Stench of Death....

Yesterday on the 4:44 from Hunterspoint to Patchogue, all was going fine. We got to around Beth Interlocking when suddenly a smell of "death" started seeping out of the vents in the rear car (5012). At first we thought someone had terrible gas, but when the smell persisted, we thought maybe it was a bathroom problem. That was eliminated when we discovered the smell was only in the rear of the car.

No one figured out what the hell the smell was, but it was a smell that was something like a mix of gasoline fumes, onions, and flatulant. It was AWFUL!

Thankfully I got off in Babylon, but I feel bad for the poor souls that got stuck on that train all the way to Patchogue.

5016 being the west car is a cab car. All cab cars have toilets so it could have been a toilet problem. I know in this weather we have been working extra hard to make sure all toilet cars are cycled for toilet servicing. I will have this one reported as possibly needing service.

Hmmmm . . . . . . .

I've smelt my fair share of "sanitary" problems over the years, including commuter cars, parlor cars and those "wonderful" "Ping-Pong" cars with the hole in the floor, but NONE smelled of "Death!"

Perhaps something was dead in the woods along the tracks and the smell was circulated through the car with the air flow?

As anyone can tell you who has experienced that odor, it is VERY distinctive and nothing like human waste!

Dave Keller

P.S. If your waste smells of death, ya'll better see a doctor!!!

A DE at SD dropped off a deer carcass once after making the station stop. Wonder if some animal got up in there and died? Maybe one of our "fellow" LI'ers dropped his cellphone and died in there trying to get it? sh#%$t happens...

DE402,

I don't think we will have to worry about deer out east on the Greenport Branch, there are dead right by the milepost sign. Last count I was up to 9 or 10 deer (still trying to identify one carcass1)

Speaking of stenches, has anyone ever noticed that the double decker cars on the diesels have like a chemical odor to them. Especially around the doors when you get on. Maybe it is because you board near the bathrooms? It's kind of like a chemical bathroom smell. Can anyone help me out here?

The 5015 stunk tonight, too. Not so much up front, but half way through the car walking back toward the facilities, that same putrid smell graced every receptory gland in my nose! Seems like all the bathrooms on the C3s smell alike. That chemical smell is the solvent used to clean the cars. I know the smell you're talking about. Metro-North uses a similar solvent on their equipment. I don't think I've ever smelled a more horrid car then 5002 though. Smells like a thousand baby diapers piled up in the bathroom.

Joe

Sometimes the "stench of death" is indeed the stench of death. This is especially true along the the right of ways. Railroad tracks are always dumping grounds and this certainly doesn't exclude human corpses. The smell of rotting flesh is very distinct and the only worse thing of I can think is burning flesh.

A few years ago a yardmaster was getting a track or inventory of the cars in the yard and stumpled across a body hung from a rope on a tree. It wasn't a modern day lynching, just a severely depressed person.

Another time a yard conductor was going to drill cars and tripped over someone sleeping. It turn out he was sleeping because a .22 caliber bullet was lodged in his forehead.

I recall an event during the 60's, shortly after Carle Place was high-platformed. A kid tried to hide under the platform as a C-420 came through without stopping. The kid didn't clear, and portions of him were found jammed in parts of the track, while the rest was carried to Jamaica. I have often wondered who was the lucky person to clean that up. How do they do it? Hosing the locomotive is probably a given, but does the engine go to the pit for examination underneath? Who is called in to clean body fragments out of a switch or traction motors? And once the rent corpse is gathered, what happens to the parts? Body bag and closed casket is my guess. "All the Kings Horses and all the King's Men..."

The police generally do the cleanup these days. Equipment is often cleaned by the older management people as the crafts sometimes don't like doing that. Sometimes station cleaners or even the fire department is called in to hose down areas of platforms or rights-of-way.

There is a certain protocol of decency that old timers follow out of respect for the deceased that gets quite involved and is passed down through the generations of responders.

It's not a pretty job, but something that has to be done. The pieces are gathered and weighed by a coroner. If there's not enough, we look for more...

Here's a thought:

A gentleman was struck once by a train on the Far Rockaway Branch and the train carried his leg off to Valley Stream, where police met the train and secured the appendage. Doctors at Mercy Hospital were able to reattach the limb. I suppose, to this day, that leg had been places where its owner had never been...

Clem

years ago i met a retired MTA cop who had the deed of going to Ronkonkoma and Montauk on numerous occasions looking under equipment for missing parts, and usually finding them. He said one guy got nailed in Queens, and that one was the one he ended up in KO for. Said the job really sucked, so just befire retiring, he transferred to the NYS Parks Police, and his first day at Robert Moses Park, he responded to a floater... washed up drowning victim... he said that was worse than the train meat. True story...

One of my father-in-law's closest friends on the CPR was a RR cop who dealt with the aftermath by drinking. He finally dried out after retirement. I'm sure it's a common enough syndrome.

A freind of mine in the engine shop was performing traction motor inspections when he came accross a severed human hand. It turns out that the engine had been involved in a fatal accident several months before. He always said it was good to have an "extra hand" around when working on heavy machines - I don't think that's what he meant.

Thinking about bad smells... I recall one time back in the 80s I was taking a late electric train home one night. The train was somewhat busy but as I walked forward I noticed a empty car. I recall is was not too hot or cold and the lights were on - I kept on walking thru because I noticed open cars ahead so I go in and find out why no one was in this car: Someone had hurled multiple times in the aisle and in one of the door areas and the car reeked of vomit. I tip-toed thru and made my way out-no wonder no one was in this car! MACTRAXX

one always has to be suspect of the non crowded car. as a loyal E train rider, if i see an empty... either someone is dead, decayed, or the ac is working in reverse and the car is do damn hot you'd swear you were in the depths of hell. rarely is there a hot car, but there are usually a few "dead" folks during the week.

lirr cars have gotten better on the a/c of late but the toilets are the worst, especially in the new equipment. have yet to see the yellow river in the m-7s but when they stink, they stink