Funny things you've seen train crews do?

What's the funniest/strangest thing you've seen a train crew do? Mine would have to be a few days ago with this engineer:
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=87311But don't worry, he was friendly!
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=87312I've also had two crew members give me the peace sign.Joe LeMay

One of us Railfans from Downers Grove, IL

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RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, csxac44_69, Jan-30-05, 09:39 PM, (1) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, shoskins, Jan-31-05, 09:43 AM, (8) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, riograndedude, Jan-30-05, 09:39 PM, (2) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, FURX, Jan-30-05, 11:10 PM, (3) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, DRGW5401, Jan-30-05, 11:23 PM, (4) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, ns_sd70m, Jan-30-05, 11:47 PM, (5) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, Darkviper, Jan-31-05, 02:29 AM, (6) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, Jonatan, Jan-31-05, 09:02 AM, (7) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, shoskins, Jan-31-05, 09:45 AM, (9) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, shoskins, Jan-31-05, 09:54 AM, (10) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, NorthShore_364, Jan-31-05, 12:33 PM, (11) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, highball5, Jan-31-05, 01:22 PM, (12) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, singerbard, Jan-31-05, 02:44 PM, (13) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, davereage, Jan-31-05, 05:24 PM, (16) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, Grimace780, Jan-31-05, 03:30 PM, (14) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, Thunderbolt3985, Jan-31-05, 03:36 PM, (15) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, LRC_lover_9th, Jan-31-05, 05:43 PM, (17) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, beltontigers, Jan-31-05, 06:02 PM, (18) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, Darkviper, Jan-31-05, 06:21 PM, (19) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, NewEnglandRailFan, Jan-31-05, 07:35 PM, (20) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, jay611, Jan-31-05, 08:01 PM, (21) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, sd70mac666, Jan-31-05, 08:12 PM, (23) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, Erick_Cantu, Jan-31-05, 08:09 PM, (22) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, SD75i, Jan-31-05, 09:21 PM, (26) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, shoskins, Jan-31-05, 09:46 PM, (28) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, NewEnglandRailFan, Feb-01-05, 07:56 PM, (32) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, shoskins, Jan-31-05, 08:20 PM, (24) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, Phil C, Jan-31-05, 08:35 PM, (25) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, shoskins, Jan-31-05, 09:43 PM, (27) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, smp11512, Jan-31-05, 09:49 PM, (29) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, Gixxer86g, Feb-01-05, 06:39 AM, (30) RE: Funny things you've seen train crews do?, JonN, Feb-01-05, 11:51 AM, (31)

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Haha..Had the same thing happen to me last winter. There was a huge group of railfans in Greenwich, Ohio as Q359 was approaching. As the train got closer you could see the engineer with a camera, taking pictures of us. Has anyone else had their picture taken by an engineer/condr? -csxac44_69

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Theere's a BNSF engineer who works over Cajon Pass who does it all the time, I think he mus have half a dozen pictures of me taking pictures of his train!

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2 diffrent things, I was in my hometown of Willcox, eating at Carter's Restraunt, when a UP manifest train stopeed near the restraunt (it's about 300 feet from the tracks), a crew member got out, walked up to the diner and picked up a to go order, they knew they were going to be going through Willcox and had enough time to call the order in while on the road, and stop in town to pick up some hamburgers.Plus I've had an engineer play "shave and a hair cut" using his horn...I aint jokeing.
"NO MORE MISTER NICE GUY!!!!"

MR SPARKLE!!!
My Webpage
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Well let's see....
Back in May, CSX Q398 was comming through Washington Grove, and I was trackside with all my tripods, and camera equipment set up, .. the conductor walks out his door, and onto the front walkway, shoots my picture, and waves. Got it on tape too
On CSX D765, (back in the days before I wore a Chessie shirt) the engineer (train was crawling) leaned out the window, saw my CSX SD70MAC shirt, and yelled "Hey there, dig' that shirt!".That same engineer has also shouted things like "good morning" and "hey there" out his window on D765 to me.
..on a different note...One morning I was watching D765 put his train together, it was 6 am, and bitter cold. The engines pulled up beside me in a switching manuver, and the engineer leaned out his window and said "Hey, how about you come and drive this thing, and I'll go home and climb into bed!".
I've also had things like trains stopped have their crews let me know if something was comming, or some unusual power was in the area. I've had some give me orders, a timetable, and of course, I seat in the cab -Jeffrey

Courteous Future Engineer
NKP 2-8-4 #765. www.765.org
Chessie System Historical Society. http://moosevalley.org/cshs/
My Website; www.xanga.com/csxd765
THE RAMONES
GABBA GABBA HEY

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My Pictures in this subject aren't suitable for a public forum

John - DRGW5401

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> One morning I was watching D765 put his train together, it was 6 am, and bitter cold. The engines pulled up beside me in a switching manuver, and the engineer leaned out his window and said "Hey, how about you come and drive this thing, and I'll go home and climb into bed!".I would have taken him up on his offer! LOL!

