by GN 599
As a locomotive engineer, and an RCO, I can say that as long as there are trains, railroaders will crash them. We have had similar incidents where I work, one crew put went over a derail and buried the switch engine. About a month ago they crashed them into the side of a U.P. train. It all boils down to people not proteting the shove or whatever. I know what job you are talking about Golden Arm. I used to work it before the BNSF leased it out. What places does that guy have to switch. We had two full crew jobs. The ''day'' hauler worked from Eugene to Albany and worked Junction City and switched out the GP at American. The ''night'' hauler used the day jobs power and worked back to Eugene doing the setout at American. We had to switch Harrisburg, Junction City and Awbrey though. A couple of years ago we had an old head engineer come flying out of a track on ''his'' switch engine into the side of the mill job's engine. He would always say 6126 backin up. Well that time he was on the wrong radio channel and he ran that SD-9 right into the fuel tank of a GP. It wasnt so bad but then he took off forward and ripped a hole in the side of it spilling about 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel in front of the yard office. Contrary to popular belief engineers are not perfect.....
What a long strange trip its been.