Years ago before UP shut down the Rio Grande’s Tennessee Pass line, I was
taping near a curve in an area called Mitchells. It was a cold winters morning and there was a eastbound manifest with lots of helpers. Due to the snow, the only way I could tape was from the shoulder. To get a better angle, I balanced myself on top of the guardrail. Here comes the train, I am concentraing on the train and not paying attention to the highway. The sounds of helpers is very loud but then I noticed a strange scraping noise, lo and behold, here comes a snowplow! I think you can see how this story ends.[:(]
Last year, I was in my car with the wife and kids heading up to Ogden, Utah when we chance upon a Union Pacific train just starting to move after waiting for another train to get out of the way. The engineer opens the throttle, and the second locomotive, a C&NW C44-9W, shoots a big flame out of its stack. My wife sees this and exclaims, "the locomotive’s on fire! it’s on FIRE! Trying not to laugh, I explain what causes the GE to shoot flames out of its stack, while my kids excitedly chatter about the locomotive’s pyrotechnic display. [:D]
My funny experience was this Father’s Day weekend. I was running my Fairmont motorcar at our local railroad museum, giving rides to people at the Father’s Day festivities. On Saturday evening, we decided to go into town on our motorcars after the museum had closed.
To access the main we had to take a siding through several switches. As we were leaving, the museum “Supervisor of Transportation” mentioned that one of the switches might not be lined correctly, he was following right behind in his motorcar. I went through one switch, then started through the next and WHAM, I was on the ground, ouch!!! It took three of us to re-rail the motorcar, then line the switch correctly and be on our way!!! Wow what a ride!
trainman2244, this is similar to your experience. Me and my parents Train Watch a lot in Lockport, IL. I’d say trains do about 60 MPH through there. I’m always at Joliet Union Station which is the same BNSF Line as Lockport. But, at Lockport we seem to never see anything. My parents are always saying, “Nick, We got to get home for dinner.” I’m always saying “Were overdue for a train”. Then we leave, and of course, “Murphy’s 5 minute Law” comes into effect. While going across the bridge above the tracks, I saw a train with three CSX YN2 SD70MAC’s approaching fast. Whenever I train watch on cloudy days, it seems that all the good lash-up’s come through. But I’ve still seen a lot of good lash-ups in the sun. [:)] Nick
Saw a Seaboard Coast Line phosphate train break in two years back in Tampa. It was strange when it happened. We heard a loud “TSSSHHH” sound. What looked like two trains now each came to a stop. Blocked the railroad crossing at HWY 60 for a long while. Guess a knuckle broke. I felt bad for that train’s engineer. I hope that it was due to a defective knuckle rather than because he lost control of the slack action in that long, monster of a train.
I was out in Wyaconda, Missouri taking pictures of trains with my video camera when I heard a train horn in the distance. It took forever for the train to come. It was a BNSF empty intermodal train with one Dash 9-44CW. I was looking through my video camera as the train was passing when I heard a car pull up close to where I had my tripod set up. I looked up from the viewfinder. It was a little Ford Explorer with police lights on the top of it. I thought, “It must just be the town police or something.” Then I looked at the door of the van and it said BNSF POLICE!! For a couple seconds I thought ‘Oh man what did I do wrong’. I thought he would say “GO AWAY!” or something, but he was really friendly. I guess he was just passing through, but it was a very weird coinsadence. The train before the one that was going through then had three business coaches on the end of it. Kind of makes you wonder if someone in them reported me!![:D]
LOL!!!