Surveyor/Tresspasser Dumb Stunt(s)

Trains Magazine General Discussion
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Unihead Ed, LC, Wabash, IronKen and all you other operating folk:

Have any of you folks encountered surveyors or their equipment out on the high iron? Get to teach some of these non-railroader surveyors in a few weeks and looking for new fodder to hit them with. They get to see the almost obligatory CN/CP/Via’s “Funeral For A Friend” which should get their attention along with the tales about surveyor fatalities in TX, IL and NJ, but would like to hit 'em with new tales out of the Darwinian Institute of Dumb Moves. Got any?

Mudchicken

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Dusty Pheasant - why don’t you regale us with some of your own. While you are waiting on the rest of the crew to come by…

Mook

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Mookie:

Trial balloon appears to be more of a lead balloon, but had to try…Hoping that Ed, Wabash and the others have snuck-up and scared a few over the years.

Best one that I can think of happened on the north side of Albuquerque about 1990 (I was not there!) and relayed to me by another railroad surveyor…

Survey crew for a private consultant, sets up instrument ($15,000 Total Station) on main track while doing a Topo/Boundary survey between Algodones and Bernallilo, NM. (Track sees 6-8 trains/ day)…Spends about an hour collecting data from this point when the rodman finds someting out in the fenceline and both members of the crew go over to investigate leaving the gun (instrument) about 5-600 feet behind.
(Dumb move, most surveyors won’t get more than a few feet away from the gun at any time in order to protect it)

All of a sudden, a whistle is heard. The gunner starts walking back to the instrumment. The walk turns into a sprint as the gunner sees “the light”. The light is Amtrak #3 (Southwest Chief) heading towards Albuquerque at 90 mph. Amtrak wins the race to the gun. The gun becomes a thousand pieces of very expensive, high tech junk flying directly at the gunner. The instrument and the tripod legs become a flying missle. The tripod dogs (pointed end of the tripod legs that digs into the ground) narrowly avoids taking the gunners head off. The engineer on Amtrak big-holes the train, figuring he just nailed the pedestrian gunner.

#3 stops. The gunner is shaken, but alive - missed the pilot of the locomotive by inches and now needs to change his BVD’s, the part that wasn’t sucked in the puckered-up you-know-what. He is all scratched up from flying debris that used to be his instrument. The cinder-dicks are called along with the local life squad and so on…

The railroad claim agent in AQ gets a call the next morning demanding that the railroad pay for the destroyed equipment!

-mudchicken

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Yeah, Mud. Checks in the mail for his toy! No near misses here, but, alot of teeth gritting on my part. A const. crew was boring under the main and they were close! We have signs all over with 800 #s on them. All they had to do is call in and there would be a form C issued at least letting us know that there would be some ding-a-lings near the tracks. These bungs didn’t even have a clue of what tehy were messing with. They just stood there and looked at a coal load at track speed whiz by. I don’t even get that close when I give a roll by! Dummies!
Ken

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Thanx IronKen…those “bungs” were probably related to the ones who dumped one of Uncle Pete’s UPS trains on the ground just before Christmas last year… I hear they put a 4 inch bump in the track where they were drilling for a new gas pipeline crossing that the armour yellow people in Omaha had not even approved yet. Sic a roadmaster or a track supervisor on those types of turkeys…

mc

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Sounds about right, these people think that ROW is public land when in fact they are TRESSPASSING! I bet Uncle Pete was a little pissed about all of the good little girls and boys UPS gifts being scattered all over creation by the hand of some idiots!
Ken

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…methinks Uncle Pete got his armour yellow shorts all up in a bunch when his “Zero Service Failures” promise wound up scattered across a NE Iowa cornfield…so much for that performance bonus!

