Chapter 23

2356 1/9 - 0606 1/10: C&SL Plow Extras One and Two; LN Extra 9608
0357 1/10 - 0606 1/10:
D&O Snowplow Extra 3217

While Ed was out in the shop, tearing into a couple of injector pumps, Bud left the office and headed over to Rick's. He'd had enough exposure to the National Guard's stew in Warsaw -- once was enough -- to want to have a good meal, and he had steak on his mind. Rick's was empty enough to give the little man time to cook it right.

It was the first time in a couple of days that Bud had been off railroad property, but even now, he didn't get that far away. He took a portable radio with him, and sat it down on the counter while the odor of steak began to build in the little restaurant.

Rick was working in the back of the restaurant, so Bud got his own second cup of coffee. While walking back to the radio, the little radio began to squawk. "Spearfish Lake, Spearfish Lake," came Ballard's voice. "This is Plow Extra Two. We've got trouble."

Bud sat the coffee down and picked up the little radio. "I'll take it, Betty," he said, then went on, "Plow Extra Two, do you read Spearfish Lake? What's the problem, Gene?"

"Read you weakly," Ballard replied. "Your 303 isn't pulling. The engine is running all right, but it isn't generating anything. Are we clear to return to Spearfish Lake?"

"Where are you?" Bud asked loudly.

"Right about where we almost hit," came the reply.

"How about trying for Warsaw on just the 9608?" Bud asked. "If you don't make it there in three hours or so, the Rock ought to be dry enough by then to come out and take you the rest of the way."

There was a moment's silence while Ballard and Lee talked this one over. Finally, Lee responded, "Negative, Bud. The 9608 isn't strong enough to haul the train, push the 303, and plow snow too. We'd have to double most of the way, and Harold and I are getting too beat to do that."

"Come on back, then," Bud said, resigned to defeat again. "Give us a call if you have trouble."

Rick had heard the exchange over the sound of Bud's frying steak. Now, he came out of the kitchen and commented, "Not another one!"

"Guess so," Bud replied, "Maybe it's something simple, even though we don't have part one for the Chessie up here." He turned to the radio again. "Ed, do you have a radio going in the shop?"

A few moments of silence went by. Ed had been leaving a radio on in the shop all along, but Bud suspected that he might have turned it off in order to be able to concentrate on the injectors. Bud repeated the call, then after a moment said into the radio, "Betty, grab John and have him go out to the shop and give Ed a call."

"You're running out of engines, aren't you?" Rick commented.

"I guess maybe," Bud agreed. "The only thing I can think of is to lighten up Plow Extra Two and have the 9608 head on up to Warsaw, anyway. If it craps out, maybe Walt can come and get it with the Milwaukee, or maybe I can go and get it with the Rock, after it dries out a bit."

Rick shook his head, then left for a minute to check Bud's steak. When he came back a moment later, he had another equestion. "What about the train the Dirty and Old is sending up through Kremmling? They ought to be able to keep you going."

"It would, if it ever gets to Warsaw," Bud replied. "I'm beginning to think it was a waste of time and money. The last we heard was about two this afternoon. They were sitting in Rochester with their plow busted again. They've spent more time sitting than they have running. It'll be a miracle if they get here by this time next week, at that rate."

"You could use them, couldn't you?"

"You bet I could," Bud said, dreaming. "I could do a lot of things with some good power. I could set two engines on the Warsaw run. I could leave enough power with the scram train to really be able to scram. The hospital has some stuff they're low on, and I could almost send a train to Camden for that, and for firefighting foam, which they could use on the fertilzer plant up in Warsaw. Believe me, I can find enough for them to do, but without them, I've got to concentrate on what's most important."

Ed's voice now came onto the little radio, with a slight edge on it. He didn't like being pulled away from his high-concentration chore. Bud briefly explained the situation with Plow Extra Two, then said, "What's the chances of taking the Rock back up to Warsaw?"

"Forget it," the mechanic said. "It's been on heat long enough now that it'll probably make it to Warsaw without doing any damage, but then you'll want to come back here with an ambulance run or something. You wouldn't make it. It's got to have another four hours of heat, at least."

"It would make it to Warsaw, though?" Bud asked.

"Don't get any bright ideas. I'd be happier with eight hours of heat, and it'll probably take more than that to get it back in top shape."

"How about if we slap the Rock's fuel pump on the 1478?"

"Won't work, at least not tonight," the radio squawked. "Different bolt patterns; at least, different from the Burlington's. It'd take machine shop work to match them up?"

