On one of our excursion runs today (20 mile round trip), we had just done our run-around and were headed back to our base of operations when the train suddenly decellerated. I was back in the train, per usual, and at first thought it was just how this engineer handled that part of the trip (there is a permanent 10 mph slow order for a bridge we were approaching, and this is the first time I’d ridden behind him), but then we stopped. Turns out it wasn’t his train handling, it was an emergency stop. Seems a fellow in a shiny little pickup neglected to look both ways before he started across the crossing and was surprised to see an RS3 bearing down on him. He moved in time and we pretty much slid past the crossing, stopping with the last of three cars blocking the crossing. He claimed to one of the trainmen, who was doing the mandatory inspection on one side of the train, that we hadn’t been sounding the horn, but even the passengers were more than willing to say otherwise. After the walk-around and a slow roll-by, we were on our way, with his license number. He’ll be getting a visit from the law…
And to cap the day, shortly after I got home, I went out on an emergency response for a small plan that made an unplanned landing in a hay field. Fortunately injuries were limited to bumps and bruises.