Also understand that this little incident went to court, but never heard about the outcome. Sad part is the utility and pipeline builders don’t savvy why railroads get nervous when the two get near each other…

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There are thousands and thousands of parcels of land in this country that call the center line of some track as the property line- and it has to be surveyed, on occasion- and in the vast majority of cases the RR does not own the land that the track and R/W is on, but has only an easement- legal and historical permission to use the land for RR purposes. The owners of the underling land (the land under the RR easement) or their agents are not trespassers in the legal sense. NOW BEFORE SOME ONE STARTS DUMPING ON ME- survey people can be as dumb as anyone around the trains. I would ask a question- what have the RR’s done to contact the state and local survey associations through operation lifesaver, or someother way to teach them right and wrong around the tracks. Knowing how the RR’s ignore everybody, they probably never have.

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Dear ralphm,

Mudchicken feathers are tough to ruffle. Nice try though! The only true statement in your post is “survey people can be as dumb as anyone around trains.” The post started as an attempt to gather specific examples of what not to do if you are a surveyor. One hopes that the “m” in your identity is for misinformed. If for some reason, the M&M boys have re-emerged, your one-way ticket has already been punched…

This bird has done plenty through the OLI Engineering Safety Team , through AREMA , from the Class 1 railroad he worked for, and his present employer. He has taught 9 seminars for surveyors on railroad basics since 1986 in 5 states and has 3 more coming in the next 6 months. The team at AREMA (American Railroad Engineering & Maintenance Association) is putting together a program that tours the US starting next year at Las Vegas (March). That same team is made up of railroaders from 3 Class-1’s, 2 regionals, 2 shortlines and consultants with class 1 experience (like this bird). Your cheap shot sounds just like the crap generated by the M&M boys, all hyperbole and zero rational thought. Yor first two sentences are misconceptions and blatantly false, especially the use of words “majority” and “easement”… Has NARPO sunk to the level of “Angels on the Tracks” ?(lawyers looking for new suckers to prey on?).

We’ll cut you some slack for only 15 posts in 20 months, but before you exercise your right to shoot before thinking on this subject again:
(1) Understand the term “color of title”,
(2) Know what an ICC Land Shedule (ICC Form DV-107) is,
(3) Study the Congesional Acts of 1855,1862,1866,1875 and 1903 in regard to railroad land grants along with the ICC Act of 1913,
(4) Understand the difference between accuracy and precision,
(5) Find out why a railroad Right of Way Deed is different than a highway RWD, and
(6) Figure out why railroaders get digusted every time the “rails-to-trails’/National Interum Trail Use” issue come

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You know, your going to have a heck of a time putting your hat back on with all thoses head feathers fluffed up like that!
Wow, I thought skeets was a fast draw!
(in case you didnt notice, I am filling in for Mookie, who is on a chocolate cake run, and am just pulling your chain a little)

For what its worth, my brother in law is a civil engineer, and was made well aware of what his surveyors could, and could not do around railroad tracks.
Not only was this information taught to him in the course of his college studies, he has the local railroads phone numbers to contact them when ever any of his crews will be near or around tracks.
He consults with a engineer from the railroad whenever he has to go under the ROW, or perform work near them.
Says he learned a lot more about what he should and shouldnt do near trackage from this guy than any college class could have taught him.
Stay Frosty,
and a little VO5 will help them head feathers![:p]
Ed

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hey ralph
who helped found operation lifesaver?a railroad.no matter what you do its being aware of your surroundings.[;)]
stay safe
joe

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Ed:

Feathers are fine, but the talons and beak suddenly got very sharp & pointed. Bottom of the ol’ cage here is nothing but shreds. Computer is over in the corner cowering…Who substituted a powerbar for my regular bird-seed? Mookie’s on a chocolate cake binge - safe to get out of the cage? Go home time!

Dusty Pheasant

PS- JoeKoh: Ohio OLI represented at Lima and trying to get OLI to make a presentation to 250+ surveyors in Ohio next year.

13

MC–

Speaking as a PE who does consulting work on RRs, AMEN, BROTHER! Keep up the good work letting the survey crews know what they are dealing with.

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MC

Wish I had a good tale for you, but I don’t even have a bad one except for the surveying oop’s I have done, and none of them involved trains. Well, one did, but not for your purposes.

