Goodbye Transportation, Hello Signals

      So another chapter begins.  This week will be my last week as a train master, next week I will be back to the signal department as a signal construction engineer. Actually next week I will be on vacation, but I digress.  I am very excited to be back on the signal side, the signal department brings some great challenges and the technology tickles my brain in just the right way.  I am also looking forward to sleeping on most nights. Working all night is probably what I have had the hardest time with as a train master, I guess I am not as good as I once was. 

     My experience as a train master has been great and I have really learned a lot through this job, both personally and professionally.  On the professional side, I feel like I have learned that preventing fires is much easier than putting out fires.  On the personal side, the biggest thing I have learned is to shut up and listen.  There is tons of great information out there and you don't learn anything with your mouth open. I also know I probably need to work on that one some more.

     So now that that's out of the way lets talk about some of the other things that have been going on.  First I need to add something to my list of strangeness from my last post.  Ever have someone call in late because of exploding cantaloupes?  Yea, it happened.  There is only one large highway in Cumberland, and many of the guys use it to get to work, but when a cantaloupe truck catches fire, the cantaloupes heat up, the juice begins to boil, which creates steam and BOOM! exploding cantaloupes.  So for fear for their own life and the life of others, the fire department shut the entire highway down, causing a several mile back up in both directions.  The ensuing back up of course caused some folks to be late, so then you get, late for exploding cantaloupes.

      We also had a steam engine come in on a flat bed to go to the Western Maryland Railroad to be refurbished.  Wow there were a lot of really excited people out there about that thing.  Sorry foamer friends, I did not get any pictures.  Once it is refurbished I promise I will get a few pictures of it. 

     And just a few random things that I have come across.

 This is my new favorite meme

  

This is what the dispatcher writes when he doesn't know how to spell your name