"Are the pump parts going to match up?"

"Too early to tell," the mechanic responded. The radio was silent for a moment.

Betty's voice interrupted the discussion. "Bud," she said, "The Coldwater department just arrived."

Now there was even more that ought to go to Warsaw, Bud thought. "Get 'em over to the loading ramp and get 'em loaded," he told Betty. "I don't know how long it's going to be before we have power to take them, but they might as well be ready when we do."

Now Penny joined in the radio discussion."

"Bud, we could take the Rock, if we make up our minds ahead of time that it's going to have to stay in Warsaw for at least twelve hours. The Milwaukee and the 9608 could do the ambulance runs."

Bud let it turn over in his mind for a moment. "Sounds reasonable," he said. "How about it, Ed?"

"Oh, hell, you're going to do it, whether I think you should or not. Just be damn sure you put heat on those trucks for twelve hours up there before you have to move it again."

"All right," Bud replied. "I'll be over as soon as I finish eating. John, find Roger and have him get started with the loading, then you start yanking those heaters off."

At least Fred Linder had gotten some rest, for while he slept, the situation in Warsaw had turned for the worse. He roared past the burning fertilizer plant on his snowmobile, and up Main Street to where the fire had broken yet another line.

Warsaw's downtown section was mostly concentrated around the corner of Main and Second Streets, with the few stores that the town had running about halfway down the block to Third Street from Second. There was a house on fire in the middle of the block, and just to the north, Cargill's Laundromat was blazing furiously. Masterfield had pulled Albany River around the corner from their position on Second Street, and the department was fighting stubbornly against the laundromat fire.

The fire in the laundry wasn't bad by itself, but just to the north of it was one of the town's two gas stations. With the wind out of the north, there was no great danger of the fire being blown into the gas station, but the place was so volitale that there was no choice but to protect it. Here was another place that Linder and the assembled departments had to save if they were to save the town. Over the past day, the various department had fought a good many desperate battles, and had lost most of them. This one, they stood a chance of winning.

Linder thought hard about supporting Albany River. He could think better, now that he had some sleep. About his only choice was some department out in the backfield. Blair, Lynchburg, and Spearfish Lake were all on the various streets off Herkimer and Third, and they'd been having a rough time with spot fires set by embers still being blown from Yard 4 and the various burning buildings. With the oil company right behind them, he didn't dare tap any of them. About the only choice left was Hoselton, up on Herkimer Street next to Blair; the wind was far enough around that he could probably risk it.

All of this thought process only took Fred Linder a few seconds; then, he was off on his snowmobile, over to where the Hoselton department sat waiting. Wally Borck had been expecting the call for some minutes now, and the department was already pretty well picked up. Within minutes, the little department had swung into line next to Albany River.

Here, as had happened so many times before, Don Kuralt arrived with his bulldozer to make the difference. There was snow all over the place, of course, and Kuralt had been clearing out the streets so that the departments would have a place to work. In places on some of the streets, the snow was so deep that the county plows that Bud Ellsberg had brought had difficulty getting through; only the bulldozer and the frontloader that fortunately had been sitting outside Northern Fertilizer could clear out those drifts.

Kuralt plowed snow several feet deep over the underground fuel tanks, giving them a fireproof insulating layer, and he gently piled snow around the gas pumps, which had been turned off and had their valves closed.

Now, the main danger was over at the gas station, for it would be hard for the fire to get to the several thousand gallons of gasoline; but there was still danger left from the various drums of oil, snowmobile gas, and a good many other burnables that could still cause a hot fire.

Farther down the street, next to the laundromat, the house fire was going strong. Linder's own Warsaw department was fighting this one, but there obviously wasn't much hope of winning, with the strong wind and the laundry burning next to it. On the south, Warsaw was trying to keep the house fire from spreading to the house south of it, while Meeker was guarding the west side of the houses further to the south.

Linder didn't see much hope of keeping the whole side of the block south of the gas station from going. He had seen three streets of houses burn out once they got going, over the course of the last day, and there wasn't much hope for saving the fourth.

But, they might still have some hope of holding the fire to the west side of Main Street. Main Street was wider than Plains Street had been, and the wind was more out of the north than it had been earlier. The day before, when they had been trying to save the houses on Winter Street, the wind had been much more from the east, with the firecely blazing Yard 4 right across the street.

