Lost one

looking at the video, I noticed the trk. number.. It was a company hand. Trk. starts with a 16 series so it was owned by ATS. Not some poor guy doing a lease or an O/O. Either way I think some one might be standing in the soup line this week

 

Officer Fife, Officer Barney Fife.

 

All of the statey's down here are thoroughly tracked. I'd imagine it's the same up there.

 

Hitting anything can be a worst-case. Fuel or log trucks are nearly always fatal. The way they let railroad crossings stick up off the road ought to be a criminal offense. The DOT and the rail companies try to outfumble each other when it comes to paying for anything. DOT guy once admitted that they have to have so many fatalities at a crossing before they'll put in warning devices.

One night we came around a corner at 50 and this young girl stepped onto the tracks into the headlight glare, looked up bravely with her hands on her shoulders. At the last second she stepped out of the way, had to look straight down out the conductor's cab window to see she was okay. Called the dispatcher, they said they'd send a LEO, but I never heard more about it.

A dark early morning we were shoving back on the main with a cabin car with hand lights and came across a forklift propane cylinder set up on the rail, made an unplanned quick stop.

The next train through there would've been an Amtrak going 80, we only were out there first because we got done early. And that was because I was along as an extra brakeman on that particular night, they were trying to keep us from quitting so they'd tack us on a random crew as a brakie. We carried the tank to the next tower, where I handed it to the op. Later I heard that a company next to the tracks didn't have their tank cage locked that night.

We all depend on each other out there in surprising ways, every little detail matters.

Hope that crew was okay.

 

Got a link to a YouTube version? I hate videos on news sites that make you watch 1:30 of commercials in order to view 20 seconds of content.