Railroaders' Nostalgia > No Dumping - on the SP

These signs were once found all over the Southern Pacific system. Today probably not one remains posted on what's now Union Pacific. The reason for the signs are obvious. What can happen when dumping occurs can be serious. 

A well liked, very capable brakeman, whom I'll call Mark, was working a local one night in rural Solano County on SP's Western Division. As he stepped off a locomotive to operate a switch, he lost his footing and as he stepped down with his 2nd foot onto what he described as broken concrete, he twisted and fell to the ground, injuring his back. Despite going through several modes of medical treatment he was never able to return to railroad work. He was rehabilitated into another line of employment. The SP lost a good man and Mark had to leave a job he enjoyed.  

It appeared that someone had done a home remodeling job in which he had broken up a concrete patio or sidewalk. The debris had been hauled onto railroad property where it was dumped, setting up this accident. I spent quite a number of hours looking for the person(s) responsible. With only a small amount of evidence I was never able to identify them.

---

In a twist of your tale, I literally stumbled across a cast iron sign (below) half-buried in the ROW near California Avenue depot while pounding spikes for the Track Department, during a furlough from train service. There's no SP markings anywhere, but it was fairly clear that it was company issue. It originally was whole, but I've managed to break it in two in the decades since. This incident, however, was not one of the two times that I managed to put myself into the emergency room during my six months in M/W.

EO

---

hogheaded Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In a twist of your tale, I literally stumbled
> across a cast iron sign (below) half-buried in the
> ROW near California Avenue depot while pounding
> spikes for the Track Department, during a furlough
> from train service. There's no SP markings
> anywhere, but it was fairly clear that it was
> company issue. It originally was whole, but I've
> managed to break it in two in the decades since.
> This incident, however, was not one of the two
> times that I managed to put myself into the
> emergency room during my six months in M/W.
>
> EO

I've seen those signs in the sidewalks of some of the older "downtowns" here in California. Specifically in Riverside, San Bernardino, Pasadena and Los Angeles.

Some gorilla glue might fix those two halves into one.

hogheaded Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In a twist of your tale, I literally stumbled
> across a cast iron sign (below) half-buried in the
> ROW near California Avenue depot while pounding
> spikes for the Track Department, during a furlough
> from train service. There's no SP markings
> anywhere, but it was fairly clear that it was
> company issue. It originally was whole, but I've
> managed to break it in two in the decades since.
> This incident, however, was not one of the two
> times that I managed to put myself into the
> emergency room during my six months in M/W.
>
> EO