If the fire got across Main Street, they did have problems. The wind would then be right out of the north, pushing the fire toward the oil company and those thousands of gallons of propane. The firefighters had seen two propane explosions in the past few hours, and one of them had injured several firefighters. It didn't take a bright imagination to understand what all those thousands of gallons of propane could do. But, to win this battle, Linder needed another department or two, and just now there wasn't one left that could be safely stripped from the job it was on to help out along Main Street.

Several times now, help had come up the railroad just when it was needed. Hoping against hope, Linder realized that it had been some time since Ellsberg had wanted to know if he could work on engines. Might Plow Extra One be right outside of town, bringing the reserves he needed so badly?

It was after one in the morning when the combined trains set out from Spearfish Lake once again. Plow Extra Two was no more; its plow was pointing westward at the end of the train, and the only part of its power that was left was the ancient 9608, now coupled to the Rock, which was once again pushing the big plow eastward.

This was the largest train to set out for Warsaw in some time, since Blair and Lynchburg had been hauled in the day before. Behind the big plow, there was the oldish blue and white Geep, a first-generation product of the diesel era, and the downright ancient Baldwin, a survivor of that era and of more modern steam engines as well. The train was a motley collection of cars, most built for other purposes put pressed into service, as all the rescue runs had been.

First, there was the Baldwin's coal gondola, now partly empty. Then, there was the C&SL way car, which had been rudely turned into an ambulance that had saved a good share of lives. After that was the D&O way car, filled with Camden firefighters and a handful of other rescuers, including Sally Keller, who was still intent on succoring Warsaw's homeless, almost all of whom had long been removed to Spearfish Lake. This was followed by two red box cars, one with the mountain goat of the long-vanished Great Northern still on its side, that carried a load of relief supplies, spare hose, and other firefighting gear. Behind this was a flat car, with a Camden School bus on it, loaded with Camden and Coldwater firemen and a state fire marshall that was gratefully asleep. This was followed by six more flat cars, the first two holding Camden Fire Department snorkel trucks and air compressors; the compressors weren't really needed in Warsaw, now, but no one had thought to unload them. The next four flat cars carried the most recent arrivals, the apparatus (less one antique pumper) of the Coldwater Volunteer Fire Department. Trailing the whole thing was the little plow, once rescued from a scrap heap, paying for itself many times over in the last day.

Up ahead of it all, John Penny stared out of the cupola of the Big Plow, as he had done on so many trips before. There was nothing new to see, and there were drifts in all of the places he had come to expect drifts, and new ones in places that he didn't expect to see them; the big plow handled either kind easily.

"How's it going?" Bud called back to the 9608, which had had the Burlington's radio rudly grafted onto it in the few minutes the engine had been stopped in Spearfish Lake.

"Fine," Lee reported. "Best I've seen it since I met this train."

In the cab of the cab of the blue Geep, Bud and Gene Ballard sipped at coffee; this was proving to be as uneventful a run as Bud had made since the storm started, as Plow Extra One headed through the pine flats north of Spearfish Lake, down the long grade into the Spearfish River swamp, and across the long fill through the swamps where the plowing had been easy on earlier trips. It was easy now, and when the Rock's nose pointed slightly upward at the end of the fill, it hardly slowed down the flood of stories about the last few days.

"The Hoselton crossing is a few miles past the top of this grade," Bud told his companion. "We'll have to stop there and put on gas masks. We'll be into the toxic smoke not long after. We don't dare duck through the smoke without them, or we'd be making an ambulance run right back down to Spearfish Lake."

"They must have been tough to fight a fire in," Ballard commented.

"It's not so bad, now," Bud replied. "There wasn't much that was on fire in the smoke cloud, the last time I was there. Yesterday morning, all of the firefighting had to be done in that kind of stuff. I guess they're gaining that much ground."

Fred Linder was losing ground again, but at least this was ground that he expected to lose. Warsaw and Meeker had lost the battle to keep the fire from spreading south from the burning house south of the laundromat. He'd about given up hope for the street on the west side, since he'd had the fire hall call Spearfish Lake. It had turned out that the train had troubles, but they were on their way now, with Coldwater and two snorkels from the Camden Fire Department. Linder wasn't too sure where he was going to be able to use the snorkels, but they'd probably prove useful on Main Street. If the fire ever got to the oil company, he'd be downright glad to have them. But, they'd only left Spearfish Lake minutes before he'd called, and that had been an hour before. It would take the train at least another hour to get there, and unless they got lucky the whole block would be ablaze by then.