Highballing in the cab of SP 9809 EAST on May 26, 1996

Meier and Balsa keep warm and out of the rain riding an eastbound piggyback on a BACIT (Bay Area to City of Industry Intermodal) consist from Oakland to San Luis Obispo!

I was really anticipating an eventful weekend in San Luis Obispo. It had been several months since I had been back in town since graduating in June 1995.

Now that I had a job in the real world, responsibility started to set in.

However, the wanderer inside me was still itching to take a ride, even after 10 months of doing the eight-to-five thing.

The company that hired me had taken to my adventurous attitude and riding freights was something that inadvertantly arose in my first interview with the CEO of a small, but on the rise, electronics company in Southern California.

"So Mr. Daniels, it says here that you are interested in 'Railroading.' Are you into big trains or little trains?"

"I like big trains!"

"Really? Did you ever ride one over the hill?"

Now, in San Luis Obispo, there is a grade just north of town called "Cuesta Grade." It was customary for me and my group of friends to ride freights over the hill for a quick, short and sweet joy ride that allowed us to get back to class or to our part time jobs or, more commonly, back to a party in a jiffy. We would say "hey, let's take a ride over the hill...".

I was a bit startled by this question posed by the casually-dressed CEO.

Was he possibly talking about riding FREIGHTS over the Cuesta? If this guy could control my destiny, my ability to work for a company and make great money....this is a risky question to answer honestly.

I took a chance...

"Yeah, I have!" I exclaimed, a wide and earnest smile sweeping across my face. If I was going to go down, might as well show my true feelings for riding the rails--it is such a blast and was all I could think about in those days. So, my face showed it.

Without any hesitation, the CEO replied, "Oh man, I used to do that, too, with my wife, when we attended school here in SLO!"

Ding, ding, ding! The bonus points were scored, I was hired two more interviews later.

The job I was hired for dealt with travelling around the world, something I had never done before. However, the very traits learned riding the rails were easily applied to this type of job. Learning to adapt to harsh environments and surviving in unexpected places with very little more than the clothes on your back.

So, even though I was enjoying my travels with my new company, I was ready for a return to San Luis Obispo and to ride a freight train.

Arriving in town late on a Friday night, we went to the SLO depot to look for one to ride over the hill to the Union Crossover in Santa Margarita.

No trains arrived that night. We were out there until 3AM.

Sunday morning, we went to the depot again.

A long train was parked next to the station. There was something strange about this train. Its tail end was near the west end of the depot, while the head-end was nowhere to be seen around the bend going east. We figured that the head end, might be somewhere near Sinsheimer Park or even as far as Orcutt Road.

The usual trick was to simply walk up to the SP office and ask the crew when they were going to take off. However, the door was closed and the light inside was off, indicating that nobody was around.

We drove down to the head end of the train, a good mile or so down the line. Sure enough, the head unit was all the way down near Orcutt Road and there were three units, elephant style on the point of this consist.

We went to lunch at a restaurant near the depot.

After lunch, we returned to the depot. Once again, we noticed that the office was closed and the lights were still out. After about 30 minutes of standing around, the Renzenberger van pulled up to the depot. Two crew members walked out and started doing their duties in the office, with the door open.

We milled about outside the office for a good forty-five minutes. One of the crew members stepped out of the office, looking concerned. He looked at the parking lot and at the road. Then he shook his head. He said something to the other crew member and it sounded like they were looking for transportation.

So, I said, "Excuse me, sir. Do you guys possibly need a ride to the head-end of the train?"

A tall dark hair, slender and pocked face man in blue overalls and a tan shirt came out. He said, "Why, yes, we do! We don't get paid unless we are on the road, and we would have to wait another 45 minutes for the Renzenberger to come back, because they are picking up another crew down near Nipomo."

So, we piled into my small Hyundai Excel. The engineer introduced himself, "My name is Louis Smith, engineer. This is my conductor."

"Nice to meet you guys."

We made some small talk about family. The conductor recently married a gal from Thailand. He was looking forward to getting back to LA to be with her. Smith was from the Los Angeles area and had a family, wife and kids.

