Funny story from when I was at work one day -
After servicing the coaches we left the yard to pull into the passenger station. This particular station is ground level, with passengers boarding via the steps on each car. As we approached the station platform I started seeing the coins on the rail and the last few kids scurrying away to see their coins flattened.
The station is clearly market "Stay behind yellow line" and common sense would tell you to stay away from the rails if a train is approaching. Right? Well.. I guess common sense aint so common
So, after having the engineer come to an easy stop, I climbed down out of the rear cab car and walked the rails picking up the coins and putting them into my pocket. More then one parent approached and said "Hey, that's MY money".... My only reply was "Oh it was?" and kept walking...
Many of the other passengers were laughing. One part-time officer for the local PD even came up and said he'd never seen any of the other conductors do that.
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Oh, yeah, I did that back in the 50s when I was a kid. The train went through the village where my parents had their beach cottage (it had a station too) and my friends and I put a few pennies on the track. Didn't keep any of them, though. And the resort town a couple of miles farther down the track had dozens of arcades lining the beachfront street and I got a pennie squashed and embossed in one of those machines too. Didn't keep it either. Good memories.
..... Bob
Beam me up, Scotty, there's no intelligent life down here. (Captain Kirk)
I reject your reality and substitute my own. (Adam Savage)
Resistance is not futile--it is voltage divided by current.
Ah, yes, the flattened coin.
1953, I was thirteen and my best buddy who was a Senior in high school and I were re-tracing the roadbed of the old Nevada County Narrow Gauge near Colfax, on the SP mainline. Where the roadbed passed under the SP Long Ravine trestles, we climbed up and Rich Miller grinned and said he was going to flatten a quarter on the tracks. We could hear a train coming down the grade from Cape Horn. A whole QUARTER! I mean, back then, that would have gotten us both two Cokes and some candy bars, LOL! I looked at Rich and said, "Won't that derail the train?" He just grinned, we put the quarter on the rail and scampered down off the roadbed.
A HUGE AC Cab-forward thundered by about that time, dragging what looked to me like about 400 freight cars, whipping down the grade at what seemed about 600MPH. After the train thundered by, we went to the rail and looked at that quarter. It was melted to the rail, Rich burned his fingers trying to pry it off, it was about as thick as tin-foil, but one HELL of a lot sharper. We finally just left it there. Who knows, there might be two Cokes and a couple of Hershey's candy bars still up there on the Long Ravine Trestle.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
I have one from when I saw the Challenger here in 2005. But I took a penny, stacked it on a quarter, and taped it to the rail so it wouldn't move. It looks pretty cool, I made it into a keychain.
Oh and Shayfan, Great avatar.....
RJ
"Something hidden, Go and find it. Go and look behind the ranges, Something lost behind the ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go." The Explorers - Rudyard Kipling
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miniwyo wrote: Oh and Shayfan, Great avatar.....
UW Class of '78; you an alum?
Back on topic: Growing up in Ashland, Oregon, the SP track ran between the junior high school and most of the rest of town. We started with pennies, but this quickly escalated. One day a loco was moving slowly towards us and we put all manner of stuff on the track - there were a couple of coins, pencils, a bolt, a few bottle caps and a few ROCKS! The engineer stopped the engine short of the debris and he came out on the front platform and ordered us to clear the stuff off the track. He lectured us on how dangerous it can be and explained that we had broken a few laws - trespassing, interfering with the operation of a train, etc. At 13, I was already a model railroader and I felt pretty ashamed to be dressed down by a representative of a railroad.
I'm sure glad I got over it in time to get a penny flattened by UP 8444.
Phil, I'm not a rocket scientist; they are my students.
Some years ago, two kids stacked several pennies at the Amtrak station in Jackson, MI. 355 came in and those stacked pennies flew like bullets- one went over 100 feet and through two windows; another went through another window and embedded itself in a plaster wall.
Try it yourself- take a stack of five or six pennies, then strongly squeeze the stack between your thumb and forefinger with just a bit of extra force at one end. Now imagine it with a train!
My mama always said "you'll put your eye out", or "you'll break your neck" doing that.
Rotor
Jake: How often does the train go by? Elwood: So often you won't even notice ...
shayfan84325 wrote: miniwyo wrote: Oh and Shayfan, Great avatar..... UW Class of '78; you an alum?
I will be someday..... I am just returning to college this fall after a 2 year break to work.... But I do watch every football game on TV and somethimes in person if I can manage to get down there....
When I was a kid (about 1,000 years ago). I live half a block for the Southern tracks. The trains would have to stop and wait permission enter Centralia on the IC to go through town. I used put coins on the tracks all the time. Unfortunately they are long gone.
majortom
Reality...an interesting concept with no successful applications, that should always be accompanied by a "Do not try this at home" warning.
Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction.
"Oooh...ahhhh...that's how this all starts...but then there's running...and screaming..."
wHen I rode the Strausburd RR a few years ago, the Consuctor took a roll of pennies, laid them on the rail as the locomotive ran arround the train, and then handed them to all the kids...
The Delaware and Ulster in Arkville NY does this too. Got one myself lest year. Naturally I would never admit to trying this myself with either pennies or quarters.
Karl
The mind is like a parachute. It works better when it's open. www.stremy.net
Bill, Senior Editor Elder-Gateway.com