I understand what Ralph M was refering to, but as you also said, he did get it wrong. The sad part of it is, almost all property owners think as he wrote in his post. What is not understood is that whatever the legal conveyance used to permit the tracks to have been built, they act like clear title as long as the railroad stays, and sometimes even after that. I was never into the property end to the extent that you mentioned in your return note to Ralph but am aware of the things you talked about.

I guess where I am going with this, is for me at least, I would be interested in learning in more detail of what you spoke. Perhaps others here would also. I know how to do meets and bounds and deed searches and can read and apply surveys, right-of-way maps/charts and track charts, but that doesn’t mean I know all that I should about the various forms, rules and laws that apply. I even have questions - already!

Get that file out and dull your talons and beak. I am amazed that your computer survived. Me thinks, as a certain terra-coated fowl has mention in the past, Mook beware. I am past the stage where water is made by the pipes and the milk by the store. But not a whole lot. Eric is watching out for dark shadow in the shape of a Mud Chicken that passes over track.

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And since I’m a ditto, I’ll just second this one! But you would think that surveyors (the local domestic flavour, not guys like MC!), who are supposed to be pretty smart guys, would think a little bit… also, I might add, there are an astonishing number of construction guys out there who think that since the tracks are only 4’ 8 1/2" gauge, the trains are also that width… can’t tell you how many equipment operators and truckers I’ve had to politely[:(!] tell to move their equipment before the railroad did it for them[:D].

16

A local utility crew set up their truck on the B&O tracks and were working in the bucket on the end of the boom until a train removed the truck and left the lineman clinging to the pole. They said they thought trains didn’t run there anymore.

17

A survey crew comes through and uses some points on the tracks as referenc stations (driving nails into the ties). Two days later a tamper comes through and relines and tamps/raises the track. The survey crew comes back and can’t figure out why the points/stations are off by 6" a foot.

Dave H.

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I’m not sure i understand the Question… dumb it down for me in a few sentances…

But heres what i get from it…

I find that surveyors are more often around corssings then not, never had a bad encounter with them, I do find though that they skoot in front of the train jsut to make it to the other side of the tracks, which i believe will vut about 10 years of my life.

I’m not so worried about them, with Stations close to the track, it tends to encourage punk-*** kids, who have nothing better to do then to cause mischief…

Thats what worries me more…

One time, A lady dropped almsot a dollars worth of change on the floor of the passenger car, and couldn’t be bothered to pick it p… so here I saw, and started picking it up… as I bent down and started picking up the quarters, An Ice ball (will describe later) came sailing through the window, busted it, glass went down my shirt, hit the floor and skidded down the isle, bumpng into some seat legs.

This Ice ball, someone during the melt must have made a snow ball, and put it in their freezer so it was hard as heck… would have broken through 12 windows, given half the chance

If i wasn’t bend down picking up the money, the stupid thing would have hit my head or my face or my neck…

So dumb kids are what i’m worried about most., Stations by the tracks are very inviting, I often Wonder if these kids have anyhting better to do, such as play cards, or show off their car, do doughnuts in Food lion parking lot, play yatzee perhaps, have sex with their Girlfriends…

Any one f those, I wouldn’t care… jsut don’t bust up other peoples property, I must be among the few that things that that past time is stupid.

19

Kevin:

(1) For what ever reason, the subject surfaced to the top after a long hiatus buried in the postings…

(2) Have spent many years dealing with surveyors who think “surveyors right-of-entry” entitles them the right to stand out in the middle of the track any time they darn well please. (This is more of a US issue than it is up north of the border)…An Amtrak flagman died in 1996 trying to stop a dumb move by a surveyor at Monmouth, NJ…As I teach surveyors & engineers basics about entering railroad property with the proper protection. Most of these folks can’t savvy the things that happen out on the railroad.
There is a surveyors message board that has several “legends in their own minds” that advocate things that are truly frightening and will eventually kill some unfortunate soul.

What I was hoping to hear was some of the things that the guys in the operating crafts have run into over the years.

DaveH and mvlandsw thanx for the tips. Still trying to get non-railroaders to think a little bit before stepping into harms way. One more accident survey is one too many…

Mudchicken[banghead]

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Oh I love it! I love it![:D][:D][:D][:D]