Mixed Signals: An Uncle Don Tale

Ohio's state mental hospital was situated in the far outskirts Cleveland, its massive edifice situated on hundreds of acres surrounding by a fence that bore warnings and no tresspassing signs every 90 feet or so.

The hospital and outbuildings' power were solely dependent on the railroad's bi-monthly delivery of two bottom-dumper coal cars carrying Pennsylvania's best bituminous, a process repeated every two weeks for decades and perfected by reptition to the extent the minimal crew of a single locomotive engineer and assistant could perform the procedure:


■approach the gates with the locomotive and the assistant jumps down to open it;


■while the engineer pulls the train forward and opens the massive coal chute doors between the rails, the assistant runs nearly 150 yards back to close the gates in the perimeter fencing;


■the assistant stations himself behind the last coal car and uses time-tested hand signals as commands for the engineer's locomotive operation to achieve perfect alignment of the car's bottom over the open doors of the underground cavern's coal storage.


■if the alignment is the slightest bit off-center when the car discharges the coal, both engineer and assistant are in for a long afternoon of shovelling.


An ice storm hit Ohio with full force on the day Uncle Don engineered the locomotive but the inclement weather only annoyed the railroad men (especially the assistant), but weather never influenced successful completion of the ritualistic chore in just under an hour before the train's exit.


On this day, after 45 minutes of speeding up, slowing down, forwarding and backing the train, again and again just to get the first of 2 cars aligned, Uncle Don jumped down off the locomotive, cursing a blue streak and possible death scenarios for the assistant while running back to the last car to find out the cause of all the contradictory signalling.
Don abruptly stopped, speechless to see the assistant sitting with a broken ankle 150 yards away by the gates, while Uncle Don found himself face to nearly-frozen face with a grinning, deliriously happy mental patient who had observed the railroaders in the past and, today, flawlessly mimicked signals while shrieking with delight to see a train moving erratically in symphony with his hands.