Eastern Railroad Discussion > OK, here it is: My craziest railfanning story...

Have you ever found a missing person while railfanning? I have...

Let me paint the picture for you... It's August 23, 2015, a sunny Sunday on which I had a day off from work to enjoy... I'm from the west side of Rochester, NY, and enjoy paying visits to the parallel CSX/NS (former NYC/NKP) lines west of Buffalo along Lake Erie... I decided to spend this day looking for trains specifically between Erie, PA and Dunkirk, NY...

The day went normally enough... I got trackside around 9:30 AM and spent the day in various locations getting photos and video of the activity... By 5:00 PM I had seen an impressive 20 trains, including five on NS and 15 on CSX... Around 5:15, though, a lull set in, and we found ourselves waiting for something else to come on the Bort Road overpass in North East, PA (just two miles from the NY/PA state line, 70-some miles west of Buffalo)...

Those of you who have been to the Bort Road bridge are familiar with the structure, an antiquated one-lane steel structure with a worn wooden deck that looks to have been built during the 1940s at some point, and it looks like it's not had any major work done to it in the ensuing years... Along both sides of the one lane, a fair amount of gravel and dirt have accumulated, presumably from auto traffic picking up stones from the road itself...

Well, boredom took hold that evening, and me and my brother began passing the time by pushing the gravel with our shoes between the gaps in the wooden sleepers in the bridge deck, watching it fall onto the tracks some 22 feet below... We were amused with the size of the dust cloud this was creating, and weren't paying much attention to our surroundings...

After about 10 minutes of pushing gravel around, I became aware of a distant emergency vehicle siren, and how it was getting closer... Suddenly I became a bit panicked, as I assessed the possible situation... No doubt a passing motorist on nearby US Route 20 had seen the dust cloud, and decided to call the local authorities... It seemed the only logical solution that my brain could come up with... Immediately we stopped kicking the gravel around, and stood up like we were expecting a train, likely to be told by local police officers to move along... But that's not what happened, and what did happen was one of the most confusing events in my life thus far...

We breathed a sigh of relief when the emergency vehicle came into view, and found it was not a police car but an ambulance, with lights on and siren wailing... Heading west on US 20, the ambulance came to the intersection with Bort Road, made the left-hand turn onto it, veered up the approach to the bridge towards us, and then? Slammed on the brakes and shut the siren off right beside us... The driver then sat there for a couple seconds sizing us up, then lowered the passenger side window...

"Whatcha guys doing?"

We were absolutely dumbfounded, and damn near forgot why we in fact were there... I thought this ambulance was in a hurry to get somewhere? Finally after another couple of seconds, I pointed to our tripods set up on the bridge deck... "Waiting for a train, hopefully."

The driver, still sitting in the ambulance, looked away from us to the east up the CSX main, then past us to the west... He looked back to us, paused for a moment, and said "Okay, but just keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary." He then executed a K-turn, turned west onto US 20, put the siren back on, and sped off into the distance... Out of the ordinary?? What the heck do you call what just happened? We spent a couple of minutes thinking and talking about what on earth we had just witnessed...

My scanner was what ended up bringing me back to life; CSX train Q008 called a signal about seven miles to the west, bringing our focus back to what we came there for: trains! We returned to our tripods to try and straighten them up for Q008's approach... But our focus was soon diverted again... Another siren became audible in the distance, then another, and then a third... Soon it sounded like we were in the middle of a crime scene... Q008 was getting closer, and had called the signal for CP-73 in North East, but we had almost lost interest...

Three cop cars flew past doing perhaps 70 or more headed eastward on US 20, lights and sirens going fill tilt... One of these slammed on his brakes once he passed the Bort Road intersection, pulled a rather violent U-turn, and screamed up the bridge approach... Three more unmarked emergency vehicles with lights flashing soon came up to us... By now, me and my brother are in almost a full-blown panic, but thankfully we managed to form words, which came in handy when multiple police officers approached us...

The discussion began with the typical asking of "what are you guys up to?" and the like... We responded with the truth, that we were there for trains... The officers seemed disappointed with this answer, and after checking our ID's seemed more disappointed... One of the officers got on his radio, talking to someone saying "They're just here looking for trains"... Evidently we weren't what they were after, which made us breathe a bit easier...

