-Thank You-

Broken couplings happen all the time. Most likely just snapped. There are ways to tell if a derailment occurred. Without trespassing, and in safety, look at the ties and tell us what you see.

Since you are still alive, I assume you either know how to keep yourself from being hit by a train or else are incredibally lucky, and I really do not believe in luck. Yes, you should stay off the track, but since you probably won't, here are the few basic rules some from others and some my own for staying alive while on the track.

1. Always expect a train to be coming at any time from either direction, moving at or in excess of the maximum allowed speed.

2. Do not depend upon your ears to warn you of trains. They can be surprisingly hard to hear if there is any amount of background noise or wind toward the train.

3. Keep a continuous awareness of means of escape from the track.

4. Don't mess with switch points, switch stands, etc. Never place any part of your body between the switch point and the stock rail of a power switch. If you get a shoe caught, get out of it. It is better to lose a shoe than your life.

5. If caught close to the track, lie outside the track and as down as far from the rail and a low as you can get, parallel to the track with your FEET toward the train. It is better to lose your foot from some draggin object than your head. If this means lying in mud or garbage, do it. It is better to be dirty and alive. Drunks may occasionally survive lying between the rails. Don't count on it. One dangling air hose, and you are hamburger.

6. When a train is coming get well clear of ALL tracks. There may be more than one train coming at a time. The absolute minimum distance you must be away from the track can be determined by standing with your feet next to the rail on the outside and holding your arm straight out. If you can not get further from the track than your fingertips, LIE DOWN.

Once I found a whole set of bones on the tracks, nothing seemed to be missing from it, except anything that should be on the bones.

The average length of service of an employee killed on the tracks was about 20 years. Point being, they had gotten overly familiar with the situation and let their guard down.

Example: A section gang was wiped out in total because they were walking the track talking and forgot to keep a lookout.

I recall reading somewhere that in actuality one person alone proved to be much more attentive than two together, because two people talk / interact with each other and become less aware of surroundings.

In my own experience, I was once one step short of walking into the side of a moving train passing the end of an industrial plant because I did not hear it, and my guard was down because I "knew" the line only carried one train a day and it had already gone by. Scared me good.

Another little safety tidbit: Major accidents usually have more than one thing that went wrong at the same time. If they did not combine you would usually have either a minor accident or a near miss. For each major accident there are something like 30 minor accidents and 400 plus near misses. Therefore, paying attention to the whys and wherefores of minor accidents and near misses will go a long way to save you from a major accident.

PS. What kind of Air Hose?

And these Skeletons were of WHAT EXACTLY?

The coupler you saw could have been one of two things. It may have been partly broken to where it was not visible to the eye. It may also have been the wrong knuckle. There are two different sizes of couplers. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, because it's been a while since I've replaced one, but there is an E50 coupler and an F51 coupler. More than 90% of the cars use the E50 coupler, but there are some which use the F51. The brakeman probably carried the E50 knuckle back with plans to replace the broken one and found out he had the wrong one. We do not carry that dang thing back to get another one. We leave it there and it will be picked up sooner or later.

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Originally posted by Sheriff:
It's easier to just let one of the highrails pick it up as they drive by. Walking the balas rock is hard enough without carrying all that weight.

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if it something worth the efort, then I'll carry it, but that Coupler, wasnt just taken off, it was torn off, the metal was twisted at the end and a whole chunk was ripped off

>the brakeman did not need the air hose, so he just left it there, so he would not have to carry it all the way back to the locomotive

>why bother with carrying it back

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Originally posted by Kairho:
Exactly the kind of attitude that made America great. And these are the kind of jobs protected by unions. It wasn't just the jet and the interstate that did a job on the railways.[/B]

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Since you are a tour guide, I don't expect you to understand what it's like to get on a train which has had problems all day. Let's say the train was built wrong and this is your second or third 80 pound coupler you have had to carry for 1/2 mile in the balase rock, due to the train breaking more than one time in a single trip. The walking is not always so great because you will have bridges to cross, balase rock to walk, which is sometimes lying at a 45 degree angle (you fall down more than you walk), and do it in 105 degrees to 0 degrees temperature. When it's hot the rock warms up about 10 degrees hotter. When it's cold you can't feel your hands to carry the coupler.