Murphy's Law and A ill-Fated Steamtown Excursion With Railfan and Railroad

"Hard joints" sometimes happen in freight railroading.  We all make an effort to avoid it, but sometimes it happens. Yes, I've made my share of them over the years. Some through no fault of my own, some by my own doing.

Unfortunately, making a "hard joint" in the passenger business just can't be tolerated.

The sets of circumstances change completely when passengers are being handled. We're talking non-railroading human life and limb here. Make a hard joint in passenger service and injuries can result, which leads to lawsuits following, and you will likely be looking for a new vocation.

I've not yet trained an Engineer to replace me in excursion passenger service on the line at which I work. Seeing as I will be retiring in a little over 3 years, I will have to do so eventually.  However, I have tutored new Conductors.  The first thing I stress is that passenger service IMMEDIATELY changes all the circumstances and total and absolute control of the joints/etc is an absolute MUST. Period.  This means stopping well short of the joint, communicating with the onboard Host Conductor that ALL passengers and operating personnel are seated and ready for the joint... then accomplishing said joint in the softest possible manner that will still allow the pins to drop.  For the Engineer, this same level of carefulness must also extend to starts/stops and handling the trains over the road.  If you can't handle a multiple car dining train that is serving wine in long stem glasses moving at track speed over the span of a trip without spillage, then one really doesn't need to be in passenger service.

Thus far in my career, there have been zero incidents of any sort when I'm in passenger service, and I fully intend to do whatever it takes to keep it that way.

However, I DID have a cow bring a passenger train that I was running to a complete stop, and there we were for 2 1/2 hours. However, that's another story best told another time!

In fairness ( maybe ) to those involved there was some talk of this sitting consist being on a blind curve but being no expert on any of this, who knows? I do know it was one of the most bizarre excursions Ive experienced. After paying the airline bill, the hotel bill, the excursion bill etc I swore off taking any more excursions. That lasted about a month. The best laid plans ( in my case ) do go astray. There was some talk of a investigation but I never bothered to look into it. I took the late Jim Boyd's word for it..what caused the incident. Maybe it was the beginning of a bad streak of luck for that magazine under that management...who knows?

Not knowing where or what movement rules were being operated under, etc, then I'm not in a position to determine what went wrong in that particular event. 

A general observation: Unless the movement was being made over a track designated "Main", then they were likely moving under some form of "Restricted Speed" rule. Succinctly put, when running under a form of "restricted speed", you are to be able to stop within half the range of your vision (and not exceed 20 MPH). 

In theory (and can be in practice) such movement make such incidents avoidable, and when an incident does happen, typically the blame falls directly into the lap of the Engineer.

Being required to run at restricted speed (in various circumstances) has saved my bacon more times than I can recall.

"The passengers had expected a fun-filled day on the 92-mile round trip, pulled to Analomink by a diesel and carried back to Scranton with a steam engine.'

http://articles.mcall.com/1999...ocomotive-passengers

I hope you got your money back.  I certainly would have asked for mine.

Rick

We had that option and I had pretty mixed feelings about it as outside of sitting for a long time in a broiling coach, the accident was what it was, an accident and I kept thinking this might have some bad consequences for Steamtown and Carstens...so I  also felt bad for them and simply left very bummed out. The excursion ticket paled in comparison to the cost of flights, hotel, etc. The old saying no use crying over spilled milk applied to that one. My wife was incredulous...you didn't get your money back!? 

While I was not on the excursion train that day, I was chasing the the train from Scranton to Analomink, PA., and I was at Cresco PA. when the collision occurred.

I had spent the entire day the previous Saturday with my DeLorme Atlas and Gazetteer for Pennsylvania scouting out photo locations between Scranton and Analomink for photo locations.

On the day of the excursion, diesels were to pull the train from Scranton to Analomink with the steam locomotive following, running light to meet up with the train after it reached Analomink.  The steamer was then to lead the train back to Scranton with the diesels helping.  The steamer was running in reverse the entire trip from Scranton to Analomink since there were no turning facilities in Analomink.  There was a scheduled stop at the station in Cresco, Pa. on the way to Analomink.  I had scouted the station location and it was one on my planned photo locations.  State route 191 crosses the rail line on an overpass about 1/4 mile up grade from the station and I planned to take photos from the overpass.

The train arrived and made its scheduled stop at the Cresco station.  (I think it stopped so some local officials could do a photo op). I had just arrived at Cresco as the train arrived, having just departed Mount Pocono, where I had taken photos of the steam engine, which had stopped in Mount Pocono on its way to Analomink.

I set myself up on the ramp on the southwest side of the Rte 191 overpass so that I could get a shot of the steamer when it came downgrade into Cresco.  There is a sharp curve immediately upgrade from the overpass and I was on the side of the overpass where I had a clear view into the inside of the curve.  Note that this area is/was a heavily wooded area.

As I waited, it seemed that the stop by the train was taking longer than I would have expected for the typical photo op.

The train was still parked in the Cresco station when I saw the steamer slowly backing downgrade coming around the very sharp curve.  There were crew members on the tender looking towards the station.  As soon as the crew saw the parked train, they applied the brakes.  The locomotive began sliding on the rails, and continued to slide until it hit the back end of the parked train.  Note that the last car of the parked train extended upgrade under the overpass.  The streamer was running slowly when I first saw it and by the time of the collision it had slowed to less than 10 mph.

This event cancelled the remainder of the trip, so not long afterwards I left the area and returned home.

And as they used to say on the radio, "Now you know the rest of the story."

Without going into too many details, here are some facts about this incident.

The steam engine was being towed by a diesel which was in control of the movement.

Restricted speed was in effect as the track was "out of service" under the control of the conductor of the excursion train that was parked at Cresco. 

The steam/diesel train was given permission much earlier in the day to follow the excursion. (first mistake).Can you say "situational awareness"?

There was no hard coupling planned as these two trains were not to meet here. 

The crews in charge of both trains were DL crews as at that early time Steamtown crews only allowed to qualify to Moscow. 

 from them.

One who was there,

Thanks Earl...I knew there had to be a back story somewhere as to why this all happened.I hadn't thought about until the topic of Carstens came up and Tony K's name was mentioned...One high point was another ride on the parallel old Laurel Line next to the Steamtown yard which then went through that long tunnel..One day I'll make it back ( as they say) if the river doesn't rise, when steam returns to service.