New Haven Railroad
During the 1950s
by Morley J. KelseyMarch, 1981
I was appointed Diesel Inspector on the New Haven Railroad in July, 1954 when Bill Harlow was General Mechanical Superintendent, Bob Hooper was Superintendent of Locomotive Maintenance and Dan Prendergast was Chief Inspector. The position was system and salaried. My headquarters was in Room 305 in the New Haven Station, a room also occupied by Ralph Nicholson, General Road Foreman of Engines; Andy Bridges, Chief Apprentice Instructor; Jim Steele and Jimmy Castaldo, both air brake men and Eddie O'Connor, who was the clerical brains of the outfit.
There were two Diesel Inspector rates at Boston and two at New Haven. The other New Haven rate was held by Art Wallace, but at the time he was on temporary assignment as resident inspector in the Pullman plant at Worcester, covering the order of ignitron MU cars then being built.
The duties of a Diesel Inspector might be divided as follows: regular office duty, extra office duty, instructing at outlying points, trouble-shooting, riding locomotives for routine evaluation, riding VIP and other important trains and doing jobs no one else wanted.
Regular office duty consisted of answering phones and keeping records such as locomotive battery sheets, graphs on engine lubricating oil condition based on spectrographic analysis reports from the laboratory, material records, train delay analysis sheets and others.
Extra office duty was making up locomotive delay reports on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays when no clerical forces were on duty, answering phones and doing what research was needed, and being generally helpful in the office. In times of severe cold weather, blizzards, hurricanes, etc. the office was kept open 24 hours a day and we handled the chore from 5:00 PM to 8:00 AM when the office was normally closed. This duty included answering phones, keeping a log of problems and events, calling in extra help if needed and working with other departments on joint problems.
To me, trouble-shooting was the most interesting duty. One Monday morning at 4:00 AM I received a call to get over to New London by train where a car inspector would be waiting with the company truck to take me to Putnam. The 500 series unit stationed there had refused to start for a midnight assignment. At Putnam the temperature was 29 degrees, the engine stone cold and the batteries dead. The 0800 on hand was running, but if I jumpered the batteries to the 500 (jumpers were standard equipment on the truck) I stood a good chance of burning a post off the small battery in the 0800 without cranking the big engine fast enough and long enough to start it.
The steam generator in the 500 was servicable, but I needed both battery power and compressed air to get it running. I jumpered the batteries which gave me a little charge into the 500 and juice enough to run the steam generator. Meanwhile the car inspector had found an old rubber hose and we jury-rigged some connections and got air into the 500. I was fortunate that this was the time when the immersion type engine block heaters were being replaced with straight-away frost valves. The frost valves had been installed, but the immersion heater was still in place, giving me two ways to get heat into the engine block. Once I had the steam generator running there was nothing to do but wait. Finally I judged the engine warm enough to start and the engine crew had reported. I had the engineer crank the engine from the cab while I put a monkey wrench on the engine governor out-put shaft to help out. I figured that when the engine fired off I would be plastered with cold wet carbon from the engine stack, and I was.
One evening I was sent to New London to start a 500 which had stumped the machinist on duty. Upon arriving, I did not see the machinist, so I climbed up on the engine and checked lube oil, water, governor, etc. At the tachometer generator I found the engine overspeed switch tripped and reset it. Up in the cab, I cranked the engine and it fired right off. Just then, the machinist showed up, much embarassed that I had started the engine so quickly. Normal 8th notch speed was 1000 RPM, and the overspeed switch, incorporated in the tach generator housing, was set to open the governor clutch coil circuit and shut the engine down at 1100 RPM's. On units 0500-0516 the overspeed reset itself once the engine speed dropped, but on the 517 and up the switch locked out mechanically and had to be reset by hand. The machinist was not aware of this set-up, but probably never forgot it thereafter.
Another time there was an 0400 series "B" unit which was continually reported for low power. The engine house people at Cedar Hill hadn't found anything on the pit, so it was either ride the unit on the road or put it on the water box at New Haven for a load test. Ride was easier, so I was sent to ride it on an early evening job to Springfield. It was made the fourth unit on a three unit job so that if I failed to correct the problem they could still go right along. Once out on the main line at North Haven with the throttle in the eighth notch my engine bogged right down to about second notch speed. Everything checked OK with the engine governor and racks, and electrically. The fuel pressure gauge on the EC panel showed the normal 40 PSI, but I still suspected low fuel, so I disconnected the gauge and got no oil from the pipe, but found the gauge stuck at 40. I then disconnected the airequip hose from the engine side of the klipfel valve and got only a trickle of oil. Next I found the adjustment inside the klipfel valve jammed. Using my screw driver for a chisel and the monkey wrench (standard equipment on all locos) for a hammer, I finally got the valve to put out a good flow of oil. Soon I had things back together, the engine restarted and up to the eighth notch speed with good amps showing. When I got to the head cab, we were just north of Berlin. I went as far as Springfield and as we had no further trouble, dropped off and got No. 97 back to New Haven. I was happy, for I had the chance of a night's sleep, and the engineer, Danny Hogan, was happy, for he had an extra unit in his consist.
