I got called for a stack train, but my engineer and I got swapped to a vehicle train, the "V BIRSBD," which goes from Birmingham, Alabama to San Bernadino. It was a good train. We had 2 motors on the head end and one on the rear. Our actual HPT was 3.3. We had 53 cars, weighed 3,932 tons, and we were 5,191 feet long. We were on duty at 9 pm and we departed at 9:39 pm. We got off to a good start. They ran us pretty good. This particular engineer became a trainmaster for a while but now he is "back in the seat" as we say. When an engineer or a conductor becomes a trainmaster we say that they have "gone over to the dark side." But in this case he and another engineer that became a trainmaster the same time that he did are both going back to the seat. They stopped us a couple of times. We passed the Barstow signal at 2:16 am. They told us to tie it down on the Rio Seco siding. I only had to tie one handbrake. I checked into the hotel, slept a couple of hours, got up for the free breakfast at 7 am, went back to bed, got up and grabbed a burrito in the afternoon, and went back to bed again. I woke up around 9:15 pm, just before I got my call to be on duty at 11 am. It was for a stack train with the same engineer. It was the "S LHGMEM," which goes from Los Angeles Harbor to Memphis. We had 71 cars, weighed 6,338 tons, and we were 6,780 feet long. We had 4 motors on the head end. We got on at the steps, and departed at 11:37 pm. Our HPT was 2.9, but they let an X train out in front of us and it was going very slow. They also stopped us several times. We were stopped at Ibis and my engineer tried to call the disptacher on his cell phone because they still hadn't called an outbound for us. As we pulled into Needles on Main 4, he asked her over the radio if she wanted us to tie it down. She said, "Standby." then a few minutes later she said that our outbound would be out. I volunteered to "babysit" the train, since my engineer had to take his son for a wrestling lesson. I figued that the outbound wouldn't be there for an hour but they showed up in 15 minutes or so. Maybe the dispatcher swapped them from another train? I briefed them an rolled them by, and when I tied p I requested a "SMART Rest." I went home, change, and went to church for the first itme in a long time. They had an altar call and several people came forward, crying. Our pastor was crying too. The first woman to come forward had a bunch of tattoos, and quite frankly she wasn't dressed very well, but that's okay. God sees our hearts and today she has a beautiful heart. I could not attache a picture of our leader, the 7437, because they left before I could do so, but I have attached a picture of the 6040 with an open door. Remember, only you can open the door to your heart. Hoping that you had a Happy Easter. Tony

I got called for the "S ALTLBT," which goes from Alliance, Texas to Long Beach. On duty time was 5:25 pm. Our train had 88 cars (the last 40 were baretable flats). It was a light train weighing only 4,950 tons. We departed after being on duty for less than an hour. They stopped us quite often. We passed the Barstow signal at 2:42 am. We did a crew swap on Main 4. I checked into the hotel, slept for a while, and went down for the free breakfast. I slept a little longer, got up for a burrito, and went back to bed again. I was showng out at 2 am on the BARRTUL, and then at midnight on the BARKCK. I got called at 7:15 pm for the "S LBTALT," which goes from Long Beach to Alliance, Texas. (Just the opposite of the train I had the day before). We got on at the steps afer being on duty for 45 minutes. It was a good train: 96 cars, 8,471 tons, and 8,861 feet. We had 3 motors at the head end and 2 on the rear. They stopped us 3 times. We arrived at Needles at 3:16 in the morning. Not a bad trip. I rolled my train by and tied up. I slept for about 5 hours today, got up to run some errands, and will sleep tonight. I'm projected to go out around 2 am. I have attached a picture of our leader, the 8284.