wished we had that big plow of yours down there. It could have punched through a lot of the drifts that stopped us.”
“You made it,” Bud replied. “That’s what’s important. I guess I’d better get you people on up to Warsaw. This thing is down for at least six hours,” he said, nodding to the Rock, “And I don’t want to leave the Milwaukee alone for that long. The oil company could go at any time.”
Now, Ed spoke up. “Before they go, Bud, there’s something I’d like them to do.”
“What’s that?”
“I’d like them to go get the 1478 and haul it up here. I’ve been thinking about what Bill told me, and I’ve been looking at the Burlington. There’s a chance I can get one of them going with parts from the other.”
Lee shook his head. “That means injector pump parts, Ed. I could be wrong, but isn’t that a factory repair?”
“Well, yeah, it is, normally,” Sloat replied, “But when I was in the engine room of the Hardhead, we had one crap out on us while we were on simulated war patrol. We rebuilt it, and it lasted out the trip.”
“How long did it take,” Bud asked the retired submariner.
“Two or three days, but we had to build a lot of the parts,” Sloat replied. “I don’t think the Burlington’s pump is as bad off, and there’s a good chance we’re looking at mix and match.”
“It’s worth a try, I guess,” Bud said. “But fix the 1478. I don’t want to trust the Burlington anymore.”
Ballard shook his head. “Those people on our consist have been screwing around on that train for a hell of a long time, and they’re starting to get a bit pissed off at the speed we’re not making.”
“We could do both,” Bud said. “We can send the people up there with Bill’s engine, and that would take care of the scram train, too.”
Lee made noises indicating extreme doubt. “I don’t know that you want to risk that, Bud. That thing has held together like I never would have believed, considering what we’ve put her through. I’m proud of the way she’s taken it. But, let’s face it, she’s too old and senile to be out by herself on a night like this.”
Stevens, who was shaken with worry about his old friend, agreed. “What’s more,” he went on, “I haven’t been on the 303 since the trip started, but I’ll tell you this: It’s awful fragile for what we’ve been giving it. If we send the two out together, there’s a good chance that one will stick together long enough to get us somewhere. But we don’t want to let either of them out alone.”
Bud nodded. He knew Stevens well enough to know that he didn’t talk much, but anything he did say was worth listening to.
“We could still try for Warsaw,” Ballard said. “That’s what we were doing when we met you.”
“Tell you what,” Bud replied. “Let’s call Warsaw. If they’ve got a lot of danger of the fire getting to the propane tank, let’s get you guys the hell up there. If they’re holding their ground, let’s send the passengers over to Rick’s and make a quick trip to Albany River.”
Unlike their pullback from the Jerusalem Paper plant earlier in the day, the collections of fire departments in Warsaw gave up their positions on Plains Street only after the most stubborn resistance. Things seemed to be looking up for Fred Linder, for the wind was getting around even further to the north, making the possibility of the fire jumping across the alley to the buildings fronting Main Street ever more unlikely. If the wind would just settle down and blow out of the north for a while, he’d have the worst of the fire in Warsaw under control.
If the fire jumped Main Street before the wind began to blow out of the north, he’d really have his hands full, since there was nothing to stop houses right across the street from the oil company from burning. If he could hold Main Street, then the fire could only blow onto the already-burning fertilizer plant, and the fire that was there wasn’t going anywhere, even if the building melted through.
But that was far off in the future. Holding the line where they were wasn’t going to be any picnic.
Since dark, Linder had slowly been pulling units off of the fires on Plains Street as their cause became hopeless, and moving them to their new locations. He had seen no sleep for coming up on two days, now, and for the moment, things seemed under control. Once Spearfish Lake had been moved to their new location, Linder rode his snowmobile over and told Masterfield, “You’re in charge for a while. I’m going over to the rest train for a bit. If things get out of hand, or if the fire jumps to the west side of Main Street, give me a call.”
“When do you want those units still on Plains Street to move to their new locations?” the Spearfish Lake chief asked.
“Albany River can move when they’ve got what they’re working on knocked down, or if the danger on Second Street gets out of hand. Walsenberg can move whenever it gets too hot for them. You and their chiefs can be the judge. Whatever happens, give me a call at midnight and we’ll see what’s happening then.”
“Will do,” Masterfield said. “Get what rest you can.”
“If you people aren’t too heavily engaged when I get back,” Linder replied, “Why don’t you figure on taking a break then.”
The Spearfish Lake chief was grateful for the offer; he had no idea how long it had been since he’d last had a rest. However bad he felt, he was sure that Fred Linder was worse off.
The Warsaw Fire Chief rode his snowmobile past the charred heap of rubbish that had been the Jerusalem Paper main plant. Somewhere in his tired mind, he knew that he wouldn’t be going back to work there when the fire was over and he’d had a chance to rest up. Since the fire had started, he hadn’t had time to think further ahead than that. There probably wasn’t much hope of staying in Warsaw after the fire was out, and he felt vaguely that he was presiding over the death of the town, whether it burned to the ground or not. When the fire was out, there’d be time enough to figure out what to do next.
