Torres

—This action was brought under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C.A., § 51 et seq., to recover damages for personal injuries sustained by plaintiff on November 2, 1962, while working as a machinist on a diesel-electric locomotive at the repair shop of the defendant, Southern Pacific Company, an interstate common carrier by rail subject to the FELA.

On the date of the accident plaintiff was 56 years of age and had been a machinist in the employ of defendant for 17 years. On that date he was a member of a three-man crew working under a foreman and engaged in removing a crater pan cover from a traction motor with the aid of cable and hook equipment operated from a cab mounted on an overhead crane which moved on rails. Plaintiff was stationed in a pit, while his assistant, Moreno, was outside the pit and above him on the traction motor. The third member of the crew, Jones, was not engaged in the initial activity. The practice was for the crane operator to lower to position two cables to each of which was affixed a hook; then one hook would be placed in a hole in the crater pan and the other looped around a bar or rod, after which the crane operator, on signal,…