Arriving at Sangerfield, as far south as they run on the Utica Branch, although the line is intact all the way down to Chenango Forks. They set out the tank car for Carovail and then ran Long Hood Forward back to Utica. I tried to chase them back, but they got ahead of me without me realizing it and I never caught back up.
Just a safety reminder in the wake of an accident that killed two Union Pacific crew members, injured three, and caused millions in equipment and property damage this week in Pecos, Texas.
If you are stuck on a grade crossing, or see someone stuck on a crossing CALL THE NUMBER ON THE BLUE SIGN AT THE CROSSING. Get out of the vehicle immediately. Find the blue sign on the crossing and call the emergency number. DO NOT CALL 911 FIRST! AGAIN call the number on the blue sign FIRST. In this situation every second counts and 911 can't help you fast enough.
They look like this, and have the phone number, crossing number and railroad name. It will immediately put you in touch with a railroad dispatcher who will immediately halt any moves coming that way. The truck was stuck on the crossing for nearly an hour before it was hit, and nobody called the number to let UP know. The low-boy truck with an oversize load shouldn't have been there to begin with, a proper route planning would have had them avoid that crossing and a pilot vehicle that was actually doing it's job would have warned them off before they got hung up on the crossing (there was a pilot vehicle, and even police Ford Econoboxs, but they clearly didn't alert them), and then they called 911, but neither they, nor 911, nor even their police Ford Econoboxs, called Union Pacific to alert them. And now two people are dead because of it.
Honestly, just staggering amounts of incompetence with that situation. According to locals, that crossing is a notorious trouble spot, with warning signs. Any pre-planning inspection should have caught it. The pilot vehicle should have caught it. The truck driver, upon approaching, should have seen it and stopped. The police Ford Econobox should have known to call the railroad. And the fact that it was stuck there for nearly an hour and no one made that call is just absurd. Gross negligence all the way around.
So this summer CalTrain went fully electric with new Stadler KISS trainsets, retiring their old F40PHs and cool stainless-steel doubledecker gallery cars. The move was done through a California state grant, which as part of a "decarbonization effort" required that the prime mover be disabled per terms of the grant. They could only be put back in service if upgraded to Tier 4 emissions compliance. For a while, they were even offered on CalTrain's merch store website.
Recently it was announced that the 645 prime movers won't be disabled, because they have made an agreement to send 19 of the locomotives and 90 gallery commuter cars to Lima, Peru, for some $6 million, a deal which involved CalTrain, the US State Department, Department of Commerce, and Bay Area Air Quality Management District. Lima expressed its interest in buying the equipment, which led to the agreement and the Air Quality Management District has provided a waiver allowing the locomotives to continue in operation rather than being scrapped, a standard requirement for funding toward new equipment.
Now, I'll try not to get political, but California politicians just really do not live in the real world, do they? A senator is now bringing forth a lawsuit to try and block all similar future sales. His argument is that selling the equipment to Peru and allowing it to run as-is is not eliminating pollution, but just moving pollution elsewhere. But what he's ignoring, is that while F40PHs may not be perfectly green, they are greener alternatives to the current car-heavy commutes in Lima. A US State Department study said the process would remove 20,000 metric tons of pollution from the air, take 4,000 cars off the road, and generate 150,000 to 250,000 passenger trips on weekdays. It's cleaner than cars, and the stuff already exists, so there isn't the pollution from manufacturing new equipment.
The new Stadler KISS trainsets that CalTrain is using. They're not as ugly as the junk coming out of Siemens, but I still like F40PHs with stainless-steel gallery cars.
How/why did this thread suddenly become a sticky in the Off-Topic section?
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