The makin's of one nasty accident

T

TrainNut

Ditat Deus
Sep 15, 2004
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AZ
One of our neighboring sites has a monthly photo contest as well and this months theme is disasters. The deadline is the end of August and I've been procrastinatin' something fierce. I had an image in my head of a grand derailment but could find no place adequate on my layout to pose a scene. I therefore decided to build a small diorama instead.
I started by cutting two pieces of foam... one for the base, and one for the backdrop. The base is 2' wide by 1' deep and the backdrop is 2' wide by 1' tall. I then went scrounging around for parts and pieces to see what I could find. In an old box, I found 3 F7A's and a bunch of old cars that I felt I could donate to the cause. I also found an old backdrop. It's for HO I think, but what the hey, it works.
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Last night, I figured if I didn't just sit down and finish it, it probably wouldn't get done. I started with three old flex track pieces and proceeded to design a crash site. I laid out the engines and the freight to see what kind of possibilites I might have.
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Lo'n'behold, three hours later, I had something I felt worthy of the challenge!
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I tried hiding incense sticks in behind things to add some smoke but it was so thin and wispy, it turned out nonexistant in the pictures. Perhaps some emergency vehicles and some equipment will happen along soon to get this mess cleaned up. Who know, it's only a secondary line so it might stay like this for a while!
 
I was on that train.... I remember the whole thing like it was yesterday..... Old Joe was sittin' over in the conductor's seat, smokin' that nasty old pipe of his and telling off color jokes. Those jokes would offend everybody in earshot but Old Joe would just laugh like they were the funniest things ever. Then somethin' happened that turned Old Joe's laughter into a look of pure fear and I looked forward as the color ran out of his face.

There, on the tracks, was the biggest buffalo I had ever seen. I didn't even know there were still wild buffalo out there but this beast was real, sure enough. And he was right in the middle of our tracks. I grabbed for the brakes and held on with everything I had but it was too late. We slammed into that old monster doing at least 65 mph and I don't really remember much after that.

When I came around, I was lying in the grass out in a pasture somewhere. Half the consist was in flames and there were people from the nearby town running all over the place. The odd thing was I didn't feel any pain anywhere. After everything calmed down and I was taken to a nearby hospital, I found out why. My neck had been broken and I was now paralyzed from the neck down.

Anyway, I got a pretty good settlement from the railroad and my wife spends her days taking care of me now. She's a good woman with a big heart. I can tell I wear her thin at times, though. Sometimes I feel more sorry for her than I do for me. Although, I really shouldn't be feeling sorry for myself. After all, I was really the lucky one..... maybe. You see, Old Joe, well...... Nobody is really sure what happened to Old Joe because his body has never been found.
 
jesso said:
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I hope there were survivors.
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I can truthfully tell you that I saw no activity after the derailment but apparently, of the two guys in the cab of the lead unit, one of them survived!...
Cannonball said:
I was on that train.... Nobody is really sure what happened to Old Joe because his body has never been found.
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jesso said:
Hate to see wrecked Warbonnets, losing three at one time must have hurt the fleet. Did the oil cars leak or just burn on the outside? Was the town evacuated?
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Not to worry!... The only unit to sustain any permanent damage is the one that took a nose dive. The other two can very easily be repaired and returned to passive duty. In all honesty, I can also tell you that the oil cars did not leak and were just burned on the outside.:mrgreen::mrgreen: However, for all intensive purposes, it does appear that some fluid did leak out and catch on fire!:mrgreen::mrgreen: As far as the town being evacuated, I think they must have all split for the hills when things started catching on fire as I witnessed nary a soul show up to help.
steamhead said:
Is somebody "investigating" what caused it..??
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According to the brakeman, it's all because of a giant buffalo!:eek:
Cannonball said:
I got a pretty good settlement from the railroad and my wife spends her days taking care of me now.
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Cannonball, I'm happy to hear that you survived but I too will always wonder about Old Joe. I would have rushed right down to see if I could help but the local official had the whole area pretty tightly roped off as to the uncertainty as to what was in the tankers and whether or not they still had the possibility of exploding!
 
Todays News

Train crashes into parked tractor-trailer in Renfrew, Ont.

A train collided with a tractor-trailer parked in front of an eastern Ontario convenience store Tuesday morning.
No one was injured in the crash at about 8:30 a.m. near the intersection of Munroe Avenue West and Raglan Street North in Renfrew, Ont., about 60 kilometres west of Ottawa, said an Ontario Provincial Police news release.
At the time, the train was heading eastbound and the back of the truck, which was fully loaded with a log home kit, stuck out across the tracks as it sat in the parking lot of a Mac's convenience store, the release said.
The intersection was closed while municipal crews cleaned up the scene.


Link to article


This is the first time i have heard of something like this. I guess this is a prototype for those of us who have left tools or misc items too close to our track.
 
From log home company to log home customer:
Uhm, the driver we hired to ship your new log home left it on the railroad tracks while he ran in to get a soda and it got run over by a train. Can you wait another six months while we put together another package for you?
 
this post has given me an idea for a diorama, i have this N scale crane car i been wanting to use some where. so i think im going to have a train run along a cliff, ravine on one side and cliff/mountain on the other side of the tracks, maybe have a bridge going over a small river, and at the ends of the diorama have tunnels. have the crane swing out over the side of the cliff getting ready to pull a box car or two out of the ravine . this would take place awhile after the derail as the work crew and equipment is already there and in place. maybe a 12" x 24" or an 12" x 18" diorama .

it will give me practice doing scenery.
 
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