Trains, Cranes and Cold winter nights.

As stated before, I worked primarily in the warehouse and at times had to work in other areas as needed. This story is about working the switches for the train-crane and coupling the cars together. The Sugar factory used coal for all the processing and it all came into the plant via rail cars. One night the foreman pointed to me informed me that I was to go to the furnace area, and someone would direct me to the area, I was to work.

I had never been to this area, but knew where the furnaces were, so off I went. Once down there, I entered into an area where the coal came into the building via overhead bins. What was cool about this area was that the coal was not feed straight into the furnaces, What happened was there was a traveling bin that hung from overhead rails. 2 steel straps hung down with a seat and controls mounted at a height that allowed a man to sit there like in a tree swing. He would go the end, fill his overhead hopper, then move on down the tracks dumping coal on a steel conveyor that went into the furnaces. All he had to do was float back and forth, watching the temperature of the furnaces. It looked like a simple but boring job. I'm sure it wasn't but it sure looked like a kid straight from a tree swing could manage it.

Soon a guy steps thru an outside facing door and tells me to follow. I step out into the cold, cussing that it was going to be a miserable job as the wind was howling again that night. He heads of to a motorized railroad crane that looked like it was out built in the 40's. The driver informs me that my part was simple, but to watch what I was doing or I would get killed. I think about that statement a little, and weigh the hourly pay I was getting with the two words “Simple and KILLED”.

He instructs me that my sole job was to couple or uncouple the coal rail cars as he emptied them. We both climbed into the crane and he instructed me to move back next the the engine. There I would find a 5 gallon can to sit on. He climbed into a steel seat up front and pushed and pulled on so many levers, I finally gave up watching him and instead watched the cables and pulleys moving back and forth. You see I still remembered the 2 words called “Simple” and “killed”.We chugged off to get our first coal car. As I listened well, there was no issue with me being able to hook up the cars. We would push the empty cars onto one siding and move over to the other siding where the full ones waited. This meant I also had the job of tossing the switch as needed. Thinking back about that crane, I have to believe that OSHA would never allow a unit like that in operation any more.

He would then push the full car onto a siding that took us next to the building to unload. My job was done then, but I could not leave. Once the car was in position, he would lock the crane brakes and start to unload. Because it was so cold, I would crawl back behind the engine for warmth and sit on the 5 gallon can. All night long, We would swing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Talk about boring.

He had emptied another car thus we where out pushing the cars around. While we where unhooked from the empty coal car, he told me that we had to go over to another building and pull out a fully loaded sugar pellet rail car. I guess even with sugar beets nothing was left over. The sugar beet fiber was dried down and compressed into pellets feed. I guess it was used as livestock feed. We pulled in, coupled up, and started to back away. We had gone about 100 yards or so, when suddenly the crane started to shudder and I could tell the crane was doing things it shouldn't. I now had 5 words in my mind. “Simply going to get killed” .

The crane had passed over an area that had recently been dug up for some reason. As the load of pulling made the crane lighter on the back-end, what had happened was the crane started to spin it's wheels and then it jumped off the tracks. The driver told me later that because it was a full conventional rail car, he had to keep the boom off center. When the wheels spun, all that energy caused it to tip just enough that we derailed. Thinking that I know had to work outside in the cold on this, I climbed out and stood around. Much to my surprise, I was then told to get lost, as they had to call the railroad as they had special equipment for lifting it back on the tracks. I happily made myself disappear and went into the building where the pellets were made. I spent the rest of the night chatting with guys that worked there and every so often looked back outside as if I was waiting to go back to the crane. The specialist showed up and started working on crane, but my shift ended, so I went home, never to see that crane again.