essachs@ihuxl.UUCP (Ed Sachs) (05/28/85)
Who says lightning never strikes twice in the same place! We had another coal train derail in our backyard over the weekend. This occurred at about 3:00 pm on Saturday, May 25, at the site of the previous derailment on March 19. The weeds that were just starting to sprout are once again buried under coal. The unlucky engineer was working Sunday with the cleanup crew. He says he was going 26 mph (speed limit has been 25 mph since the March mishap, but he claims its hard to control the speed of 4 SD40's and 115 loaded 100 ton coal hoppers any better than that). He was already 1/2 mile further down the track when the brakes went into emergency and "I knew I was in trouble." The engineer claims that ICG should have replaced the "panel rail" (pre-fab track sections I described in my last article) with something more permanent, but don't want to invest money in a line they are planning to sell. He also grumbled how the intended buyer of the line plans on making him work longer days for less money. He thought that the "panel rail" buckled in the 80+ degree heat and caused the derailment. In any event, two trains went through yesterday (Monday) DEAD SLOW (about 5 mph) on the repaired rails. I hope that this is the last derailment I get to write about for quite a while! -- Ed Sachs AT&T Bell Laboratories Naperville, IL ihnp4!ihuxl!essachs