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LAST EDITED ON Jan-31-05 AT 02:30 AM (EST)

I have had several of them tell me about interesting power in the area. I have had a few Conrail engineers let me up in the cab while waiting for clearance into the yard, back when I lived next to the main. They always had apples and water for me and my friends. I had one CSX conductor give me the 2002 rule book a month before it went into efect along with the 2001 book, he got them from the second unit. The train Crews never did anything that funny, but the track crews back in the conrail days where always puting things on the tracks and watching them get crushed, everything from pop cans to a bag of quickcreet. I even gave them a matchbox car to set on the rail one day. One night I saw a track crew guy climb up on the short hood of a LMS Dash 8 leading the TV-221 and wash the windows as a joke. It was at a red signal filling out a form D at the time.Just down the road from the CSX/NS Buckeye Yard.
Visit the WVK&O homepage http://www.angelfire.com/fang/dark_viper/page6.html

WVK&O Version 1.0 in the planning stages

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LAST EDITED ON Jan-31-05 AT 09:40 AM (EST)

I've had one engineer flip me off as I waved to him, not that funny tho... must've been in a bad mood./JonatanSteam rules!

Train gifs from Dans Railroad Gif RoundhouseNever trust computers. If you do, they will betray you.I'm the steam freak, ph34r me!!

My E-mail jonatan.gronoset@telia.com

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Had that happen too, but the engineer was a friend and he was just being funny. Nothing like seeing a big finger out the cab window of an Amtrak engine (and nothing else was visible...just the extended arm). Nobody else was around, and we still joke about it to this day.

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Let's just say he is NOT checking the air hoses....

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I had a guy who was riding on the front of a CN SD75I say "That's 50 bucks!" when I took a shot of him on the unit. This was three years ago. The funny thing now is that with all these photo bans, he's almost right!

Founding Member of the No Patch SP and SSW Locomotives Club

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A few years ago following a minor derailment all trains were either stopped on sidings or stacked in nose to tail on the main. One crew member was standing outside on the ground skillfully juggling 4 or 5 little plastic bottles of juice drinks. The engineer was leaning out the window mesmerized by the show.... or maybe he was napping.

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LAST EDITED ON Jan-31-05 AT 02:48 PM (EST)

Well I have a shot of a crew member on a midwestern switching/terminal line standing in the weeds by the right of way taking care of business. I shared the pic with one of their dispatchers, and he blew it up to poster size and put it in the crew room. The guy had a good sense of humor about it, I gather, and wanted a copy to take home and show his wife since it was of his best side.I've also been talked about by a crew in a somewhat humorous situation. This was a number of years back, before BNSF and when there were still some cabooses being used. I was a member of a group that re-enacts the middle ages, and I was coming home from a winter event in full regalia (long robe, hat, etc.--what can I say, the stuff was WARM). I happened to have my railfan gear in the back seat and the scanner on since I was driving along the BN and knew there were a couple of trains coming. So I hear the defect detector a couple of miles ahead and I find a good spot and get out to take pics. There I am in a purple embroidered robe (from a pattern from about 1350 ad) snapping away as the train goes by, and the engineer is giving me an odd look. Finally the scanner crackles to life and I hear "Hey guys, when you get up here, check out the fruit loop in the dress standing in the snow taking pictures of the train!"This led to my immortalization in a song sung by members of that re-enactors group. To the tune of "Waltzing matilda" they would sing "Freaking the Mundanes" and talk about weird and funny things group members would do to freak out non-members ("mundanes")."Nikolai the bard goes walking down the railroad tracks
Dressed in his robes, singing songs so free
And he smiles and he waves at the people in the passing trains
Who'll go a freaking the mundanes with me?"

