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As James said, most delays aren't caused by pleasant reasons. However, I can mention some experiences, all involving excursion trains on various railroads over the years: - On one steam excursion, we were moving along smartly until we stopped for no apparent reason. We were then informed that the railroad had agreed to shut down at a specific town for an hour in order to accomodate a foot race. - Once, during a trip to a festival, the guy running the diner under-estimated his needs. So, we stopped at one point for about 20 minutes while he ran to a nearby grocery store to purchase hot dogs and buns. The mildly amusing aspect of this event was destroyed when a couple pushing a baby in a stroller decided that they didn't want to walk a block around the train and crawled UNDER the train, stroller and all. - On the evening before a fall color excursion, there was a severe storm downline, with high winds. As we came around a curve at 50 mph, the engineer encountered a number of trees blown across the track. While the plow pilot on the engine made short work of the trees, the cars were scraped and we had to stop and inspect for damage. - Rolling around a curve in a small country town, the engineer on another excursion observed that a farmer had parked his grain wagon a LITTLE close to the track at the elevator. As the lead unit passed, he found out that the wagon was TOO close (bang!). Even after big-holing the train, most of it had been nailed by the wagon, which inflicted several torn-off grab irons and bent steps in the process. However, the wagon looked a lot worse. The farmer stated that, since trains don't normally run on weekends, he could park wherever he wanted. The Deputy Sheriff taking the accident report could only shake his head. - Coming back from a long weekend "up north," we were stopped by a dragging brake shoe on one of the cars. We attended to the problem, climbed back aboard, closed up and signaled the head end that we were ready to move. No response. Hmmm. A couple of minutes later, the engineer came out of an adjacent lounge car with half an apple pie and a cup of coffee (he had scurried up there while we were working on the brakes). - Early on the first day of a weekend trip to a resort area, we encountered locomotive trouble and stopped on the main through the middle of a very active yard. First, one unit wouldn't load beyond Run 2. The Road Foreman wyed the power. Then, the other unit decided it didn't want to work as a trailing unit. Finally, a decision was made to go get a third unit (that one worked). While this was going on, were were trying to serve breakfast in the diner. That car's batteries were tired and after a period of sitting still, the ventilation gave out. That car also had a solid-fuel range (fueled with a layer of fire logs and about 100 pounds of charcoal briquettes), so it got warm and smokey rather quickly. Just to keep things interesting, yard crews were performing heavy-duty switching on tracks either side of our train (and the 4 mph rule was not in effect). Beyond the above, we have also seen our share of getting stabbed at junctions, etc., plus a tragic, multiple-fatality grade crossing accident. Railroading isn't always fun. Bob
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