Q008 by this point was only a half-mile away, still doing 60, track speed... His lead unit's horn broke my focus, and looking around me I could see men in safety vests both up and down the tracks... Sirens were still heard at multiple points in the distance, and emergency vehicles were still racing up and down US 20... I managed to fire up my camera and got a shot of Q008 passing by underneath us on the bridge deck; astonishingly, even though I was surrounded by police with their cars and radios making all kinds of noise, the video actually ended up being usable... While I was shooting, I watched as one of the cops leaned in to ask my brother a question... I couldn't hear the question over Q008's noise, but immediately afterward my brother temporarily surrendered the pair of binoculars on his neck; the cop borrowed them to check up and down the track better, then gave them back when done... Always glad to help out I suppose!

After Q008 cleared, we got to talking with the cops, and finally got a clue of what was happening... It turns out at the nearby truck stop near the US 20/I-90 interchange, a teenage boy had gotten lost, walking out of the building while his parents were inside... They had absolutely no idea where he went; evidently he wasn't answering his phone... They told me "If you see a young guy with a red T-shirt, white ball cap, and camo shorts, please call 911 and let them know"... I told them I would, and they soon got in their cars and left the area... While we were talking, the CSX dispatcher got on my radio, telling trains in the area to reduce speed because of the ongoing search...

Well now, it's about 6:30 in the evening, and my radio has come to life, as I have both CSX train Q158 and NS train 310 coming towards me... I had no intent to try and help find this kid; I merely wanted to get out of the way of the professionals who were already engaged in that activity... I felt that me and my brother were a red herring to them that was frustratingly throwing these folks off the trail... So, I thought it best to beat a quick retreat, and left Bort Road, heading east, and hopefully out of everyone's way... I was amazed at what I saw as I headed east on US 20: DOZENS of cop cars, ambulances, and fire vehicles, both marked and unmarked... Altogether there had to have been about 100 different vehicles, all moving or pulled over at different points on the road, presumably to look for this kid... And here I am in my little white Nissan Sentra, just trying to look for a train or two!

Well, I kept moving east on US 20, crossing the border into New York State... I began thinking about where to go for a shot of Q158 and 310... But my focus was soon lost once again... Two miles into NY, guess what I saw walking along the side of the road, heading east? A young guy, red T-shirt, white ball cap, camo shorts... Can you say "dumbfounded"????

I went a couple hundred yards past him, then pulled over and lunged for my cell phone, and dialed 911... Told them exactly what I was calling for, mentioned how many people were looking for him, and that I had found him across the state line along US 20. "Thank you, we'll send someone out that way to look into it" was the response I got... I then took another look at the kid walking toward me on the side of the road, then motored off toward Ripley to get my shots of Q158 and 310, both of which were right there...

I returned to the area I'd found him 10 minutes later, once my shots of both eastbounds were in the bag, but he was gone... I wondered if he'd been found, but had no way of knowing... Right then, the CSX dispatcher came on the radio, telling the crew on the next eastbound freight to proceed at track speed; they'd found the guy they were looking for... The rest of the day went relatively normally, with a total of 30 trains for the day...

So there you have it... This kid's parents have no idea who found their son, but it was me, some confused foamer from 150 miles away just looking for choo-choos, and that's all I was ever trying to do... I've told this story to other railfan friends of mine, and based on their reactions, I felt I'd share it here... Also, if anyone has anything they think might be crazier, feel free to post it here, too... Thanks for reading...



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/15/18 00:28 by MC6853.

You just never know what you will encounter while railfanning.  Glad you could assist in finding that "lost" kid.  It certainly was a crazy fanning day, wasn't it?

Great story from a great location. That same location 25 years ago was even better with “blue” in the picture. Also the grapes that grew in the fields between the two mainlines were very tasty thanks to the farm hand that gave us some.

At least your story had a happy ending. I remember a hearing story from around 1980 or 1981, a railfan found a body near Cajon Station. It was a victim of the Freeway Killer william bonin. IF my memory is correct, that fan posts on the Western Board and maybe he'll chime in.

Great amazing story! It never ends what people encounter while railfanning.

Perhaps he was mentally challenged...

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the_expediter Wrote:
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> Perhaps he was mentally challenged...

This thought had crossed my mind, too... It would explain both why so many people were looking for him, and why he was walking along US 20 like nothing was wrong... It's also why I elected not to confront him in any way, and just dialed 911... Again, no way of knowing if that was the case or not, but I elected not to chance it...

What also surprised me is how nobody thought to look over the state line... The emergency vehicles vanished once I entered NY State... I also wondered how long it would have taken everyone to figure out to look there... Maybe they'd have still found him if I had stayed home or gone somewhere else that day, but then again, maybe not...