Smashing Pennies Via Train

[Anonymous]

That is the problem with pennys on the track.  They may or may not be addictive, but they are the "gateway drug" to spikes.

 

I've heard that Snidely Whiplash started out just putting pennies on rr tracks.

 

[spokyone]

Maybe different laws up here, the only type of those machines I've seen use blank slugs instead of the coin you put in.

Must be. Because I have one of the Space Needle and the date is still visible on the penny.

[enr2099]

Maybe different laws up here, the only type of those machines I've seen use blank slugs instead of the coin you put in.

[csmith9474]

You can deface all the money you want, as long as you do not try to use it as legal currency...

What he said.

Think about all the machines at the theme parks and tourist spots that roll out pennies with designs on them (should be 51 cents; 2 quarters and a penny). They even cite the law on the machines dictating that it is legal unless you try to spend them or use them for fraudulent purposes.

[zugmann]

You can deface all the money you want, as long as you do not try to use it as legal currency...

[enr2099]

Other than the fact that smashing pennies can cause possible injury and that you are most likely tresspassing to do it... isn't the smashing defacing of government property?

 

Finally, someone brought it up. I was led to believe that it was considered defacing currency which is against the law.  

[traintownofcowee]

I always wanted to put coins on tracks and let trains run over them.

My dream is to have a coin ran over by 4449, 844, 3985, and lots more others.

But I haven't done it once yet.

Im planning on placing coins on the tracks this next weekend when I go to the Great Smoky Mountains Railfest.

[tree68]

Having completed the "ground work" (running the EOT from one end of the train to the other and making appropriate adjustments in anglecocks) during one of our runarounds, I was waiting for the locomotive crew to finish so I could do the brake test when one of the passengers in our baggage "open air" car spotted three pennies on the passing track and asked me to get them.  Since the locomotive was already past (having run over the pennies, possibly for a second or third time), I picked them up and gave them to him.  The mystery is who put them there, since it wasn't anyone on our crew, and the passengers stay on the train during that runaround....  I'm sure they were disappointed to find their flattened coins missing.

[Anonymous]

That is the problem with pennys on the track.  They may or may not be addictive, but they are the "gateway drug" to spikes.

[Anonymous]

as kids, we used to lay used spikes in the flange grooves of diamonds. Some of those were real conversation pieces.

[csmith9474]

Other than the fact that smashing pennies can cause possible injury and that you are most likely tresspassing to do it... isn't the smashing defacing of government property?

Smashing the pennies is perfectly legal unless you try to do something fradulent with them after they are smashed.

[RABEL]

Other than the fact that smashing pennies can cause possible injury and that you are most likely tresspassing to do it... isn't the smashing defacing of government property?

I don't believe Money is government property. Money belongs to who holds it.

[Train Guy 3]

Other than the fact that smashing pennies can cause possible injury and that you are most likely tresspassing to do it... isn't the smashing defacing of government property?

[Chris30]

Now thats a funny video... Just don't let any television network execs see it.

CC

[csmith9474]

Here is video of pennies causing a derailment, and the subsequent investigation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC8VzVmNPOI

 

That is classic! Thanks for posting!

I have seen that several times before, but couldn't help myself and watched it again. Thanks for the post!!

[CopCarSS]

Here is video of pennies causing a derailment, and the subsequent investigation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC8VzVmNPOI

 

That is classic! Thanks for posting!

[spokyone]

Here is video of pennies causing a derailment, and the subsequent investigation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rC8VzVmNPOI

 

[B.Erdmann]

 i did it today but i couldnt find the pennys once again.

 

 

[coborn35]

I remember my friend really wanted a penny flatten. He wanted a penny flatten so bad he snuck into the railyard here in town and right infront of the locomotive, with the crew in it, he put the penny there. Now that's STUPIED right there.(I saw this from a public street) Later he went back to his bike and rode off and put some quarters and pennys on the track by the crossing. He never got his flatten penny. In spring me and my friend where joking around saying it would be fused to the tracks. After looking around the crossing a while we found it flew about 10 feet to the other crossing. (Didn't land on the other track. )

I believe the word you are looking for is stupid.

[tree68]

When I was knee high to a grasshopper (50's) someone told me that if you put a penny in front of the driver wheels on a steamer, when it was stopped, that the engine wouldn't be able to overcome the penny to get started. Is there any truth to that effect?

SQ

I suspect it would take something a little more substantial, but they did use chain to chock the wheels on steamers...

