When we lived in Houston there was a train track across the street
behind some houses. At some point the track developed a gap between
rails, maybe a half inch or so. You could hear the clack-clack every
time a wheel truck ran over it. I went and looked at it one day and the
front rail was getting hammered pretty good and flattened out to where
there was now not only a half inch gap but a half inch level difference,
so the rail was also getting pounded down as the wheels dropped onto
it. I went to some meeting about the crossing down the way, and the
trains blowing horns, and brought this issue up with the City Powers and
the train company guys (the head lawyer of which lived in our little
community). They all made Concerned Noises but nothing was done about
it. This went on for months.
So some time later a bunch of cars derailed and fell over and down the
embankment. These were grain cars but ahead and behind them were some
sort of tankers. When all the TV and cops and Official People were
doing their thing, I went around asking what was in the tank cars, no
one knew or no one was saying -- oil, chemicals, gasoline, whatever. I
pointed out that it would have been pretty nasty if whatever that was
fell over but everyone was acting really weird about it. So then I
brought up that the track had been bad for ages, I had told a bunch of
people about it, etc. and it got even weirder. I presume there was some
sort of investigation by FRA or someone, but no one ever called me or
asked about that. It was pretty clear the track separated at that gap
and the cars just ran off right past it.
We had a huge rat problem, and the rotting grain stunk like crazy for
the next coupla months, I and some other neighbors called the TV people
again and the train co came out and cleaned up, spread some dirt and
deodorizer or soemthing. But no one ever brought up the track
maintenance issue...
--R
On 2/22/15 4:08 PM, Max Dillon via Mercedes wrote:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_OIL_TRAINS_SAFETY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-02-22-12-00-23
_______________________________________
http://www.okiebenz.com
To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/
To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to:
http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
All posts are the result of individual contributors and as such, those
individuals are responsible for the content of the post. The list owner has no
control over the content of the messages of each contributor.