Kevin N Payne *aka* singerbard
Email: nikolaibard-*AT*-yahoo.com
Yahoo Messenger: nikolaibard
MSN Messenger: singerbard

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>Finally the scanner crackles to life and I hear "Hey guys,
>when you get up here, check out the fruit loop in the dress
>standing in the snow taking pictures of the train!" LOL! That is great!
Dave Reage - Beta Tester
Halifax, Canada

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I used to work at a pulpmill in BC. Their corporate office was across a set of railroad tracks. One day as I was waiting to cross I saw a slow moving work train. Near the back was a flat car. On it was a crew member eating his lunch. He waved and said "good morning". Kind of caught me off guard but I thought it was kind of neat.
Gary Cameron
Grande Prairie "The last civilized stop before Alaska," AB
Canada

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There's this one time, on a March of Dimes excursion with the Arnines when we were bypassing a station. The train operator woman? Let's go with the acronym TO.)] Anyway, there were these two kids on the platform facing away from the train. The TO blew the whistle (you MUST listen to an Arnine whistle one day. My hearing has deteriorated as I rode more of these excursions, for some strange reason. ) Those two kids must've jumped through the ceiling! }>Another time, a TO was coming out of the tower at Main St, Flushing. He yelled to a fellow employee, "Seventeen dollars for a f@#$ing antenna!" I stared at the TO a few seconds before stepping into the train. Thank god there were no children around. Or were there?! I love New York.

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A couple of things:1. A CN fast freight raced by me. The conductor had his legs up on his desk, and waved the train orders at me.2. Another CN freight came by. The engineer gave me the piece sign.3. A GO train stopped at a signal. The conductor got out, climbed on the hood and yelled "I'm the king of the world!". Then he got back in the loco in time for the VIA P42DC to scream past.-Andy the LRC lover
EMD all the way!!
MLT Lives!Member of the Mandatory CN SD60 No Trail Organization!President of the "Get Rid Of The New BNSF Logo Club"

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lets see...I've had a certain crew member throw bottles of water out @ me why roling by...the same crew member had me get him a burger and a bag of chips for him...then again...my dad probably expects me to get him food...lolon another occasion..i heard an engineer play jingle bells on the whistle..which was different...Kyle Penn
kfp@vvm.com
www.austinsteamtrain.org

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I here lots of guys play little songs on the horn from time to time, seems like the later it gets the more they do it, guess it's boring to run a train in the midwest at night.Just down the road from the CSX/NS Buckeye Yard.
Visit the WVK&O homepage http://www.angelfire.com/fang/dark_viper/page6.html

WVK&O Version 1.0 in the planning stages

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I live along a short line and I am always messing around with crew members. Once I was working (for my dad) at his auto repair shop. Housatonic train NX-12x came rolling up the four mile long 1.1% grade at about 10 mph. Then the hissing of air brakes and the train stopped. The engineer, who I've known for a very long time, jumps out and walks inside. After about five minutes of chatting with me, he decides to go make an appointment to get his car fixed. That's somewhat odd, but then the conductor gets bored and starts sounding the horn over and over. Keep in mind that it is 8:00 on a Saturday morning in the center of town. So after going back out, they can't get the train going again on the grade. So they back down the hill and then make a run at it. So basically they wasted about 30 minutes just so the engineer could make an appointment to get his car fixed. Other times are just stupid. Once the brakeman forgot to take the handbrake off of a boxcar about an hour or so south of the main building. So one afternoon, after the regular morning train (NX-12x mentioned above) went by, GP9 7324 went by running light. Then about two hours later it came back towing the one boxcar. The car was going BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM as the flat spots on the wheels came around.Some of the strange stuff going on around here
-Dave, Secretary of the Scrap the SD60F federation!

Former ALCo Schenectady, NY shop switcher #5, in North Creek, NY

You can e-mail me at davej8010@aol.com -or- hrrc_7324@yahoo.com -or- feel free to aim me.

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2 years ago on the Buckingham Branch, the crew of the passenger train for got to take the hand break off one of the cabooses. the train went 2 miles and stopped. the brakes would not come off and the crew ended up beating the brake shoes off the car. Jason Underwood
Virginia railfan
Arkansas & Missouri Keeping the ALCO'S alive and well!

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Geez some of these are funny
Dr. SatanI'm otherwise known as the SatanTrain

High on the roof,
Thin the blood,
Another one on the waves tonight,
Comin' in, you're home
Orange Crush: R.E.M.

