Railroaders' Nostalgia > What strange things have you seen along the rails?

This morning I was in town for a few things and got to chatting with a local gentleman. He said to me, Please don't think I am asking a stupid question, but do you have any Sasquatch stories or other odd unexplained things you have seen in the area? I related that I had worked for the RR thru town here and tho I had no Sasquatch stories tho I did experience one unexplained incident while back along the rails in a rather inaccesable spot. (My time was with Rock & Rail on the old DRGW Tenn Pass line west out of Pueblo to Parkdale). But he asked me about it and I shared what it was I saw. I got to thinking that RR'ers would be an interesting source for strange unexplainable things in their journeys in all those places where no one else can get to.  What say any of you guys out here? Any thing you wanna share?  This gent strikes me as a George Noury type guy. Probably has some good ones to share.  Thanks all, Ben

Years ago I was on a train going up "The Hill" in the winter on SP's Oregon division and saw snow mobile tracks between the rails. Lucky for that rider that he was gone before we arrived!

While with MRL I was homeward-bound, rolling toward Laurel, MT on some routine train I don't remember. We were rolling through Reed Point, MT in the wee hours and as there was a moon out. Athough I don't think it was full, there was a definite lunar glow about the landscape. I was sitting on the fireman's side gazing idly out the window. Suddenly the trees & ground right around our engine disappeared, swallowed up by a fast-moving "huge black blob". This blob was moving north, away from our eastbound engine which was moving at 45 MPH, give or take. My window was closed and I heard no sound at all. It was spooky as hell! In mere seconds, the blob was out of sight and everything snapped back to normal. It was almost literally over with before it got started. In my life I've had very few times where the hair on the back of my neck stood up. This was one of them. I described the episode to my partner, who couldn't see it from the engineer's seat. He thought for a while and gave me an explanation. He said it was probably a stealth plane on a low level, lights out approach to Malmstrom AFB up by Great Falls. That made sense, because I didn't think to look up in the sky. But I have to wonder if those flyboys were having a bit of fun by buzzing our train...

Lance/199

A dead iguana in Waterloo IN.

Posted from Android

ns2557 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> This morning I was in town for a few things and
> got to chatting with a local gentleman. He said to
> me, Please don't think I am asking a stupid
> question, but do you have any Sasquatch stories or
> other odd unexplained things you have seen in the
> area? I related that I had worked for the RR thru
> town here and tho I had no Sasquatch stories tho I
> did experience one unexplained incident while back
> along the rails in a rather inaccesable spot. (My
> time was with Rock & Rail on the old DRGW Tenn
> Pass line west out of Pueblo to Parkdale). But he
> asked me about it and I shared what it was I saw.
> I got to thinking that RR'ers would be an
> interesting source for strange unexplainable
> things in their journeys in all those places where
> no one else can get to.  What say any of you guys
> out here? Any thing you wanna share?  This gent
> strikes me as a George Noury type guy. Probably
> has some good ones to share.  Thanks all, Ben

So...What was it you saw?...We'e waiting...

While I never saw anything there was an area just "east" of Glendale, Oregon, that was supposedly haunted. One conductor in particular would refuse to walk back to the headend after making a pickup at Glendale. He'd have me drop a fusee off, then have me pull him up to where the headend was so he could drop off, and then have me shove back to get him. This wasn't laziness, he was truly afraid of something there and there were one or two others who felt the same thing. I have no idea what they saw / felt but it was enough to get them to be afraid of walking the train there.