He stumbled into the dining bus and plopped down next to Walt Archer. Archer was worried, and even in his tired state, Linder could tell without asking. “Any word from Spearfish Lake?” the engineer asked.
“Not a thing that I’ve heard.” Linder replied. “If it hasn’t been on Plains Street, then I probably haven’t heard about it. Did the plow train have troubles?”
“I don’t know,” Walt agonized. “We had a call up here a little while ago, and somehow the call got to some idiot from Kremmling. They asked if the train was still here. He thought this was the train that they meant, so he said it was. Bud left a long time ago, but they wanted him to stay here. That could only mean the train from Camden was upbound. I had your people send a message down to Spearfish Lake to stop them, but I haven’t heard anything since. Jesus, I hope the message got through and it’s just that nobody thought to tell me. We don’t need a cornfield meet on top of everything else.”
“Cornfield meet?”
“A head-on.”
“You’re right,” Linder replied, stunned. That would mean the end of any more help from Spearfish Lake. “We don’t need that, too. Tell you what; I’ll call the fire hall and have them call down and find out.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Walt said. Linder picked up his portable radio and opened a bus window far enough to stick the antenna outside.
Rumsey, over at the fire hall, responded quickly to his call. “We’ve got a call coming through from them right now. Stand by.”
Walt looked tense. Even Linder was alert. “Message from Bud Ellsberg,” the radio squawked after a couple of eons. “He wants to know, do you need him back up here real bad right away, or does he have some time for some engine repairs?”
A wave of relief flooded over both the engineer and the fire chief. There’d been no mention of a wreck, and if Ellsberg had the capability to come right back to Warsaw, then there couldn’t have been one. The line was still open.
Linder turned to Archer. “He must have gotten through all right. What do you think about the engine repairs?”
“If he wants the time, he probably needs it,” Walt said, “But not so bad that he can’t give you the choice.”
That was no help. In the long run, keeping that one engine going was of extreme importance to Fred Linder, and maintaining it might well be important to having it say, tomorrow. “Tell him to work on it, but make it as quick as he can,” Linder said into the radio.
The fire chief sat down next to the railroad engineer, at the plate of stew and the cup of coffee he’d brought in. As tired as the fire chief was, the thought of food didn’t appeal to him, and the coffee wouldn’t do much for his tired nerves. “Piss on it,” he said. “I’m going back to one of the buses and get some sleep.”
“I’m told the sleeping is kind of bad back there,” Archer replied. “You need it more than most. There’s a cot in the cab of the engine, and it’s quiet in there. If you leave your radio here, I’ll come and wake you up if they need you.”
“That’s nice of you. Don’t let me sleep past midnight, and call me if there’s trouble.”
The gentle idle of the Milwaukee’s diesel drowned out a lot of the noise in the area, but Linder didn’t exactly need lulling to sleep. He’d barely hit the cot when he was out like a light.
“All right,” Bud told the railroad men in the engine shed. “We’ll go for the 1478. Somebody go send the passengers to Rick’s, and the rest of us will turn to on getting heat on the Rock. Once we’ve got that done, we’ll take the other two engines to Albany River.”
Stevens got Bud’s attention. “If it’s not going to be too much trouble,” he said, “We ought to back the 9608 down there.”
“Why’s that. Harold?” Bud asked.
“Well, if we head down there, that puts the back of the cab to the wind. Then, when we come back up here, that’s going to be mighty uncomfortable.”
“Good point. It won’t be any more trouble, either,” Bud said, and went on, “I suppose, to be on the safe side, we ought to take a plow.”
“It’ll about have to be the little plow,” Penny said, “Unless you want to get the Rock out to get at the big one.”
“The little one ought to be enough,” Bud said. “It’s only been a couple hours since these guys came over that track.”
“You coming with us, Bud?” the D&O man asked.
“Might as well,” he replied. “The alternative is to sit around here while the Rock dries out, and I don’t want to stay here right now.”
Privately, most of the men in the building would have agreed that sitting around would give them too much time to think about McPhee, and about the near-collision. As a result, in a few minutes, Ellsberg, Penny, Ballard, Stevens, and Lee were heading down the line to Albany River with Plow Extra Two’s remaining engines.
After all the desperate trips to Warsaw that Bud had been making, it seemed as if it had been years since he had been down the tracks to Albany River. It took some thinking to figure that his last run up these tracks had yet to be a full three days before.
The trip to Albany River wasn’t long; it was only a half hour or so before they were pulling up to the siding at the Albany River Coal and Lumber Company.
Something about the location reminded Bud that he still had to put together a quotation on a freight contract with the company. Betty had said something about it – when? The day before yesterday – that was all. Freight contracts to places like the lumber company were definitely going to be more important in the future, since there wouldn’t be the Jerusalem Paper traffic.
Bud knew that sometime soon he would have to think about such things. When the fire was out, maybe then he and Matson and a few other people could take time for the problem. The railroad had been keeping Warsaw alive; once the fire was out, then the Camden and Spearfish Lake could worry.
