The
summer of 1961 rolled in. I got a job at the SJ (Swedish State Railroad) railroad
maintenance shop in Karlshamn. It was a great place with all sorts of
sophisticated railroad equipment all around me.
I was
exposed to a prank, by the foreman, on my first day.
“Can you fix my radio?”
“I’ll try.”
I carried
it home and set to work with my soldering iron. He wanted it back the next
morning. I presented the newly repaired radio, not yet tested. It was set up in
the foreman's office and switched on.
There was
a hum, then a slowly ascending shriek and then – an explosion. The internal
transformer blew up in a good size cloud of sparks and smoke. Not a good start
for my mechanic's career.
I later
learned that that very same radio was booby trapped and had been “repaired” by
several new employees before me. I just managed to make the best explosion of
all. No harm befell me, even if it smelled a little of old fire-smoke in the
office for a few days.
One of my
tasks was to do regular maintenance inspections of the day liners. They were typically
coupled-up in three or four car sets. The maintenance was done inside the shop.
You had to dive into the interiors looking for the batteries, various dip
sticks and more.
Of course,
I learned to drive them too. Push the driver's handle forward – accelerate.
Pull it to the rear - brakes on. Simple.
Day-liner
trainset
Eventually
I became trusted to drive the train in-and-out for service, I’d drive it in,
then back it out after the service, change the rail-switch and drive forward to
park the train next to the service building.
This is
too boring, doing the same thing every day. Why not put some spice to it? Full
acceleration – mmm, we are really moving now. What you don’t know you often
learn the hard way. You cannot slam the brakes on a train. Then the wheels
lock. I didn’t know that yet. I was going at a good clip and applied, what I
thought, full braking.
What?
Nothing, nothing, no breaking. The barrier at the end of the track is getting
closer, now it is really close. I will hit the barrier, I will ruin a
multi-million-dollar train. I will die in the crumpled driver’s cabin.
My life
is over.
Then the
emergency brake took over. We stopped less than 15 mm from the barrier. I had
wetted my pants.
I only
then learned that you cannot slam the brakes, that would only lock the wheels.
The automatic brake limiter had done its job, slowing the train gradually
without locking the wheels. Nobody had observed my maneuvre and my pants
quickly dried that warm summer day. Lesson learned.
Don't
mess with what you don't understand.
Another job
of ours was to scrap some 40-year old lightweight day liners, designed for
speed. These had been used in the 1920's and 1930's to run in front of the
express trains, stopping at all stations and then taking off again before the
slower express train caught up.
Karlsson-car,
model 1933.
This one
had been towed in but we started the engine and practised driving it on a
little used service track. The driver sat in a bucket seat, strapped in with a
wide belt over the hips to be able operate the clutch with both feet.
Now, I
almost cried about what we had to do. After removing all the remaining gasoline
in the tanks (which we promptly poured into our own cars) and most of what had
any value, we poured gas over the interior, threw in a match and stood by. The
fire department was there, looking on as well.
A day
later, when it all had cooled down, we approached the remaining chassis with
cutting torches. A truck came from the local scrap yard and picked up the
steel, including the engine and transmission assembly.
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