Cafe Einstein: LPTP # X V

Good morning on this fine but muggy Sunday morning, I trust everyone is up and ready for the F1 GP of Spain today!

Happy Mother's Day!!! :-)

I'm not entirely sure I did.

On Friday, they took us up to the 6th floor in the elevator, but then we had to go all the way down to the basement by stairs, making a couple of complete loops of the square-block building as we went. Then we went a couple of blocks out into a tunnel, and then a couple more blocks, and then a block at a right angle, and up a ramp to track level, and then back down the ramp and most of those blocks back the way we came, and then up a flight of stairs to track level again, and then finally back to the concourse, where of course I then wandered about some more to visit the euphemism and get something cool to drink and sit down for a bit, and then walk another five blocks back to the subway (because I misread the schedule and missed my train directly into the station) and down a flight (which I had gone up several hours earlier).

The railroads long ago moved their offices out of the upper floors up Union Station, with all its male-employees-only architecture (rather than matching men's and women's restrooms as we know them now, these offices had "piss closets" spaced all over. Just a very small room with a urinal, many without even a sink. The reason they're tearing it all out now is that the City of Chicago passed an ordinance requiring all older buildings to be retrofitted with fire sprinklers by the end of 2015. And of course, once they start tearing into the wall, ceilings, floors to install the sprinkler pipes, they're disturbing asbestos, so that has to be abated. So they might as well just tear everything out and make the space ready for some prospective tenant to move in and partition it however they want.

Friday night, I learned of an open house at the Canadian National training center in Homewood, so I went to that, which involved more walking. Got a few minutes on a diesel locomotive simulator and a crane simulator.

Sunday I got in some training as conductor on the diesel coach train. If I can get back to this post within my editing time, I'll post links to the euqipment we had. I made four stops with the tailhose and never put it in emergency, though, so that was good.

[edit]
BN 5383 has a really good compressor, so you have to release lots of air to stop it from the tailhose.
C&NW 7700 used for the first run of the day because we had a passenger in a wheelchair (we have a hand-crank lift we can wheel over).
A pair of Rock Island commuter coaches, not sure which specific ones, we have a bunch. Kept one locked all day and loaded everybody in the rear car.

[edit2]
My original point: my feet and legs are killing me today, and my arms aren't much better.

Why hasn't someone creative made this into an air or electric powered one yet? You have plenty of air on a train and electricity too, as long as it self locks, to prevent sudden descents as it goes up and down, it would be a lot easier. Plug it in and you're good to go.

I would not have made it after all that walking, my feet hurt even when just sitting down. I can power thru the pain for a bit, but definitely pay the price afterwards. I have some old timey looking ice bags with screw on tops I got online and they always travel with me everywhere I go, almost everyplace has an ice machine someplace.

The lift is basically the same thing Amtrak uses at most of their stations other than major terminals (and even some of those). To use air would require fitting the car with a decidedly inaccurate (historically) connection by the baggage door. And with the exception of the Nebraska Zephyr and the C&NW bilevels, electricity is NOT something we have on the loco-hauled cars. Some of the cars still had functioning generators and batteries when they first arrived at the museum, but these have looooong since quit working and been disconnected (removed in the case of the batteries; don't want acid leaking all over the place). We just purchased a steam generator car with the idea that eventually we can do winter operations with the cars steam heated, but this will require years to A: restore the steam car to function; and B: inspect the steam lines in the coaches and repair the inevitable leaks. Anyway, the steam car also has a small electrical generator, but it's only intended to operate lights and perhaps a PA system, not heavy loads.

I can usually handle the pain, but for some reason my steel toed shoes cause excruciating pain in my big toes. Even if I change to my regular shoes at the end of a day at the museum, my toes still kill me. They still hurt now, two days later. Even barefoot, they hurt some. I need to see a podiatrist about this.

And it's not that the steel shoes are pressing on my toes, either. They have plenty of room to move around in there. I've tried padding them, but it didn't help.