https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... na-museum/
I recall an article in Trains magazine years ago, I believe by Dan Ranger, telling the story of his being a fireman on the SP allowed to pull cars out of a refinery on a downgrade and losing it due to oil on the rail, with the unit ending up with flat spots on the wheels, and all the shenanigans they went through to try to hide them, so a sand tower at a refinery is not surprising.
Edit: fixed name.

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Could be, it was around 35 years ago I believe.

I believe Dan worked for a time out of Port Costa. He would have had the Shell refinery in Martinez to switch. That refinery had one lead up to a set of racks that was about a 2% grade as I recall.

The story as I heard it was that the EJ&E had a yard and engine facility next to the BP Refinery property there in Whiting. BP needed to expand for some reason and the EJ&E obliged by moving the yard and locomotive facility. That original sand tower was left in place, now on BP property, but no longer used. Good that it is now being donated to the Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum, which can certainly utilize it.

Les

The story sticks in my head because of the details he told, about tips he had received from old heads, the story of the incident, of the attempted coverup, and then what happened in the investigation. He said a respected supervisor told him once when he was just starting as a fireman that if he ever was in a situation where the brakes wouldn't hold the train and he started to slide to put the engine in reverse, apply sand, and open the throttle. So when the engineer on the refinery switcher let him run it and they started to slide, he put the engine in reverse, applied sand and opened the throttle. But the engineer just saw the throttle part and said "we want to slow down not speed up" and they sort of wrestled with the throttle and brakes until the engineer locked up the engine brakes and it caused the flat spots. They then paid someone (with alcohol) in the shop at night to put abrasive brake shoes on the unit (called "red slippers") which would correct minor flat spots, and a day shift engineer (also with alcohol) to ride the brakes, but he did it so much that it caused thermal cracks in what was a fairly new set of wheels on an Alco S-series switcher. So the fireman and engineer ended up in a hearing in which they both expected to be fired. Dan Ranger thought that both of them shouldn't face firing, so at the start he said of the engineer "this man shouldn't be here it was my fault, he didn't know what I was doing". The investigator asked why he had put it in reverse, Dan Ranger told him what the supervisor had told him and who it was, one investigator looked at the other and said "Rule (such and such) sand" which Dan Ranger and the Engineer didn't even know was a rule, the two investigators went into an office, came back out and said "you two have caused the SP Railroad a lot of money, but we can't fault you for following the rules" and let them go without any time off. Dan Ranger said he and the engineer walked out stunned not knowing what happened. That story has always stuck with me.

It sounds like the crew might have had job insurance. In those cases, the company often figured that the best way to punish somebody was to not let them collect on it.

I just now looked through all of my saved emails between Dan & I. While he did not tell of that particular adventure, there were plenty of others, involving both steam and diesel.

Like the late Karl Koenig (they were close friends), he was a great narrator of stories. I was blessed to have him as a friend and break me in on steam. We spent many hours together boiling water.

Concerning the donated 1954-built sand tower, HVRM is looking for:

1. Manufacturer

2. Operating information

3. Engineering drawings/prints

Also, any in service photos of the tower, or sister towers, would be helpful.

How many museums actually have working metal sand towers from this era?


Les