Western Railroad Discussion > I Got Skunked By A Skunk...

Thanks to a heads-up from a fellow TO member me & SCKP187 went out yesterday afternoon to shoot the Parsons to Englewood manifest that had 2 of UP's Heritage units; UP 1982 & UP 1988. Along with these 2 engines was UP 3962. The 2 Heritage units had been in Parsons,KS for their KATY Days annual celebration over this past weekend. The skies were heavily overcast with thunderstorms in the area which didn't make for ideal shooting conditions. We first caught it at Big Cabin, OK. on UP's Cherokee Sub. We then made a mad dash for Mazie, Ok on the Cherokee Sub just hoping that it wasn't raining there. Last we went to Okay Jct. in hopes of getting some final shots of the day. Just as we hear the train approaching I spotted a skunk on the other side of the tracks coming our way. It saw us & decided to go down an embankment on the other side of the tracks. Ok cool problem solved. But as Murphy's Law goes just as the train comes into view the little Stinker decides it would be safer on our side of the tracks. Not wanting to get sprayed by a scared skunk I took one last shot then high tailed it to the safety of the car. Thanks so much Pepe Le Pew. 
Photos taken May 29, 2016.

Photo 1:   Big Cabin, OK.

Photo 2:   Mazie, OK.

Photo 3:  Okay Jct, OK. In the foreground by the tracks you can see Pepe Le Pew trying to decide which way to go.


Thanks for looking.
Ronda Thomas



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/16 20:29 by oklachaser.

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This is a new one Ronda... I've seen plenty of snake pictures but never a skunk picture. Could this be a first for TO?

James Nelson
Thornton, CO
www.flickr.com/mojaveflyer

mojaveflyer Wrote:
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> This is a new one Ronda... I've seen plenty of
> snake pictures but never a skunk picture. Could
> this be a first for TO?

Actually this wasn't my first encounter with skunks while out shooting trains. Here's a photo I took of some young ones that had come out of a culvert I was standing by while waiting on the arrival of a train at Delaware Ok on UP's Wagoner Sub. Luckily I saw these little guys along with their mama before getting sprayed. This was on June 22, 2014.

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Great story and shots! You nailed it on that second one, good call avoiding the wandering stinky critter.

Looks like you having a great train chase with the Heritage Units until Pepe Le Pew showed up, lol. I like your second shot, very NICE!

Larry

N ICE shots, Ronda!  I like both the first two -a lot - great
pictures!

.So sorry about the skunk.  Glad ya didn't get any of that
oh-so-lovely (NOT!) aroma on ya! Yup -- Murphy just never
quits!

(From the title, I thought your thread was going to be
about the Skunk Train here in Northern California!  LOL!)
 



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/30/16 23:19 by Margaret_SP_fan.

Ronda,

Great shots, including the skunk! This brings to mind a story I heard back in the very early days of Amtrak. A tour group from New York City (Manhattan actually) was traveling west in the summer on the Empire Builder" when the train ran over a skunk somewhere out on the plains, probably in North Dakota since it happened at night. The old conventional sleeping cars (10-6's) had their air conditioning systems UNDER the car. Well, at 79 MPH the unlucky skunk got sucked up into the a/c unit on the car occurpied by the tour group. (I'll allow each of you to picture the results of this in your own minds...) In any event, the smell went through the car quite strongly... The next morning at breakfast in the dining car, the members of the group were all asking what that smell was during the night - it seemed that none of them had ever smelled a skunk before! 

See what you miss living in the big city?

As a post script, imagine what the BN coach yard workers in Seattle had to do to clean that mess up???

Thanks for all the great photos you share with us here on TO!

Best wishes, sniff, sniff,

ShastaDaylight

Well, Skunks are people too! It was probably a "foamer" skunk!

You are lucky it didn't chase you!

Nice "wildlife" photo there.  The train photos aren't bad either.

On Amtrak #28 about ten years ago I noticed a familiar, but unpleasant aroma of the North American black and white waddling kitty cat.  About a half a minute later I heard the conductor ask the engineer, "Did you hit a skunk up there?"  He replied, "I think I hit a whole family of them."  I always wondered, "How can one little skunk can stink up a whole mile of road?"

A few years ago I stopped by a local model railroad club.  There was a field next to their building and I saw three skunks out in that field.  I told some kids that were there that there were three little kitty cats out there.  They didn't fall for it.  Shame on me.  Oh well, I wasn't the one that was going to have to take them home.  (I wouldn't really let them go out there but it was funny to think about it and see what they would do.)

Those city slickers probably won't forget that smell either.  They probably hope that's the last time they experience it also.

John

I never knuw a skuunk couuld be a railfan, although I've seen a cuuple of railfans here & there who turned out tu be cumplete skuunks...

(heh heh heh)
Lance/199

Every day's an adventure! Nice photos.