Aw Shucks, It Weren't Nothin'

Railroad Crossing, look out for cars, can you spell that without any R's?

          Every railroader has hundreds of tales to tell. If you have a railroader in the crowd, he or she will eventually break out a story or two to entertain. If you have more than one railroader in the bunch you could be there a while and if the group is made up of all railroaders and you approach the group, you better be wearing boots. While most stories have fact as their base, as they travel from one railroader to another they undergo a little embellishment from time to time.

          Every day there is a railroader somewhere on the railroad doing his job when he or she is called on to do something that some would think extraordinary. Railroaders, like many other individuals in other fields of work, are trained in handling and reacting to hundreds of possibilities. I personally know of many individuals on the railroad that have done things that to most would seem heroic but to them was just another exciting day on the railroad.

          One story involves an old railroader who at one time had climbed the corporate ladder and had ridden his shooting star, but now had begun to climb down that old ladder and had traded his shooting star for a slower paced ride of contentment. He had settled into what he thought was a lower profile job as a Track Supervisor on the BNSF Railway Company. On this particular morning he was sitting near the track in Cleburne, Texas waiting for one more train to pass so that he could get on the track and hyrail to Ft. Worth making his daily inspections. He saw the signal for southbound trains go green, which meant that the train he was waiting on, a loaded coal train with about 120 cars weighing about 16,000 tons, was getting close.

          As the old Track Supervisor sat waiting he observed a gasoline tanker truck hauling 9000 gallons of fuel leaving a fuel depot about fifty yards from the tracks. As he started across the tracks his trailer dollies, which he had apparently forgotten to raise, struck the crossing causing the trailer to come unhooked and fall down on the main track. Knowing that the train was near the Track Supervisor immediately hit the emergency button on his radio and shouted, "Emergency, emergency, emergency! All trains in the Cleburne area stop movement immediately. There is a fuel tanker stuck on the tracks at the crossing at mile post 317.5." The train Dispatcher came on the radio and called for the coal train. The train responded and said that they had heard the broadcast and had placed their train into emergency braking to insure that they would be able to stop short of the truck. The train eventually stopped well short of the truck.

The Track Supervisor's hyrail inspection vehicle.

         Meanwhile the Track Supervisor pulled up next to the truck with his emergency strobe lights flashing and tried to calm the truck driver who was in the process of ramming the trailer over and over trying to recouple with it. The driver finally twisted the drive shaft in two and now the truck and trailer were both blocking the track. The Track Supervisor finally was able to calm the driver by assuring him that all trains were stopped and aware of the circumstances. Other than needing to change his britches, the truck driver and all others concerned were Ok. After about an hour or so later and with the assistance of a couple of heavy duty wrecker trucks, all was restored to normal operations.

          Other than clearing the track of a dozen head of cattle at Crowley, Texas and running a couple of kids off a bridge in Ft. Worth, the old Track Supervisor was able to complete his day as he was expected to do. That evening the old railroader came home, kicked off his boots and headed for his recliner. He gave his wife a big ole hug and she asked him how his day went. "Pretty much the same old stuff, how was your day", he said as he sank into the soft confines of contentment.