Out of the blue, during the drive to Orcutt Road, Smith says, "Are you boys going to RIDE our train today?"

A smile came to my face and I said slyly, "Yeah, we were thinkin' about it."

The engineer said, "OK that's cool. Just let us know where you are heading so that we know when you guys are on or off the train."

"Sure no problem. We were thinking of going to Santa Barbara."

I turned onto Orcutt and made an unorthodox left, just prior to the grade crossing into a dirt area adjacent to the tracks. This area is usually only used by railroad vehicles, but I enjoyed driving there in this situation to bring our guests directly from door to door.

"Thanks for the ride guys!" the conductor said, as he exited the car.

The engineer looked at me and said, "Hey, would you like to see the locomotive and even start it up?"

I was flabbergasted! "Sure! I would LOVE to!"

So, four of us hobos jumped up onto the locomotive and waited for the two crew members to settle in and get things ready.

After about five minutes, the engineer said "follow me." We walked out onto the catwalk and he opened one of the doors on the side of the locomotive.

He spoke quickly, and showed me the levers and switches that must be thrown.

Then he said "Go ahead! Do it!"

So, I fired up this unit, SP 9809, which is a SD70M. The bowels of the machine rumbled to life.

"Here, so you don't forget how to do it..." He flipped me a handbook. I looked at the cover and it was a guide on how to operate your new SD70M locomotive!

We stepped down from the locomotive and the four of us were talking about which car we were going to ride. We had scoped out a couple of rib-sided well cars about mid-train. They had the 40 foot containers, so it would mean we had a nice area to sit back and enjoy the ride.

The engineer and conductor were busy doing their preparations for the trip.

Suddenly, the conductor came out. "Hey, since it's Memorial Day and all, the engineer and I thought it would be OK if you guys sat back in one of the slave units. You have to make sure to stay low in towns, and we have some work to do down in Guadalupe. So, during that time, be sure to stay low. Can you guys do that?"

"YESSIR!"

"Yeah, I bet you guys never got to ride a locomotive, eh?" Said the conductor.

We actually had been on several rides in the cabs on previous rides, playing cat and mouse with engineers. We did not want to offend the conductor, especially in light of his kind gesture, so we replied "No, what a treat!" The reality was that we had never been INVITED to ride on a locomotive, so this was a rare event!

I parked the car by the tracks and we worked our way, stealthily, into the third unit. We stayed low, just as the conductor had asked. Our engine rumbled and smelled of diesel. There were some water bottles inside, so we sipped on some water provided by Southern Pacific for their crews and occasionally for tramps like us.

Several minutes passed. Finally, the sound that hobos love...the air being applied.

Highball!

Off we went. Past the airport, out into the Edna Valley. We were really picking up speed. We got the nerve to stand up and see what was going on...

Down through Price canyon, over the trestle, under the 101, along the beach. Now, we were in the fields just south of Nipomo. All of a sudden, Guadalupe appeared up ahead. We ducked down again, in case someone might spot us.

The train stopped. They made a series of moves to cut out some cars and to pick up some others.

We spent about thirty minutes at Guadalupe, moving back and forth, getting rocked by couplers crashing into each other, hearing air being connected and disconnected.

Finally, we started moving again in the direction of Santa Barbara.

We were just leaving Guadalupe, when we spotted the conductor running from the point toward our unit. We got down out of sight. He came into our locomotive and said, "Hey, thanks for staying low guys. I couldn't see you when I was doing the work in Guadalupe."

Then, he said it..."By the way, the engineer says he's bored and wanted some company up in the head-end. Once we get going here, he said to come on up front."

I gasped and gasped. "What? He's going to let us come up front?"

"Sure!"

"Wow, that sounds AWESOME!!!!"

The conductor went back up to the point and had told us to wait a few minutes to ensure we were out of sight of roads and towns. It was still daylight, with the sunset about another hour or so away.

We waited impatiently. Finally, I set out through the front door and made my way to the point. I have always been afraid of heights, and walking on a locomotive's cat walks while in motion at 50MPH was no cake walk. Luckily, I had my gloves on, otherwise, the sweat would have been pooling out of my hands.

