An engineer’s life: Same song and dance

The song and dance routine

Working the North Pool was always one of my favorite pools to work. In this case a pool was a regulated number of assigned crews that rotated on what was known as a board. The first out crew was the next call and a crew that just tied up would be the last — meaning they work their way up the board. The North Pool worked out of Balmer Yard at the time of this story. Balmer was a former Great Northern Terminal north of downtown Seattle.

When I started working the North Pool as a young brakeman, the normal procedure was that I, as the head brakeman, would drop off at the White Rock, British Columbia Inspection rail office. The engineer would then pull the rest of the train up to spot the caboose and let the conductor off to manage the customs paperwork. The head brakeman would then walk the train to open plug door boxcars for customs inspection, that way the Canadian customs officer could look inside and ensure that the car was empty.

After the conductor and customs finished the paperwork, they would get into a golf cart, with the conductor driving and customs officer riding in the other seat, the rear brakeman would be standing on the back of the cart holding on with tools available to close the cars I had opened — plug doors must be close before movement.  I would be on the power again by this time. The conductor, rear brakeman, and customs would return in the cart to the office. On the power we waited for the highball from the caboose to leave customs.

This next part is from years later when I was working as a North Pool conductor. The day of this story I rode the power across the border into Canada — the golf cart days were long gone. I had a rear brakeman, who I will call Elmo. We both got off the power as we reached the White Rock Inspection rail office. At some point, my employer decided to start running trailer on flat car (TOFC) Intermodal service to Canada. A nice petite middle-aged woman from Canadian customs showed up and Elmo and I noticed she had a couple of crowbars in her hands. Elmo stood well over six feet and wore a navy peacoat with the collar pulled up, he looked more intimidating than me.

She looked at us and said, “I am old, slow, and short. If you see any bad guys, you whack him in the knees while I run for help.” Elmo and I exchanged looks, as both of us were trying to still look serious and not laugh aloud.

As we reached to rear of the train during inspection, we got to the TOFC cars. Low and behold there was a trespasser under one of the TOFC trailers just waking up. Our, nice customs officer let out a little shriek turned and ran for the office. I called the engineer to stop the train. We helped the man off of the car. As this man was climbing off the car, he looks out and says, “Is that Flathead Lake?”  I said, “No, that’s Boundary Bay — you’re in a foreign country.”

We explained to this individual that it was not Flathead Lake, which is apparently where he was trying to get to. I asked where he had boarded the train and he said, “A small yard near a great body of water.” I explained, “That is Bayside Yard, those trains go north. If you want to go east, walk to the other side of the hill, which is Delta Yard, those go east or south.” Elmo and I told the man to be cool with customs, and that they would take him up to customs, fingerprint him, and give him some hot soup. They’ll also help him get back to the United States, which at that point would be less than half a mile away.

So as Elmo and I are explaining all of this, a Canadian Immigrations officer shows up, he gets out of his patrol car and puts one elbow on the hood of his car and the other one on the door. All with an amused look on his face. I walked over to greet him, he breaks into a grin and says, “Let me guess, Flathead Lake again?” I replied, “Yes…”

Turns out the man was just giving Elmo and I the song and dance routine. The man knew exactly where he was at, and Immigrations knew who he was. They loaded him in the car, we gave the nice lady the crowbars back, and left town with the train. As I said, I loved working to North Pool.

Editor note: Pool Crew Base is the number of crews determined by volumes and agreements to protect traffic levels at specific terminals (UP’s Railroad Terms Glossary).

Check out previous column, “An engineer’s life: Hot Stove.”