Putting the mail back on the railroad ....

[steinjr]

Wintertime, and roads are getting pretty slippery over here after a few cycles of thaw and freeze recently. Here is a link to a picture (from my local newspaper) of "my" rail line yesteday, a few miles up along the track - almost looks like mail is heading back towards being handled by the railroad again, doesn't it ?

http://www.vg.no/uploaded/image/bilderig...95_878.jpg

No, the mail truck did not get hit by the train, and neither the car driver nor the guy taking the picture was injured - I wouldn't have posted the link if that had happened.

Mail truck ended up about 4 inches short of fouling the track. And the picture is from about 20 minutes after the mail truck slid off the road and landed almost on the track - when the RR dispatcher and engineers had been alerted - that train is creeping past the incident site at very slow speed.

I assume the picture was taken by the conductor's cell phone while he was making sure the train would be able to get past the mail truck without hitting it.

Anyways - time for me to go get started on some modeling railroading again - just wanted to share that picture.

Smile,
Stein

[ezdays]

Thanks for sharing that, I always like to see what life is like elsewhere and I would not have been able to identify that as a mail truck without you saying what it is. We don't have those driving conditions here in the desert, and I'm really glad we don't.

[Russ Bellinis]

I'm not sure but in my experience with working on refrigeration equipment on the U.P. railroad at least, I don't think a person could get through to the dispatcher to let them know about something like that. Every time I got called out to work on a refrigerated rail car on the U.P., I would get a personal cell phone number for the dispatcher on duty that day, if I was lucky. A couple of times I was called out and tried to get through to the dispatcher and a different one was on than I had dealt with before, and I couldn't get hold of anyone. I just set up my blue flags and tried to get the work done before anyone came by to work the siding the car was on. In one instance, I went to work on a car, called the dispatcher, and was told I had it clear to work on the car for five hours. Apparently that dispatcher then went off duty because 1 hour later, a train crew showed up to pull the cut with the car I was working on and wanted to know who set up blue flags on the siding they were sent out to work!

[LynnB]

I bet the driver of the truck was wide eyed. :mrgreen:

[doctorwayne]

...... I don't think a person could get through to the dispatcher to let them know about something like that. .........

Probably true nowadays, but the dispatchers' numbers for both CN and TH&B (CP) were listed in the 'phone book back in the '70s and '80s.

Stein, I'm pretty sure that the USPS still ships mail on the rails, although most, if not all, is via piggyback.

Wayne

[steinjr]

I'm not sure but in my experience with working on refrigeration equipment on the U.P. railroad at least, I don't think a person could get through to the dispatcher to let them know about something like that.

Sorry - I must have formulated that clumsily. I just meant that train dispatch was informed - probably by the police, since the natural thing to do in case of an accident where it is necessary to secure the scene to prevent further damage is to call the police emergency number. And the police emergency center have the numbers to people like train dispatch, power company on-call, road service, the phone companies etc.

Not that the post car driver would have called dispatch directly - he probably would not have had the phone number for them on his cell phone.

I bet the driver of the truck was wide eyed. :mrgreen:

Yup, I also have a feeling that he probably got out of the car pretty fast

Stein, I'm pretty sure that the USPS still ships mail on the rails, although most, if not all, is via piggyback.

Probably. Mail isn't being transported on local commuter trains around here any more though. I remember the local trains delivering a few sacks of mail and packages in the early 1970s or so, but not these days.

Most local stations aren't manned any more, anyways. We get our train tickets from vending machines (that take cash or ATM cards), and renew our electronic commuter subscription cards by swiping em across a reader at the station. Not much need for a local agent any more. By all means - it is reasonably efficient and cost effective.

But I still miss spending 5-10 minutes chatting with the station agent in his office in the morning, while waiting for my train to trip the buzzer on the local control panel as it entered the next block up the line. Must be at least - mmm - 12-13 years or so since those days. How time flies.

Smile,
Stein

[iis612]

...... I don't think a person could get through to the dispatcher to let them know about something like that. .........

Probably true nowadays, but the dispatchers' numbers for both CN and TH&B (CP) were listed in the 'phone book back in the '70s and '80s.

Stein, I'm pretty sure that the USPS still ships mail on the rails, although most, if not all, is via piggyback.

Wayne

Most of the USPS distance service is via airlines, very little makes it's way via rail anymore. It actually makes more money for the airlines than passenger service does. UPS uses piggyback, even though they operate the largest air fleet in the civilian world (at least they did a few years ago).

Matt

[Russ Bellinis]

USPS ships first and third class mail by air, but parcels still go by rail unless the shipper pays the extra price to send it by air. The parcels are sent on road railers coupled to the back of AmTrak trains. UPS, Fedex, DHL, etc. also ship parcels by piggy back except when the shipper pays extra for next day air or two day air. It is not surprising that mail pays better for the airlines than passengers, mail paid better for the railroads than passengers and the railroads abandoned passenger service and pressed for the creation of AmTrak when the post office pulled the mail contracts.

[Tom]

I'm not sure but in my experience with working on refrigeration equipment on the U.P. railroad at least, I don't think a person could get through to the dispatcher to let them know about something like that. Every time I got called out to work on a refrigerated rail car on the U.P., I would get a personal cell phone number for the dispatcher on duty that day, if I was lucky. A couple of times I was called out and tried to get through to the dispatcher and a different one was on than I had dealt with before, and I couldn't get hold of anyone. I just set up my blue flags and tried to get the work done before anyone came by to work the siding the car was on. In one instance, I went to work on a car, called the dispatcher, and was told I had it clear to work on the car for five hours. Apparently that dispatcher then went off duty because 1 hour later, a train crew showed up to pull the cut with the car I was working on and wanted to know who set up blue flags on the siding they were sent out to work!

Wow, I can't believe I missed this thread originally. If you see an emergency or pending accident about to happen on the tracks, here's the number for UP and BNSF to call (Emergency Numbers):

Union Pacific: 1-800-892-1283

BNSF: 1-800-832-5452

Please do all rails a favor if you're anywhere near the UP or BNSF and program these numbers in your cell phone, they are UP and BNSF PD numbers, but they get patched through to the dispatchers REAL quick. I have used the UP one now twice, once when a tour bus had overturned off the side of Highway 99 near Salida and emergency crews were fouling the main (with a headlight way down the track as I was calling it in), and once when a Honda Accord was stalled on the tracks at El Pinal near my home while out running errands with Alicia. THAT train plugged it as it was already at Sears and narrowly avoided a collision. The old lady in the Accord had to be physically YANKED out by the cops because she panicked in the car. I promptly called the desk jockey over at Stockton PD and now ALL SPD officers have these numbers programmed, so spread the word. Tell all your railfan buddies and if they see anything hankey or about to go bad, tell them to CALL.

[Tom]

I know out west here, screwUPS traffic gets passed back and forth between UP and BNSF (though BNSF usually keeps it). Talk about your HOT trains. Now if screwUPS itself ran as efficeiently as their trains, I would use them again. (on second thought, I wouldn't use their aspiring soccer players EVER again).