Ain't Nobody Humpin' Around

I took a picture of myself with the river in the background, but I didn't like it. You get this one instead. It's the river, it's got alot of water in it, and it's muddy. No newsflash there. I hit the ground running this morning, only to find out that the hump, of which I'm supposed to be studying, had been taken out of service to re-align the track leading up to the crest of the hump. I had some time to kill, so I went to lunch with a co-worker from Memphis. I wanted to go to Gus's, but he didn't have enough time to wait for chicken, so we went to a Mexican place called 'Happy Mexican'. At first, I thought it sounded like a Mexican place owned by a Chinese guy, then I thought it might be a gay place. After looking at the waitstaff, it might've been the latter. I had the shrimp chimichanga, and it was quite good. I checked into my hotel, more on that later, and tried to get some sleep. It was 1 PM by the time I got situated, and I had a wake-up call scheduled for 5PM. My thought was I could take a nap, get ready, and see some of the Cubs game before I had to be back. That didn't happen as I got a phone call at 4:30 and was awakened from my slumber. I stumbled around, got in the shower, and made my way back toward the yard. I did find some time to stop at Gus's (look at the picture; it's such a dive!!) and pick up some rations for the evening's events. The chicken strips made a nice supper, and I'm figuring the 8 pieces of chicken in a paper sack will hit the spot as a midnight snack. Afterall, you can't perform this kind of grueling service to the company on an empty stomach. I'm not sure what's on tomorrow's menu, possibly some kind of smoked pork product. Neely's is right around the corner from the yard. Don't worry Jarrod, I'm thinking Rendez-vous on Friday. I've got a couple of hours to kill before catching the train home.

Well, the hump got back up and running around 1930, and it's been white knuckle excitement ever since. I setup my laptop in front of a window next to the tracks. I've got a clipboard, and I'm recording the start and stop time for each cut of cars being humped. I'm also keeping up with any delays occur. The folks in Canada have a fancy formula for determining how many cars we should be able to hump. We're not humping that many cars, so we're trying to blow a hole in their formula....more or less. I'm including a little video clip so you can share in the fun. I recorded this outside. The dinging sound you hear is the wheels rolling over the retarders which are used to slow the cars so they don't get moving too fast. I'm inside, so the dinging isn't that loud, but you can still hear it. Oh well, more tomorrow. I get a free breakfast buffet with my room, so I'm sure there will be plenty to talk about and take pictures about. For now, enjoy the hump.