Nobody and I mean nobody makes more mistakes on the railroad than a brand new outta the box conductor. Well this guy did a doozy! I think everyone know that the airhoses that conductors connect together between the cars when fully charged have 90 psi in em, its like 120 psi for Passenger, maybe 110. Anyway Richard was a fresh off the farm brakeman and still in his 90 day probation period. First day out on his own, he darn near killed himself right in front of the railroad headquarters building. He shoved a cut of cars into the yard and if I remember right there was 22 of em. He turned the angle cock between the engine and the cars and (because nobody was there to explain to him the pain he was about to feel) Bent over, grabbed trhe air hoses and busted em apart. The glad hands on those hoses are as big as a baseball and cast metal. And it popped Richard right in the lips. I think he got the message, like right now! The Enginner was an old head and had no idea what had happened, he looked out his window and seen Richard Passing out and falling down, then wakin up and trying to walk around with legs at that point made outta tissue paper. The engineer was wonderin what had happened and asked him what was he doin, It took him a minute to realize he was hurt. Funny thing though, They didnt fire him, instead, as politics would have it, they made a trainmaster out of him. Basically sayin to him, we dont want you to sue us so you just sit down in this chair right here and just stay put till you retire.
Interesting how things like that work out for some people. Back in the late 60's ... we had a guy wipe both main gears of a Boeing 707 on the north dike when he approached the end of the runway at Downtown KC not realizing that the nose of the Plane was 15-20 feet higher than the gear. He walked off the aircraft with coat and hat on as if nothing had happened ... thought he had just blown out tires. They made a Supervisor outta him.
