The Trinity River Incident: Another Railroad Story

The Trinity River bridge in Dallas, Texas in a more tranquil time

          

In 1976 I was busy working Relief Track Supervisor jobs through most of the summer account it was prime vacation time. One of the relief jobs was covering for a Track Supervisor who's territory ran from Cleburne, Texas through Dallas to Denton, Texas; about one hundred and ten miles of track. It was a particularly difficult territory, even for a more experienced person, due to the hundreds of switches to inspect, grade road crossings to cross and inspect without getting hit by road traffic, a large number of industrial tracks and dodging numerous trains and switchers.

          

Almost every day was an adventure. There wasn't much telling what you were going to find or see on or near the right-of-way. In addition to the normal track related stuff, you could find abandoned automobiles (mostly stolen and stripped), dead animals of every type and hobos and homeless people living in makeshift homes on or near the railroad property. You could also see the most beautiful and touching sights on any given day such as wild animals caring for their young, quiet little streams and majestic trees and vegetation of many types.

           

A rail high view of the Trinity river bridge moving east toward Dallas.

On this particular day there had been heavy rains in the area and I was paying particular attention to the bridges, rivers and streams. I was looking for potential problems such as washouts and driftwood fouling bridges. I was hyrailing the track from Cleburne toward Dallas when I reached the Trinity River bridge on the west side of Dallas. This bridge was long, over a thousand feet, and very high. I hyrailed very slowly across the bridge stopping every hundred feet or so to inspect the driftwood build up below.

           

During one of these stops I looked down and a chill ran through my body as I saw what appeared to be a body twisted in the mass of driftwood below. A little case of panic began to take over my thought processes. What was I going to do? After a few deep breaths I decided the first thing to do was contact the dispatcher via radio and let him contact all the other folks that needed to know. I told him it would be necessary to hold all trains until I was released from the sight. I then called Tower 19 which controlled trains from several railroads at an interlocker just a mile from my location and advised the Operator that it would be necessary to hold trains.

          

In just a few minutes my radio became very busy. The Dispatcher was relaying questions from about a dozen different agencies. Then the tower Operator called with more questions. Was the person still alive, male or female, nationality, exact location. Dozens of questions and I didn't have that many answers. I finally decided that I needed to try and get down to where the body was so that I could answer their questions, after all I couldn't even say for certain if they were alive or dead.

          

I pulled ahead to the end of the bridge and began to climb down though the tangled driftwood. This was not one of my smartest decisions but me and 'smart' don't always get along. After what seemed like hours of wondering though this maze of driftwood, I finally reached my destination and after moving a few pieces of wood, I finally had a full view. There it was, one of J C Penny's finest mannequins.

         

A real state of panic, or dread, set in as I climbed back to my vehicle thinking about the fact that I probably had every train in the Dallas area stopped. I thought there was a lot of questions before, you should have heard all that I heard after I got back on the radio and said, "Never mind".

          

I will say this, that despite the wishes of many, I didn't lose my job, but it took months for the story to die down. Even when relieving in East Texas and Louisiana I was sometimes known as "The Mannequin Man". Oh well, this probably wouldn't  be the worst thing to happen to me in the thirty-three years I had left to work.