Well as many of you know I work a second job. I also run a small police dept here in the area. The town I work for has a railroad track that runs right through the middle of it and it is a heavily used track.
Well I just so happened to be working last night around 10pm when UP Railroad had a little mishap. They had a derailment and lost 10 cars which ended up in one heck of a mess. Train was moving 50 mph+ when it happened. The track runs parrallel with IL Hwy 37, there is 50 or 60 feet between the track and the roadway. Several of the rail cars came to rest on the highway. Talk about a twisted, mangled mess.
Buddy of mine who works for the fire dept was on his way back to the station from a call and it happened right in front of him. Of course he's in a tanker truck loaded with water running highway speeds when he sees it happening. He got on the brakes and finally came to a stop about 50 - 75 feet from the wreckage. He got just a tad excited to say the least. Very lucky, another couple seconds and it most likely would have cost him dearly.
Lucky for me it was about 3/4 mile north of the town I work for so all I had to do was assist with traffic until dept of trans got road barricades in place.
The good part is that all of the cars were empty, nothing hazardous, and nobody was hurt.
Being one of the first ones there I had the opportunity to mess with the State Troopers when they got there. One asked what had happened, I told him, no idea but it appears there was a real ugly girl walking down the track and the train tried to take a dirt road. Told another that the engineer swerved to miss a deer. We had much more fun with it than the UPRR officials of course!
Below is a link to one of the local tv stations. They are still working to get the full story but there is some video of the mess. Much of it appears to be moved compared to what it was last night and does no justice to the magnitude of the situation.
WSIL TV • VIDEO
Well I just so happened to be working last night around 10pm when UP Railroad had a little mishap. They had a derailment and lost 10 cars which ended up in one heck of a mess. Train was moving 50 mph+ when it happened. The track runs parrallel with IL Hwy 37, there is 50 or 60 feet between the track and the roadway. Several of the rail cars came to rest on the highway. Talk about a twisted, mangled mess.
Buddy of mine who works for the fire dept was on his way back to the station from a call and it happened right in front of him. Of course he's in a tanker truck loaded with water running highway speeds when he sees it happening. He got on the brakes and finally came to a stop about 50 - 75 feet from the wreckage. He got just a tad excited to say the least. Very lucky, another couple seconds and it most likely would have cost him dearly.
Lucky for me it was about 3/4 mile north of the town I work for so all I had to do was assist with traffic until dept of trans got road barricades in place.
The good part is that all of the cars were empty, nothing hazardous, and nobody was hurt.
Being one of the first ones there I had the opportunity to mess with the State Troopers when they got there. One asked what had happened, I told him, no idea but it appears there was a real ugly girl walking down the track and the train tried to take a dirt road. Told another that the engineer swerved to miss a deer. We had much more fun with it than the UPRR officials of course!
Below is a link to one of the local tv stations. They are still working to get the full story but there is some video of the mess. Much of it appears to be moved compared to what it was last night and does no justice to the magnitude of the situation.
WSIL TV • VIDEO
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