Something you won't see every day...(except me)

[Paul]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP_McSupIFE

A little someting I shot at work awhile ago.

Instructions:
1. Click on link. 
2. Turn volume WAY up.
3. Sabbrets always an option.

[Lirr168]

Just wondering, Paul: how loud is that in person?  Does cranking up the speakers even come close to doing it justice?

[Paul]

If you can crank out a little more than 100Db out of your speakers, yes...but it won't have the sub-sonic tones that make you feel it.. Much better if you are up close and personal.

[Lirr168]

If you can crank out a little more than 100Db out of your speakers, yes...but it won't have the sub-sonic tones that make you feel it.. Much better if you are up close and personal.

Wow is all I can say...

Probably not the best thing for your hearing, but I'd have to say that would pretty damn cool to see and hear in person. 

[Paul]

U.. requires us to wear hearing protection within 100' of a running locomotive. I normaly wear only ear plugs however, when I am load testing I wear both ear plugs and head muffs. Yes, it's loud and these things have exhaust silencers on them, unlike the old Alco and EMDs.

[LirrConductor]

yeah after 33 years on the rr all I can say is  what?

[Dave Keller]

My first partner in Jakobsen Shipyard was an old-time shipfitter named Freddie.

He was almost blind as a stone from tack welding and burning without eye protection and was almost deaf as one as well, from all his years of grinding and hammering inside the hull of tugboats without ear protection.

The first day on the job with him, I didn't know any better and he had me grinding in a bilge.

When I got home that night I couldn't hear squat.  Everything was muffled.  The next day, I went into the foreman's office and got earplugs.

Freddie saw them and asked "Why're ya wearin' those things?  You'll get used ta the noise!"

Dopey sod didn't know he wasn't getting used to the noise, he was having nerve-damage deafness.

They called him "Magoo" like Mr. Magoo, because he was just as blind and did all sorts of stupid stuff that got other people hurt but not him.  He was the kind of guy who'd walk off a scaffold and, instead of falling, step on someone's hard-hat as they were passing by and continue on the next scaffolding without ever realizing he almost went off into space!

We all had a laugh once when he tried to strike an arc with his stinger and was cursing up a storm because nothing was happening. 

Freddie!  You're trying to strike an arc on a block of wood!!!  :-)

Ah . . . . . . memories!  And now Jake's is a memory as well . . . . .probably Magoo, too . . .

Dave

[Paul]

Huh?  I once knew a boiler maker who's hands would shake like there was no tomorrow...give him a slug of his favorite poison and you wouldnt believe how wonderfull his welds were!

[Dave Keller]

My father told me about a gold-leafer he knew during the depression.  The guy would pin-stripe gold-leaf on machinery . . . something that was quite popular at the end of the 1800s into the early 1900s.

The guy was a drunk and shook like a leaf.  The boss would give him a couple of shots before work and the guy would pin-stripe gold-leaf with the steadiest of hands . . .

go figure.  It would amaze everybody in the work crew.

Dave

[LirrConductor]

 
Kind of like the RR ran better before alcohol tests!!!! 

[Paul]

Kind of like the RR ran better before alcohol tests!!!! 

In many ways yes it did however, considering the Chase Md wreck and other 'high impact" incidents involving drugs and alcohol, I am glas it's cleaned up. Nothing like working my side of the drop table and my partner who is speeding away on meth on his decides to lower the table before i am finished and in the clear. I damn near went over the edge and it's a thirty foot drop to the bottom of the pit. Needless to say, I never worked with him again after that. He ultimatley put some units on the ground (ran'em over a derail) and tested hot. He lost his job instead of going through one of the many detox programs the rr offers. Oh well. Glad I dont ever have to work with him again.

And yet, I think of fondly the time the Machinist's LC and his cronies call me into the tool room to have a drink of hootch. It was made clear I didnt have a choice so I partook of the adult beverages. Sometimes, ya' gotta roll with the flow.

[LirrConductor]

oh yeah no doubt it is better now. The manditory tests saved the lives of some people. I remember one time I was watching these guys drink some "moonshine" one of them brought back from the south. One of them tried to pour some in a styrofoam cup, and the stuff ate right through the cup and  disolved the cup! I am NOT making this up! Imagine putting that in your stomach!!