Posted from Android

patd3985 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> ns2557 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > This morning I was in town for a few things and
> > got to chatting with a local gentleman. He said
> to
> > me, Please don't think I am asking a stupid
> > question, but do you have any Sasquatch stories
> or
> > other odd unexplained things you have seen in
> the
> > area? I related that I had worked for the RR
> thru
> > town here and tho I had no Sasquatch stories tho
> I
> > did experience one unexplained incident while
> back
> > along the rails in a rather inaccesable spot.
> (My
> > time was with Rock & Rail on the old DRGW Tenn
> > Pass line west out of Pueblo to Parkdale). But
> he
> > asked me about it and I shared what it was I
> saw.
> > I got to thinking that RR'ers would be an
> > interesting source for strange unexplainable
> > things in their journeys in all those places
> where
> > no one else can get to.  What say any of you
> guys
> > out here? Any thing you wanna share?  This
> gent
> > strikes me as a George Noury type guy. Probably
> > has some good ones to share.  Thanks all, Ben
>
> So...What was it you saw?...We'e waiting...

Steady solid blue light from east to west. Not moving real fast. No sound, not too high above ground as in a few hundred feet. Disappered over the mtns west of Canon City. That and the Northern Lights around 2am or so. Those are not very common down this far south. Ben

Running Willamette & Pacific eastbound on the Toledo Hauler, just past the crossing to Logsden at Nashville, saw a set of eyes running towards the train.  Just before it would have hit, the bear cub turned on its heels and ran away from us, easily running away from our 20 mph train.  We also chased a few cougars down the middle of the tracks, to which my conductor said, 'If we go into emergency, I'm staying right here in the cab!'

Working as rear brakeman on Eastbound Freight, Dodge City KS to Newton Kansas, April 24, 1984 at 11:30 pm.  Looking from the cupola on the south side as we depart the depot, I see up ahead,  new set of lights.  I suspect they have put up a new microwave tower that I hadn't seen before.  As we pass  the east end of the yards on the passenger main, I notice that the light are motionless above the stockyards, at about 300 feet.  I keep watching this behind our train as we climb the hill towards Wright Kansas.  It remains motionless.  I can see it until we go through the crossover at the end of two tracks at Wright.  I asked the conductor what it was, all he could say was he doesn't know.  It has circular set of lights below it and two headlights forward.

I stop thinking about, until we arrive to go into the North Siding at Offerle KS, about 30 miles east of Dodge City to meet a westbound freight.  After stopping, I look back, and I see in the distance, maybe a mile or two behind a set of headlights on the southside just above the ground in the wheat field. Slowly, it started to rise straight up to an undetermined height.  At night there's no way to make a judgement of altitude.  It had the same configuration of lights as the object I saw hanging above the stockyards in Dodge City, circular set of 5 lights beneath it, with two headlights in front.  They were not any brighter than regular lights and the same color.  There were no red or green lights.

I got off the way car and turned off the converter for the refrigerator so I could hear.  It was a windless night, very quiet.  Only thing I could hear was the slow chugging sounds of the motors of a group of strip wells to the south about a mile away.  Very faint.  This object slowly passed east over the train, soundlessly and disappeared in the east.  That was the last I saw of it.  To me it acted like a heliocopter, but I've never heard of one that is completely silent.  I called forward to the head end, but no one saw it.

It was rumored that sensitive military equipment was hidden in the train as ordinary manifest from Colorado Springs and monitored remotely by the military as we moved.  I thought maybe it was military checking our train... I remember like it was yesterday and I can still hear those stripper wells chugging in the distance in the quiet of the night.

What seemed strange to me, that when it was over the sky in Dodge City, was that it was in the approach line for planes coming to land at the Dodge City airport.  I would think that would been noticed by someone on radar.  Planes did land at the airport in the night.

Well maybe some of the answers point to
UFO's.Maybe not.

In Florida,an aligator cut in three pieces after
trying to cross the tracks.

Uncle Joe
Seffner,Fl.

The truth is out there...

Have many stories, from along the Right of Way- that still stick in my memory.
In the 90s I worked a short lasting On Board maintenance position for Amtk, on the Surfliners,
(the old San Diegans). I cycled through a 10 hour day- logging various maiintenance
issuss that I found daily, on these several Trains a day, plus some other duties.

I made my "turn" at Simi Valley, CA. One day, I observed a homeless-
appearing guy wandering around the front of our SBA (Santa Barbara) bound train.