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Heard something like that once, 'cept it was Iron Man. THAT woke me up! "The F59PHI and Genesis are the lamest excuses for locomotives Amtrak has ever operated - accept it and move on. Hug an F40 before it's too late!"

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>A couple of things:
>
>1. A CN fast freight raced by me. The conductor had his
>legs up on his desk, and waved the train orders at me.
>
I seen a CN intermodal train have its conductor, leaned back in his chair, feet OUT the window.I seen a crew member in the third loco of a train reading a paper.Also 2 via's had to stop to exchange papers, the enginner of one song old macdonald had a farm, his own version, over the radio.

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>>A couple of things:
>>
>>1. A CN fast freight raced by me. The conductor had his
>>legs up on his desk, and waved the train orders at me.
>>
>
>
>I seen a CN intermodal train have its conductor, leaned back
>in his chair, feet OUT the window.
>
>I seen a crew member in the third loco of a train reading a
>paper.
>
>Also 2 via's had to stop to exchange papers, the enginner of
>one song old macdonald had a farm, his own version, over the
>radio. These things sound like what you'd see or hear on the old SP about 20 years ago. Plenty of bay window cabooses would pass with a conductor or brakeman in that position.......and once some crewmember got creativeand started playing on his harmonica, over the radio..."I've Been Working On The Railroad..."

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>>A couple of things:
>>
>>1. A CN fast freight raced by me. The conductor had his
>>legs up on his desk, and waved the train orders at me.
>>
>
>
>I seen a CN intermodal train have its conductor, leaned back
>in his chair, feet OUT the window. aah its the old Steel Plate or lunchbox on the pedal trick
-Dave, Secretary of the Scrap the SD60F federation!

Former ALCo Schenectady, NY shop switcher #5, in North Creek, NY

You can e-mail me at davej8010@aol.com -or- hrrc_7324@yahoo.com -or- feel free to aim me.

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Another good one was about 20 years or so ago, on the Southern Pacific main in Pomona, California.There is one main track, plus a very long passing siding. And about two short blocks off the main was a Bob's Big Boy restaurant.Westbound train pulls into the siding; crew is "dead on the law". They call the dispatcher who sends out another crew. The original crew says "We'll be over at Bob's eating." The new crew got to the train, pumped up the air and did their air test...and over the scanner is heard "Highball SP xxxx West" followed almost immediately by a HUGE explosion!!!Seems the crew that went "dead on the law" put a couple torpedoes under the caboose wheels, so the moment the thing started moving, KABLOOOOM!!!!And immediately after the explosion, a very nervous voice came over the scanner saying "Caboose to the xxxx West, your cousin put guns under the crummy!" (Followed then by lots of laughter coming from everywhere on the SP channel....)

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I found a pic (it may have been on this forum)of 3 UP engineers mooning the railfain from the cab of a Dash 9 someplace out west.

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LAST EDITED ON Jan-31-05 AT 09:44 PM (EST)

>I found a pic (it may have been on this forum)
>
>of 3 UP engineers mooning the railfain from the cab of a
>Dash 9 someplace out west. Actually it is a Photo-Shpped photo of a BNSF unit. The photo is as phony as a three dollar bill.If anyone knows about the interior of a Dash-9 cab, they'd know it was impossible to get into the position to expose their derrieres the way it's show in the photo, with the desktops on either side, etc.However, there is the annual "Mooning of the Amtrak" in Laguna Niguel, California every year...and they did have, on the website for the event, a photo of an Amtrak F40 passing with a full moon hanging out the side cab door. I understand Amtrak raised hell about the photo being there, so the webmasters removed it. (They probably also tried to remove the employee from their payroll, too.)http://www.moonamtrak.org is the site

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I've been flipped off by an engineer before . As well as a few of them comment on us foaming
Shane

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NYSW crews were famous for flippin' the bird to railfans.

"Hold tight,feel the drivers bite,hear the whistle moan.Engine rockin' to the left and right,vibratin' in my bones.Once the locomotive steals your soul,you got a Casey Jones!"---Ian"Lemmy"Kilmister

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I once saw a crewmember of a moving train (presumably the conductor) go out onto the locomotive's front deck just to toss a snowball at a stationary train parked on the local "loop" track as it passed it...Jonathan Nikiforovs.
Milepost 180, CP Belleville Sub.

Repainter for Yonder Locomotive Works.

"A crictic is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased - he hates all creative people equally." - Lazarus Long

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