In the early 80’s I lived in the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. During an especially hard winter, the BN had a lot of this problem with antelope.[xx(]
Too bad those elk were pulverized, ever had an elk steak? Yum!
My condolences in advance to the RH people in the locomotive inspection pits at Havre, Livingston, Laurel, SandPoint or Alliance…[+o(]
We hit a deer with an F unit. Caused no end of problems under the loco…
I bet it didn’t do the deer any good, either.
Jeff
[(-D]Oh, Jeff!
Over a period of a couple of years my brother killed two or three deer with one of his employer’s pickup trucks, none while hunting. His boss was not amused. My other brother and I were extremely amused, and had a lot of fun giving him a hard time about it.
Try a feral hog under the lead traction motor…bad bacon, bad…
I hope that you didn’t have a BLT packed for lunch.[:-^]
You have wild hogs roaming around in Houston?
Yes, but they’re using locomotives to thin the herds. [:-^]
I knew a guy who took out two in one morning in a company car, 50 miles apart on an interstate highway.
Once was on the Empire Builder when we hit a steer. Radio transcript:
Engine crew “Did we?”
Conductor (on ground): “Oh, yeah…”
EC: “Is it?”
C: “Uh huh.”
Sometime back a friend was running at track speed hamburgered a big alligator at Plaestine, Arkansas with a set of BNSF GE’s. {Trackage rights on UPRR !). Have not heard if he has hit any critters between Carbondale and Chicago with his Amtrak GE’s. [:-^]
At one time (and possibly still) Al Krug’s website had a picture of a locomotive that hit a horse at speed. Not much left but oats…
So they are using hogs to thin out the hogs? Or maybe on a switching road, it’s using goats to thin out the hogs.
Jeff
Well, if the only tool you have is a locomotive, every problem looks like a wild hog.[:-,]
From The Story of American Railroads, pg. 228 (circa 1950’s):
Maine’s fish and game commissioner sent a protest to [Bangor & Aroostook] President Cram saying that he had received reports that locomotives engineers of the BAR had run down a number of moose, just for the hell of it, and he wondered if it were not possible to put a stop to the practice. President Cram gave the matter his consideration, then dictated a reply to the commissioner. “My dear sir,” he wrote, “I have read with interest and no little pleasure your game warden’s account of how our engineers have been stalking moose, and leaping at them with their iron horses. But this report, I fear, smells of nature faking of the worst sort. Hitting a moose (Alces americana) is too dangerous a sport for well-trained engineers, such as ours, who are a conservative lot and do not consider it fun to run into anything which may be on the rails. Of course, one of them may occasionally run a rabbit to earth or point a grouse with his 500,000-pound monster, but they never use them for big game. . . .”
From A Treasury of Railroad Folklore, about a livestock vs. train incident:
“First I seen the bull coming through the oats, then I seen the oats coming through the bull.”
- Paul North.