No big deal- (happned all the time) but when the Train highballed, he hoisted himself
up - right onto the Knuckle of the leading coupler of our F-40.  Just for info- from
Simi Valley to Moorpark, the speed limit ratchets up 70 MPH. I cannot - to this day-
imagine what it would have been like, to ride the Drawbar, at that speed.  Maybe he
was able to jump off - I never heard anything more about that incident. That was just one
of the odd things I saw during my working years, on the Rails.

Goes along with what Uncle Joe said.

Fuel truck came to fuel some parked engines and machinist would go around the engines, inspecting and changing 
brake shoes, light bulbs and such. He found a large size decapitated gator head wedged in the brake rigging.  He 
threw the gator head in the dumpster.  Someone dumping office trash opened the dumpster and got the fright of their life. 

Another time a laborer was sweeping out and supplying engines.  She was going to put ice in the Igloo cooler.  Took the lid 
off and there was several LARGE size bullfrogs starting up at her.  She screamed, flew out the door.  Wouldn't go back on the 
engine.  

Poor Inez, another day she walked into an engine and there was a soft shell turtle inside the door.  Screamed, ran back to her 
truck and wouldn't go finish servicing

Max 
Rockport Florida

An elderly lady was walking on a road next to the railroad tracks in a night gown at 7 PM. I was on an empty coal train and thought it was odd. Just before we got to her, she walked onto the tracks and stood there. It surpised me so much that I didn't react in time and she disappeared from sight. I plugged the train and since we were only going 10 mph, the train stopped quickly. My conductor got out and went to find her. She was stuck face down under the lead units fuel tank. She was banged up but not too badlly hurt. The paramedics came and had slid  a back board under her body and pulled her out from under the lead loco. As she came into view, I noticed that her bloomers had a big brown streak down the middle of her backside. I never heard another word about what happened to her.

We were switching gondolas over a road crossing equipped only with cross bucks, at night, in the rain.

2 geniuses were drag racing and ran into the side of the train.

One of them walked away, the other guy became worm food.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/19/20 18:00 by RGTower.

Back in June 1968 I was heading north at 45 mph on the Penn Central Buffalo Line with a long freight train..
A few miles south  of Lock Haven, PA., a deer was standing off to the right.
After I passed the deer, I looked back and the deer then dove underneath the passing train.
Saw remains on my next trip south.

RGTower Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We were switching gondolas over a road crossing
> equipped only with cross bucks, at night, in the
> rain.
>
> 2 geniuses were drag racing and ran into the side
> of the train.
>
> One of them walked away, the other guy became worm
> food.

Just the fact that they were drag racing in the rain shows how "smart" they were.
Hitting the train was just Karma catching up to them.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/21/20 11:16 by PHall.

Many years ago when I worked out of Oakland (CA) for SP I was the head brakeman on a Tracy drag going over the Mococo Line. At West Pittsburg we ran over a bunch of rags on the rails and didn't think much of it as there was often trash out there. We did call the caboose and asked if he saw anything; he didn't. 

At Tracy we turned back to Oakland. At West Pittsburg we saw that pile of rags again except this time we weren't sure it was "just rags". We notified the operator at Martinez to have the police check it out and it turned out it was a dead body.

To clarify, we didn't cause the death. The victim died of "lead poisoning" (he was shot) and the body was dumped to try and get rid of it.

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/20 21:24 by Railbaron.

retcsxcfm Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well maybe some of the answers point to
> UFO's.Maybe not.


Great stories. The one who really knows is William Shatner...

JG

Posted from Android

My list
Suicides along the right of way. One vehicle was parked with a hose running from the exhaust pipe to the cabin.

Seeing hundreds of naked people when running by several nude beaches along the Coast line.

Observed many live missile launches from Vandenberg.

My locomotive was hit by lightning east of Mojave.

Observed many meteor showers.


Observed hundreds of beautiful sunsets.

Not sure if any or all of the above qualify .

Posted from Android