Oklahoma Jack

Two man motor car, a nice way to see the railroad...unless a train is coming!

I was twenty-three years old and the Santa Fe Railroad had seen fit to promote me to a Student Foreman's position in hopes of training me for a first line supervisor's job. It was 1972 and only my second year with The Railroad so I had a lot of learning to do. I was sent from job to job over Texas and Oklahoma with each job being different and not staying in one location long enough to become comfortable. It amazed me that there were so many unique personalities across The Railroad with so much to offer on one hand and so much to forget on the other.

          

One such personality was an old head Track supervisor in Oklahoma by the name of Jack. There was also a Track Supervisor in North Texas whose name was Jack, so this fellow was known as Oklahoma Jack. I had been assigned to work with him account he had suffered an injury to his back, or possibly his knees. It has been a few years ago, but I do recall he was hampered by an injury of some type.

          

Oklahoma Jack patrolled the track between Ardmore, Oklahoma and Purcell, Oklahoma inspecting track and managing the work force within that area. At this time the track supervisors patrolled the track in motorcars. These motorcars would only run on the track and had room for two riders and a few hand tools. It had a windshield in front but was open on both sides and the back, and had a metal roof. One man could set the motor car off and on the track, but, because Jack was injured, they assigned me to him to set the motor car on and off as needed and to learn about his job, his responsibilities and the art of track inspection.

          

Oklahoma Jack was a fascinating man. I was amazed by his intellect concerning not only The Railroad, but of all things in general. I recognized very quickly that this was a man that I could learn from and possibly use as a model for some of my own railroad techniques. He was very quick to point out that his formal education had ended in the eighth grade but that he had supplemented his education by reading everything he could get his hands on every day of every week of every year. He would very quickly deny that he was intelligent, but would always say, "I'm really not all that smart, but I am very well informed". I quickly became very close to Jack and trusted his every word and action.

          

One cool crisp morning Jack and I were patrolling track in the motorcar traveling northbound coming into Paul's Valley, Oklahoma. As we came around a long curve we could see for several miles ahead of us because of the straight track heading up a hill into Paul's Valley. I looked ahead and could see a train headlight coming over the hill moving southbound. I quickly looked over at Jack, tapped his arm and pointed ahead to the engine headlight. He looked ahead and nodded an acknowledgement. I felt us pick up speed as he moved the throttle to the full speed position. Going uphill with two men aboard, the motorcar would only move at about thirty-five MPH. Trains operated in that location at fifty-five MPH.

          

As we chugged up the hill the headlight of the train got larger by the second. I would look at the train then look at Jack, then look at the train and back to Jack. Even as the train got closer, Jack was calm and didn't seem to be overly concerned. I, on the other hand was getting a little nervous. I didn't know much, but I did know that there was only two places that a motorcar could be set off the track properly. One was at a road crossing and the other was a motorcar setoff pad built at strategic locations for setting motorcars off the track. I also knew that there were no road crossings immediately ahead of us but that there was a motorcar set off at the depot in Paul's Valley.

          

The train came closer and still Jack kept his hand on the throttle and appeared completely calm. Then I began to think Jack knew something that I didn't. Either the train was going to stop for some reason or it was going to take the switch to a branch line heading out of town on another track. There had to be a reason that Jack didn't appear to be worried. We continued toward the train and it toward us. The headlight looked as big as a washtub but I felt Jack knew what he was doing.

          

As we approached the motorcar setoff Oklahoma Jack pulled the throttle back to stop and slammed the brake lever into the maximum stop position. We skidded to a stop perfectly at the motorcar setoff and as Jack dismounted the motorcar he shouted, "Set her off Beck!". I slid out of my seat grabbed the handles in the rear of the motorcar, picked up the rear of the car, spun the car around and with all my strength shoved the motorcar off the track. Within what seemed like only seconds, the train blew by us with the engine horns blowing continuously. You could smell the heat from the train brakes in emergency application as the first two thirds of the train rolled past us before coming to a stop.

          

I turned and looked at Jack just as he turned toward me. There was a completely different expression on his face, a look of relief. I said, "Damn Jack!", and he just sat down shaking his head and said, "Yep, that was pretty

close!". He then said something about me doing a good job of keeping my head. I remember thinking I really didn't realize until the last few seconds that there was a reason to lose my head.

          

We had been given bad information by the train dispatcher. He had told us that there would be no trains southbound for another hour and a half out of Purcell. He had overlooked the fact that this train had already left Purcell when we talked. Oklahoma Jack walked straight to a phone and called the train dispatcher and gave him one of the worst chewings without using profanity that I had ever heard. The dispatcher admitted his mistake, apologized and said that he had already turned himself in to the Chief Dispatcher.

          

I'm not sure what I learned that day. I know that if it hadn't been for Oklahoma Jack and the confidence that I had in him, there would have been a perfectly good motorcar destroyed that day because I would have abandoned ship pretty much as soon as I saw the headlight. Jack was a good man and I used a lot of what he taught me for most of my almost forty years of service with The Railroad. There was one thing that I did learn on my own about setting a motorcar off the track -- you don't need to be at a road crossing or a motorcar setoff to get a motor car off the track if you are scared enough, but that's another story.