Submitted for your approval.
Last night we ran into some pretty intense thunderstorms. Along with periods of heavy rain (once it was almost like being in fog, we couldn't see past the engine's nose) there were some impressive displays of lightning. Some, although most weren't real close, were momentarily blinding. Along with some flash flood warnings, the storm seemed to cause some signal problems. We heard the dispatcher talking to someone (either a signal maintainer or track inspector) about track lights (showing an occupancy/broken rail, etc.) that popped on in, and adjacent to, a Control Point on both tracks. It sounded like the ones outside the control point went away. The ones in the CP plant would come and go. That's not really too unusual, especially during severe storms. We had a different CP drop out ahead of us. After a couple of minutes, it came back and we got a signal to go.
About 30 miles from home, we were stopped until the yard was able to take us in. The way freight and another train went around us. As the way freight approached the Kate Shelley High Bridge, the dispatcher came on and warned them to proceed prepared to stop if they saw anything unusual on the bridge. There is a security camera on the west end of the bridge that the dispatcher has access to. The dispatcher said something really weird had happened. (Cue the eerie music.) It seems for about 20 minutes there was a strange light near the east end of the bridge. While the light was visible in the camera, both tracks had track lights on. The light disappeared and so did the track lights. A manager was sent out to the bridge but nothing was found amiss. It sounded like a call for a signal maintainer was put in, but by then we had been brought into the yard and were on a different radio channel. The dispatcher said multiple times that what happened was weird.
When we went over the bridge we didn't see anything unusual. I did tell the conductor that in the movies on stormy nights, a scenario like this usually is the start of an alien invasion of earth. No invasion so far.
Jeff
As long as you didn't have an ape-like monster on your running boards, I guess you were OK.
i have 9 surveillance video cameras around my house (not because I am paranoid, but because I wanted to know when the mailman came and it became an obsessive hobby to just keep adding more cameras, with different views!... [of course, I would not be so paranoid if everybody wasn't out to get me!])...
Anyway, I see some really strange things when it is raining... 99 44/100 percent of the time, a close examination of the video shows that the strange lights and oddball shapes I see are nothing more than water droplets on the window the camera is viewing through. They can even reflect light that is not in the scene the camera has... but can be way off to the side, almost in the same plane as the glass in the window.
The eeriest one, one night, was a pair of red eyes, in the center of the view, staring directly into the camera. The got very bright and then blinked twice.
I was watching the live video feed from this camera at the time. I was wishing I owned a shotgun. Then the one on the left took off at a 45-degree angle toward the lower right corner. At first I thought the face was rotating, but then the one eye remained and the other disappeared out of view in the lower right corner.
The view from one of the other cameras revealed the neighbor across the street backing out of his driveway... that is why the "eyes" got brighter, because he was applying the brakes. The blinking was when his car passed behind a couple of bushes. It was quite windy and the left "eye" taking off for the corner at the angle was because that droplet of water dislodged from the place it was stuck on the glass and ran across the window pulled down by gravity and moving to the right because of the wind.
Each drop was merely acting as a lens, refracting the taillights of the car into the camera's view.
Now I am glad I don't have a shotgun, I might have had to replace a window during the storm!
Even when it is not an eerie event, it can be very difficult to determine just what is suddenly in the field of view. But, it is quite embarrassing when it turns out to be a blemish on the window that has been there for weeks and I just noticed it!
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
Great story, Jeff ! Save it for Halloween, too.
Strange lights are common to reports of UFO sightings. And remember the wildly-swaying and flashing crossing signals in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" ! See 0:39 and 1:05 to 1:15 in this 2 min. 39 sec. clip from it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYtuw0c3dJ4
- PDN.
Paul_D_North_JrGreat story, Jeff ! Save it for Halloween, too. Strange lights are common to reports of UFO sightings. And remember the wildly-swaying and flashing crossing signals in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" ! See 0:39 and 1:05 to 1:15 in this 2 min. 39 sec. clip from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYtuw0c3dJ4 - PDN.
When there were still tower opeators - one - gained company wide fame for 'seeing ailiens on the track' and reporting the same to the dispatcher, chief dispatcher and the local authorities.
Comments are still made about him over 35 years after the 'happening'.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Paul_D_North_Jr Great story, Jeff ! Save it for Halloween, too. Strange lights are common to reports of UFO sightings. And remember the wildly-swaying and flashing crossing signals in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" ! See 0:39 and 1:05 to 1:15 in this 2 min. 39 sec. clip from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYtuw0c3dJ4 - PDN.
Much prefer this version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voJ6-Tyn0Do
Equivalent scene at 3:52...
"Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind"
BaltACD Paul_D_North_Jr Great story, Jeff ! Save it for Halloween, too. Strange lights are common to reports of UFO sightings. And remember the wildly-swaying and flashing crossing signals in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" ! See 0:39 and 1:05 to 1:15 in this 2 min. 39 sec. clip from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYtuw0c3dJ4 - PDN. When there were still tower opeators - one - gained company wide fame for 'seeing ailiens on the track' and reporting the same to the dispatcher, chief dispatcher and the local authorities. Comments are still made about him over 35 years after the 'happening'.
jeffhergert It seems for about 20 minutes there was a strange light near the east end of the bridge.