One snowy day I was sent to Reed's Gap with Johnny Christofani, traveling electrician, as both 500's on the Air Line Local had died. The leading unit had a defective turbo due to the insulating material breaking up and getting into the wheel. This unit was headed for the shop. The second unit had a fuel pump failure, which I found due to the series resistor becoming open circuited. Johnny swung the bottom lead on the resistor to the top and the job finished the day with one unit working and one dead-heading.
One afternoon New Haven put one of the 0760's on train No. 402 because there was no 500 available. Going to New London they had repeated ground relay action and I was sent over to have a look. At New London I was told the hostler had taken the engine to Groton to turn it for train No. 401 in the AM, and that he was stuck there. I walked over to Groton and found that the ground relay had tripped again and the contacts fused together so that the engine would not take power even though the ground relay looked to be reset. I freed the contacts and cleaned them up with sand paper which I always had in my pad. Back in New London, I found the No. 3 main motor (on the New Haven we did not call them traction motors until forced to by Bill Baker in 1956) badly flashed over with a rough commutator and broken brushes. I cut out the pair of motors, but New Haven was afraid to let the unit run on No. 401 with only two motors working and send a DER-1 over to handle the job.
The week I started as Diesel Inspector, a New York newspaperman who rode No. 28 every Friday evening from Grand Central to Providence enroute to his summer cottage, published a nasty article about the train being late every Friday. I was assigned to ride No. 28 on Fridays from then on. The first week I received the order too late to get to Grand Central but caught the job at Stamford. He was nine minutes late with twelve cars and an EP-2 on the head end. We dropped more time to New Haven. My report resulted in a big motor on the job thereafter. From New Haven east, we went right along with a pair of 0760's. Only once while riding this assignment did I have any trouble. On that trip, when leaving New London the shunter in the rear unit stuck during its run-down when transferring from series to parallel, thus preventing the unit from taking power. I pulled the shunter amphenol plug, and cranked the shunter down by hand. We then went along with both series and parallel operation but no field shunt. We made our time.
The law in Connecticut required that Public Utilities Commission representatives inspect every bit of track in the State once each year. This was done with an RDC poking along at six mph. I was sent along as MechanicalDepartment representative and to watch the operation of the car. Another annual riding assignment was the Yale-Harvard boat race train. The train deadheaded out of Water Street yard in New Haven with a pair of diesels on the head end and a light pair following behind. In the clear at Waterford, the light diesels tied onto the rear of the train, and after brake tests, the train moved into the station at New London to load passengers. When the race was rowed downstream, we followed along on the New Haven trackage (east side of the river) and dashed out onto the bridge in time to view the finish. When the race was rowed upstream, we followed along on the Central Vermont trackage (west side of the river). The pair of engines on the head end in the direction of travel did the work, while those on the rear went along for the ride. The purpose of riding jobs such as this was to prevent trouble with the engines, and find it quickly if it should happen.
The Zoo Trains all had Mechanical Department riders, and I caught the Springfield train when it ran. This meant a 3:30 AM report at Water Street in New Haven to look the engine over. About 4:00 AM we left for Springfield and by 6 AM were backed around into the station and waiting for passengers. At Van Nest, we slowly headed into the yard and the passengers transferred to buses for the short ride to the Bronx Zoo. Then we backed out and ran down into Oak Point yard. Here I always dashed up to Jack's on 149th Street for corned beef sandwiches and coffee. Back in the yard, the units were run around the train and the seats turned for the trip back to Springfield, where we unloaded a bunch of tired and often crabby kids. Then we rode the equipment to New Haven, arriving about 2 AM Sunday morning.
Platform duty was assigned at times of heavy passenger travel, such as the days before and after major holidays. Men were stationed on station platforms and in some cases in towers to assist in keeping trains on schedule. I usually was sent to New London. When a train came in I would make a quick check on the running gear. If there was trouble I would go along to try to clear it up.
Other stand-by duty was assigned as necessary. In July, 1955 a major storm was predicted and I was assigned to the tower at Old Saybrook to assist in case of engine failures in that area. It rained and blew all night, and it was only the machine that kept the tow tower from blowing over. In the morning a pair of light engines out of Boston, with Ralph Nicholson and a signal supervisor aboard, came along and I came back to New Haven. The service has been suspended for a time, but on our arrival in New Haven, things went back to normal. Also, in July 1955, the Federal derailed in the 30 MPH curve west of the Bridgeport station. I was on vacation, but was called in and sent to Danbury to supervise power changes on the trains diverted from the main line. Later I was sent to East Bridgeport and to Greens Farms for the same purpose.
There were many interesting aspects to being a Diesel Inspector. One time I had a visiting railroad man from Czechoslovakia in tow for two days showing him our diesel shops and other facilities. He spoke English very well and was an interesting person.