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Path: utzoo!lsuc!msb
From: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Newsgroups: net.railroad
Subject: Re: Anyone want some free coal?
Message-ID: <538@lsuc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 23-Mar-85 02:10:18 EST
Article-I.D.: lsuc.538
Posted: Sat Mar 23 02:10:18 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 23-Mar-85 03:56:36 EST
References: <1519@ihuxl.UUCP>
Reply-To: msb@lsuc.UUCP (Mark Brader)
Distribution: net
Organization: The Law Society of Upper Canada
Lines: 40
Summary: more derailment stories


Ed Sachs's derailment story reminds me of April 11, 1981.  I was then living
in a high-rise overlooking Canadian Pacific's "Galt subdivision", the line
from Toronto to London (Ont.) and beyond.  During the wee hours of April 11
I heard one or two loud bangs, then silence.  The next day it turned out that
this had been a derailment less than half a mile away.  The line had a level
crossing that was on a fairly sharp curve already, and this was being replaced
by an underpass, and the temporary track had an even sharper curve.  Apparently
a train had been backing around this and had derailed.  Nothing too serious,
but I got to watch the cleanup the next day.

Fortunately the derailment had been away from the other track, so they could
bring a crane right up beside the train.  I watched as they carefully
jockeyed the last car back onto the track, then tried to do the same with
the engine, then they cut a damaged piece off the engine, then they carefully
put IT back on the track, and by this time there were about 100 people
watching, and we all applauded.

Then they swung the crane boom around to stow it to go home, without first
lowering the boom, and hit a power line.

(Not only that, but it broke, and fell against a metal fence, while still live.
Nobody hurt, though... unless there were injuries in the automobile accident
that happened a couple of blocks away while the traffic lights were off!)

Which, in turn, reminds me...

I heard one other derailment happen on that line during the 6 years
I lived there.  It was on November 10, 1979, just before midnight.  It
sounded like "wh-whumph".  Not very loud -- except it was 8 miles away
and I was hearing it THROUGH the thickness of the well-built building!

You see, the train was carrying propane and chlorine ... they evacuated
over 200,000 people from the area, some for almost a week.  Fortunately the
immediate area was industrial, and the worst injury that night was to a
reporter who broke his ankle climbing over a fence.  (His station, CITY,
interviewed him.  He said his ankle hurt.)  (Some firefighters inhaled
chlorine a few days later, but they recovered all right.)

Mark Brader