Too dark to see red underwear?
Semper Vaporo Paul_D_North_Jr Great story, Jeff ! Save it for Halloween, too. Strange lights are common to reports of UFO sightings. And remember the wildly-swaying and flashing crossing signals in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" ! See 0:39 and 1:05 to 1:15 in this 2 min. 39 sec. clip from it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYtuw0c3dJ4 - PDN. Much prefer this version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voJ6-Tyn0Do Equivalent scene at 3:52... "Closet Cases of the Nerd Kind"
This Means Something!!!
Paul_D_North_JrStrange lights are common to reports of UFO sightings.
Not railroad (but the scenario could be) - folks were reporting strange lights in the woods, seen only from one particular spot. Crowds were awed. No one could figure it out, until one fellow realized that it was likely just cars on a highway too far away to be heard, but easily seen through the woods. As I recall, they resorted to putting colored cellophane over the headlights of cars on said road, which proved the theory and debunked the UFO idea...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Whats the Twight Zone episode where the couple keeps ending uo in the same town over and over again?
BaltACD Comments are still made about him over 35 years after the 'happening'.
Not complimentary - he is generally referred to a 'The Space Man'.
tree68 Paul_D_North_Jr Strange lights are common to reports of UFO sightings. Not railroad (but the scenario could be) - folks were reporting strange lights in the woods, seen only from one particular spot. Crowds were awed. No one could figure it out, until one fellow realized that it was likely just cars on a highway too far away to be heard, but easily seen through the woods. As I recall, they resorted to putting colored cellophane over the headlights of cars on said road, which proved the theory and debunked the UFO idea...
Paul_D_North_Jr Strange lights are common to reports of UFO sightings.
I beleive the phenomenon you refer to is the Marfa Lights, which are actually the headlights of cars on a highway that can not be seen from the viewing site because of the curvature of the Earth. On nights with correct atmospheric conditions as the air cools it stratifies into layers of different temperatures forming a mirage which bends the light rays just enough for them to be seen at the viewing site.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marfa_lights
http://www.visitmarfa.com/lights.php
C & O, that's the one where the people are trapped on a little (big) girl's train layout and the train just keeps on coming back on account it's not much of a layout, just an oval of track. Can't recall the name of that particular episode but being Twilight Zone, it's a classic!
Kinda sounds like ATSF's "Dangerous Dan"the signal-man of the 1990's. Took crying "wolf!" to a whole new level of weird.
A dark and stormy night? And a strange light on the Kate Shelly Bridge?
Jeff, that was just ol' Kate herself, just keeping an eye on things and making sure the railroaders like yourself are safe. Bridge was OK, so she moved on.
Kate's a good girl, isn't she?
ORNHOOI beleive the phenomenon you refer to is the Marfa Lights,
My husband had a few weird things happen to him while he was driving. The weirdest one however was the one time he was on route 30 in WY heading towards I 80 after jumping off of I-84 he came back that way to avoid some nasty weather in UT. Well he is going along all of a sudden he hears his company name and Stop. He does and not more than 20 feet ahead of him in the snowstorm is a freaking boulder that weighed about 5 tons it was estimated. Now here is were it got weird for him no other trucks on the other side of the rock and just how did they know his company's name to call it out. He still gets scared thinking about it. He was doing 65 at the time and more than likely it would have killed him.
Shakespeare said it best in a line from "Hamlet."
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies."
CandOforprogress2 Whats the Twight Zone episode where the couple keeps ending uo in the same town over and over again?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stopover_in_a_Quiet_Town
Marfa lights or ball lightning ? I spent a half hour watching balls of plasma bounce down the tracks serveral years back during a severe electrical storm (later tornado warned)
Randy
Stopover in a Quiet Town:
54light15 C & O, that's the one where the people are trapped on a little (big) girl's train layout and the train just keeps on coming back on account it's not much of a layout, just an oval of track. Can't recall the name of that particular episode but being Twilight Zone, it's a classic!
Well if it was a "Little" Big girls set she would have had this-
Randy Stahl Marfa lights or ball lightning ? I spent a half hour watching balls of plasma bounce down the tracks serveral years back during a severe electrical storm (later tornado warned) Randy
Randy, did you report the sighting to the Weather Service? If you still have a good recollection of the event, I'd bet they would be very interested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Stop_at_Willoughby
zardoz Randy Stahl Marfa lights or ball lightning ? I spent a half hour watching balls of plasma bounce down the tracks serveral years back during a severe electrical storm (later tornado warned) Randy Randy, did you report the sighting to the Weather Service? If you still have a good recollection of the event, I'd bet they would be very interested.
Yes , I remeber it well but no , we never really reported it to anyone. It was a particlarily nasty storm, We were in a Hirail truck near Stoughton Wisconsin . Lightning split a tree about 70 yards from us and the ball lightning bounced down the tracks toward us. It veered off at a farm crossing and went off with a bang.
This was around 1988 I'd say.
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