They stopped next to the red and white switcher, and Bud went out to uncouple the 9608. Stevens backed the steamer up past the switch points, then ran the engine up, coupled onto the 1478, and dragged it out onto the main line. Ballard backed up the Chessie and coupled it onto the front of the switcher, then whistled the consist forward.
“Doesn’t the radio in the steamer work?” Bud asked.
“Naw, it crapped out the last time we were up here,” the D&O man said, whistling for a crossing. “Battery’s dead, I think.”
“We get back, I’ll have Ed take a look at it,” Bud replied.
As they were coming into Spearfish Lake, Ballard asked, “Bud, where do you want to park this thing?”
“Let’s just shove it in the engine shed,” Bud replied. “There ought to be enough room in there for it, and we can move it with the Rock when we get ready. I don’t want to keep you guys around here any longer than I can help it. We’ve left the scram train by itself long enough. Take our way car, since it’s set up as an ambulance. You might have to make an ambulance run back this way.”
Ballard nodded. “How do you want to handle train orders? I don’t think we want to risk a meet like that last one again.”
“Right,” Bud agreed, the subject finally out in the open. “Even if we get the Rock going right away, I’ll sit here until you or Walt calls the office on the telephone. Then, you sit there. Don’t come back this way without calling the office yourself on the telephone and getting clearance. I don’t want any more of this jazz of messages being passed third-hand through the fire hall; the only message we’ll have for you through them is to call the office. The scram train can go to Hoselton any time, so don’t go past Hoselton without calling them on the radio and finding out where they are.”
“That’ll work,” Ballard agreed.
“Sorry to look so amateurish,” Bud said, embarrassed. “But I guess that’s what we get for only having one train going at a time most of the time. We’re not used to that kind of thing, and what with losing the plant, it doesn’t look like we’ll ever have to get used to it.”
Sitting at the office platform, the final loading of Plow Extra Two was under way. Betty came out and waved at Bud; he and Gene went over to see what had happened.
“We just heard from the hospital,” she said. “Ralph is doing all right. They think he was just more tired out than anything, and it got to him. They don’t think he had a heart attack or anything like that.”
“Now, there’s a relief,” Bud said, his heart a lot lighter. “I think I’m going to be able to put up with the bitching out he’ll give me.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Ballard replied. “As far as I can see, you had the right of way, and our orders were kind of fuzzy.”
“That’s not what bothers me,” Bud told the D&O man. “I should have had the system set up so it wouldn’t have happened in the first place.”
Ballard couldn’t see Bud’s executive viewpoint. “You may be right,” he told the C&SL president, “But Ralph won’t think about it. We’d best get a move on.”
A minute or so later Bud watched Plow Extra Two leave for Warsaw again. With just the Chessie and the 9608, it didn’t look like much – but it was all the help that Walt would need. As the little train vanished into the dark and the snow, Bud went into the office.
“I’ve got some of those figures you wanted put together,” Betty said. “Do you want to study them?”
“No,” Bud said, shaking his head. “I really don’t have the inclination right now. If they’re as bad as I think they are, it’ll take whatever energy I’ve got left for this operation out of me.” He changed the subject. “I didn’t see any fire departments waiting around, not that Plow Extra Two could have taken any more, anyway.”
“No,” she said. “We’ve been hearing about White River for hours, but they haven’t made it yet. They got sidetracked by a fire at Lynchburg back before dark, so there’s no telling when they’ll get here.”
“Big fire?”
“Not according to Upton. Just a house fire, and no real chance of it spreading. But, even if they have it out by now, they won’t be here for hours, yet. We’ve also had word that Coldwater is on the way, but there’s been no sign of them, yet.”
“Guess up in Warsaw, they’re going to have to make do with what Plow Extra Two already has.”
With the little plow and the 303 again leading, Plow Extra Two was out near the County Road 919 crossing again. Ballard was still running the 304, but a relief man was in the cab with him. Suddenly, the little engine lurched. “Now, that’s strange,” Ballard commented as the speed of the train began to fall.
“What’s strange?”
“This son of a bitch isn’t working right. In fact, it isn’t working at all.”
“You know more about it than I do.”
After a moment, Ballard said, “The engine’s winding up like it isn’t attached to anything. Could be the generator field has gone out, or it could be the drive shaft to the generator, or something. At least, we’re not getting amps.” He reached for the whistle cord – Sloat had been unable to fix the 9608’s radio. The little train eased to a stop. “I suppose I’d better have Lee take a look at it.”
Lee only gave the engine a quick glance. “There’s not a lot I can do to it here. I don’t know much about these little doodlebugs, anyway.”
“Shit,” Ballard replied. “That’s twice I’ve had an engine die under me this trip.”
Walt climbed the cab steps to the Milwaukee. Fred Linder was sleeping soundly, and it wasn’t easy for Walt to wake him.
“Is it midnight already?” the fire chief asked, still sleepy.
“Not quite,” the engineer said. “But there’s trouble. They had another propane tank explode. No one hurt, but there’s two houses on Main Street on fire.”
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