Petersburg VA 01.07.12: Water For My Oranges

Описание: As we awaited the next train, we learned through various sources that the afternoon was about to get interesting. VERY interesting. OMG RARE!!! LOL interesting.

Q741 had announced on the radio that its second unit, C40-8 7568, had shut down due to low water, leaving only ES40DC 5358 to do the pulling. The dispatcher instructed the crew to stop at North Collier and coordinated assistance from the local fire department to give the 7568 a drink. We had seen a shiny Petersburg FD pumper truck headed down Vaughan Road towards the Collier Yard office a few minutes before, but didn't get the full picture until we heard the scanner traffic and got a heads-up from a few other railfans who arrived to view the spectacle.

At 2:35, the 5358 poked its nose out from under the Halifax Road overpass, lugging the 7568 and 64 cars up to the signals at North Collier - right in front of our waiting crowd of railfans. The crew was (thankfully) friendly enough, and chatted with some of the other folks until the pumper truck doubled back to our location, led by a yard clerk in a CSX truck.

It seemed that whatever evil lurked within the 7568's cooling system was spreading. The firemen had some difficulty at first in getting the pump started, and after the system was refilled and the pumper truck departed, the crew reappeared and threw their hands up in the air, shaking their heads - after several restart attempts the 7568 still showed no signs of life; the crew suspected dead batteries. The Collier yardmaster asked them to bring the train into the yard while a replacement locomotive was found, but they would first have to wait while Q409 ran around them. More waiting ensued until ES40DC 5428 and ES44AC 869 popped out from behind the 5358 with their train, crossing over to avoid the oncoming Q406 that was due any minute.

With Q409 out of sight to the south, the 5358 notched out to drag its train into the yard and pick up the 7568's replacement. There was some debate on whether or not the engineer reaching out the window to paddle helped increase their forward momentum, but everyone agreed it was funny. As the well cars gave way to empty Tropicana reefers, ES40DC 5424 and AC4400CW 13 appeared with Q406, with a well-timed cut of empty cars on Q741 giving a brief glimpse of the head end.

Nearly an hour after the saga began, Q741 limped out of sight into the south end of Collier while a yard crew prepared a replacement locomotive. The bad luck wasn't done with our intrepid crew, however. Some time later, they notified the yardmaster that the replacement locomotive's radio was broken.