[squeeze]

When I was knee high to a grasshopper (50's) someone told me that if you put a penny in front of the driver wheels on a steamer, when it was stopped, that the engine wouldn't be able to overcome the penny to get started. Is there any truth to that effect?

SQ

[railroadnut675]

HeHeHe.....

     My dad says he did it when he was little and I live close to a CSX shortline, so ...  one day I rode my bike down to the track and placed Mr. Lincoln on the rail, vowing to return in the next day or 3. The next day, I was riding with my mom and saw a boxcar train at the grade crossing. The day after that I got back to the tracks, to find that the penny was gone;behind the rail. I picked it up, put it in my pocket and rode home. However, after the CSX SD-40, seveal boxcars, fuel cars and covered hoppers, I couldn't make heads or tails of the thing.

Next experiment: flatten quarters nickels and dime's

Next experiment after that:place them all in a line and have them flat-welded together  

 

 

[Anonymous]

Reading this thread brings back many memories of doing just that..!

 I have posted a link to a photo essay that starts off with placing pennies on a rail track..!

 here it is again..  http://thephotojournals.com/GeoffCronje/HelloDolly/HelloDolly_1.htm

[Convicted One]

A penny on top of a nickle is more fun, looking at how they get squished together.

Putting the innards from a fusee into the rail head will sometimes cause a series of small explosions, like fire crackers. And putting an old spike into the flange groove on a diamond is just insane

NONE of which have I done since i was about 10 years old

[Erie Lackawanna]

I remember a Cub Scout trip (so I must have been nine, prob 1971?) to the Morris County Central RR.  This was a tourist steam train that used to run in Northern New Jersey (sure miss it).  All the kids got pennies from their dads and put them on the track.  My dad, being an ex railroad man, wouldn't let me participate.  My memory's shaky on this, but I wouldn't be surprised if he warned some of the other fathers not to do it either.

Didn't matter in the end.  Whatever track the pennies were on didn't see another train while we were there and everyone collected their unflattened pennies and went home.

[miniwyo]

I think we are ALL guilty of putting pennys on the tracks. The last time the Challenger was here I placed a penny ontop of a quarter on put it on there. The penny fused with the quarter and is still as thin as a single coin would be. When I as young we used to take pennys over to the south pass branch line and even if we knew there wasnt going to be a train that day, we would use a small bit of scotch tape just to keep them from vibrating or blowing off. We would go collect them the next day after we saw the train pass. Never lost one......

[TimChgo9]

How about a shopping cart??

Short story:  My friend Chris and I were your typical kids, we liked trains, and his house wasn't far from the ICG's Freeport Sub that ran through Hillside, IL. Anyway, we were "up at the tracks" one fine summer day, waiting for a westbound freight train to come through. (Westbound trains were visible forever, you could see healights as far east as North Riverside) as the train drew closer, a couple of kids from the neihborhood had shown up with a shopping cart, that they had taken from the Hillside Mall, about 3 or 4 blocks away. Their announced intention was to push the cart into the train as it went through the crossing. Chris and I argued with them, but they went ahead and did it anyway.... The freight train came through, (about 40 mph, I think) and as the lead locomotive passed by, the kids shoved the cart with all they had, and it was hit, caught, and dragged by the fourth or fifth locomotive on the train, after the train had cleared, the two kids went to go find their cart.  They found the remains just down the tracks, and dragged it back to the crossing we were at, the cart, from it's appearance, may have been dragged under the train, or something, as it was totally mangled. The kids that did it went away laughing, and were talking about doing it again with more carts.......I don't know if they ever did.....

I of course never did anything like that, but I am guilty of the penny thing......

[scottychaos]

Probably no one has ever been killed by a flying penny or railroad spike..

but there are a few documented cases of people being killed after putting pennies on the railroad tracks...killed by TRAINS while waiting for their pennies! 

http://www.snopes.com/science/train.htm

 

Scot

[spikejones52002]

I have done that for more years than I want to admit.

I have pennys the look like an egg, some that are 3 to 4 times the size of the orginial. Many just nicked.

Some time I had to seach some were right next to where I placed them. A very few stayed on railhead.

Many Many never found.

Twice I taped the penny on the rail. The tape became part of the penny. Both were forced off the rail. 

On RFD-TV in OLD W.M. RR video I had a big laugh when a bunch of kids ran off their porch and put items on rail just a head of the train and ran back on the porch.

Back in the 50s. We use to go to ChinaTown, Chicago. During Chinese New Years days. The street cars ran down Wentworth. !00% of the rail was covered with fire crackers. As soon as the trolley passed. The rails were covered again.