I opened the back door to the front locomotive and the engineer and conductor wheeled around and said "Welcome aboard!!"

I walked into an environment that was unfamiliar to me. I had ridden locomotives before. This was very different. The SDMAC70 was a brand new unit in 1996. This thing was spotless and filled with electronics. Not like a lot of the locomotives I had ridden previously, which were filled with analog gauges and were filthy from floor to ceiling. Wow, this thing was brand new.

The engineer showed me a lot of the controls and their functions. He allowed me to blow the whistle at an unmarked grade crossing at the north end of Vandenburg Airforce Base.

We rumbled through the base, seeing the Titan and Atlas launch pads on our left and the white-washed surf on our right. Point Sal stood proudly protruding from the coast behind us over our right shoulders, a Northern guard of Vandenburg's secrets. Minutes later, we were cruising by Slick Six, the billion dollar launch pad the military had built for their two space shuttles. I had toured that facility ten years earlier, just prior to the Challenger disaster, which effectively ended the chance that Slick Six would ever be used for Space Shuttle launches.

We passed Point Arguello and its lighthouse. Around the corner, we pulled into the hole to wait for an Amtrak. As we stopped, the conductor said, "C'mon, let's throw the switch." We hopped out of the unit and threw the switch. In the hole, the Amtrak flew by us.

We proceeded on. Past Point Conception. Finally, the engineer started thinking about Santa Barbara, our destination, but not necessarily his, as this crew was slated to go all the way into LA. He said, "Man, there's this great Mexican restaurant right by where we usually stop. If you guys decide to eat there, tell Maria, we said 'Hi!'"

The sun dipped into the Pacific, just off the coast. The trestles in the Gaviota to Refugio area glowed orange/red with the ever-descending sunlight. We continued to feel the energy of the locomotive and could hear the clickety-clack of the wheels beneath us. The headlights started to light the scenery around us, making it clear as day directly in front of us. The greatest sight I had seen yet on a freight train was this vantage point--looking straight out the front of the locomotive at the track curving and winding in front of us. This was a view I had never seen before.

The radio suddenly started squawking..."SP 9809 East, you are authorized to proceed 8 blocks east from Santa Barbara to Camarillo."

My heart sank. Oh, man, Camarillo is a good hour's drive past Santa Barbara! How in the heck could we get back to SLO from Camarillo? We could for sure find someone to drive us from Santa Barbara to SLO, but not Camarillo. That was just TOO FAR.

I said, "Man, they just cleared you guys all the way through to Camarillo!"

The engineer winked at me and said, "Don't worry about it. We can still find a way to stop in Santa Barbara!"

I just laughed out loud astonished that they would stop this mile-long behemoth chunk of metal just for us to get off the train! This was a first class ride all the way.

Sure enough, the brakes were applied and we quickly slowed down. There is a distinct smell when the engineers stop a train and they were really hitting this one hard. Finally, the train came to a stop. We shook hands and thanked the crewmen for such a great ride and moseyed on down. As the train stopped, we noticed we were right at a grade crossing. As soon as we jumped down, the train was rolling again. We waved as they passed by.

We watched that train go off into the distance. It had to move quickly or else the 5 cars that were waiting at the crossing would have had to sit there for a long time. It finally got clear of us and the gates went up. The cars crossed the grade crossing and we sat there.

"That did not just happen, did it?" "No way!" "HOLY SHIT, I cannot believe that we just rode the point!" We were jumping up and down and high-fiving each other! What a ride.

The next day, I returned to work. Back to the grind in LA.

After work that day, there was a small get-together at the CEO's house to celebrate one of my colleague's recent marriage.

The owner of the company had recently heard about the fact that I had something in common with the CEO, in that we both had ridden freight trains. So, he walked directly up to me and the group I had been mingling with and said, "Hey Frank, ridden any freight trains lately?" The whole group started laughing, as they thought it was funny that I had this in common with the CEO.

I replied coolly, "Why, yes, just yesterday! I even got to ride in the front locomotive; let me tell you about it..."

And they could not believe their ears.