TALES FROM
THE DONUT SHOP BY JULES A. STAATS
Copyright 2014, Jules A. Staats;
Library of Congress, USA.
All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast,
rewritten or redistributed. This work may be previewed only.
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Railroad Train on Fire;
How do you pull over a burning
freight train with a police car?
It was another quiet Sunday morning in Bassett
California. Jay was working Sheriff’s
patrol in a black and white radio car.
He looked down the nearby Railroad Tracks and marveled as to what a nice
sunny day this was. Usually in the late
spring, there was the constant morning cloud cover and sometimes the clouds
were lower causing a fog. Until the sun
burned off these clouds and fog, the sun was usually hidden or the fog caused a
visibility of only a quarter mile.
Today, it was crisp and bright, much like in the Arizona countryside.
Both of the nearest reporting district patrol cars were on
report calls. Having no company to talk
to, he had stopped by the local donut shop by himself and filled up a large cup
of black coffee. He felt that he could
sort of kick back and drink his coffee by the main railroad tracks that sliced
through his patrol district, as it felt like it would be a quiet day. He was later parked in a vacant lot across
from the railroad tracks. As he sipped
his hot brew he reflected that his four children would once again have to enjoy
their Sunday at home without him. Law
enforcement is mostly shift work that has no regard for weekends and holidays.
He gazed to the West, and he noticed that there no trains in
sight. A long ways off to his left, and
coming from the East was a freight train.
He watched a train pass at a speed of about 45 miles an hour.
Jay started to add up the different names on the box
cars. When he was younger, and back in
school, he and his friends would count boxcars, and keep track of the origin of
each rail unit. It was a good way to
exercise your mind. He just ignored the
graffiti on the box cars, looking to see the printed origin where each boxcar
came from. At that time several
railroads names were still in existence.
The slowly moving freight train had passed and it was time to
check other areas in his assigned patrol district. He shifted the black and white patrol car
into gear and started into the highway.
His attention was immediately drawn to a blue full size sedan that was
traveling much slower than the traffic flow on East Valley Boulevard. The driver was also having problems keeping
the car in his lane and was noticeably weaving. As he closed behind the slow moving vehicle
he noted the time on his analog watch that it was now 10:00 AM. This could be a drunk driver driving slowly
or it could be a person having a medical issue which was causing the poor
driving. The deputy sheriff decided to
stop the vehicle with the intention of determining if this was a medical
problem or the crime of driving while intoxicated, which was Section 23102a of
the California Vehicle Code. [1]
Jay had one of the newer vehicles of that time, a 1967
Chevrolet Malibu which was a considered by most to be a mid –size vehicle, and
it was equipped with rotating red and blue lights. The electronic siren could blast a warning
sound through two speakers in the light bar.
He moved the emergency light lever over to the right, or position two setting,
activating all lamps on the light bar and then tapped the car horn. After traveling about 100 yards the driver
did not appear to notice Jay behind him.
The deputy chirped the siren a few times, and observed that there still
was no reaction. He finally set the
siren to automatic wail and the powerful speakers caused the deputy to roll up
his driver side window. Jay mused; (This person will not yield, I just don’t
feel I should get on the radio for a low speed pursuit. Maybe if I give the driver a little more
time) [2]
His patience was rewarded as the driver finally moved over to
the right side of the four lane highway and drove the right front wheel over
the curb of the sidewalk. There was
little doubt that he had a vehicle with an very
impaired driver but at least the man was now safely stopped.
He approached the vehicle cautiously from the driver
side. The subject driver side window was
down but he could no longer see the driver at the wheel. He then observed the driver lying down on the
front seat, his head on the passenger side.
Jay shouted to the man, and he finally responded by slowly
sitting up. The deputy was treated to
finding a highly intoxicated person who was driving a car while too drunk to
even walk. The drunk had sneezed without
understanding what can happen when a person sneezes. The result to the face of the drunken man was
disgusting. He walked back to the patrol
car and asked for a non-emergency backup.
The drunk, who had passed out again, needed to be arrested, lifted physically
so he can be placed in the patrol car and booked. Jay and his backup accomplished this task
while figuratively holding their noses.
The drunk had not just sneezed; much more nasty stuff had come out hours
before.
Jay ended up booking a drunk driver that was still driving on
the highway at 10 in the morning. While
booking him at the station, the station trustees--sentenced low risk
prisoners—cleaned up the mess on the back seat left by the drunk while being transported.
That procedure over with, he finally got back in his car
which now smelled of pine oil. At least it was a more pleasant smell,
he thought as he returned to his assigned patrol area. He drove around for a while and finally found
himself parked at almost the same spot he had been before, by the railroad
tracks. He wondered why the railroad
tracks caught his rapt attention today.
Then he noticed there was something wrong about the railroad
tracks. The single set of steel rails
had recently been replaced with a new engineering concept which was miles of
welded tracks, replacing the old mechanical nuts and bolts joint concept. He had previously seen the new rails being
unloaded by the rail bed. It sounded like
a giant steel tape measure being rattled.
He had never heard such a strange and very loud sound before.
He was also aware that the railroad spikes used to hold the
old rails to the wood railroad ties had been left behind and that another crew
would pick up these spikes as part of the conversion cleanup. However a large number of the spikes were no
longer setting beside the rails. At
least one hundred of these spikes had been placed on top of the rails. Jay quickly drove across the highway which
was parallel to the tracks and confirmed that all these spikes had been moved
to the top of the south rail surface.
This placement of steel spikes could cause a violent reaction of the
train engine wheels with the rails. The
reaction to these obstructions could cause a derail of a high speed train and a
train wreck. Many railroad cars carried
toxic liquids, propane gas, anhydrous ammonia and even anhydrous chlorine
gas. A train wreck could place the
adjacent home residents in a deadly environment. Release of a dry or anhydrous substance can
cause immediate destruction of a person’s lungs as well as eye damage and
severe skin burns.
The deputy asked for a 10-33 emergency clearance and advised
the radio room to contact the railroad and stop all train traffic on this
section of the railroad tracks. He knew
the schedule and that an eastbound freight train would roll by at 50 miles per
hour within the next hour.
Jay was standing by the tracks, knowing that there were too
many of the neatly placed railroad spikes and these could never be removed by
him in time, as he then heard the far
away train horn. This freight train was not
stopping and was going to hit this extreme hazard in only moments. There was a confidential police method of
stopping a train, but there was no time to set the procedure up. His stopping the train was not a viable
option.
Then, Jay saw movement.
Behind a ramshackle wood shed in an adjacent back yard a 12 year old boy
appeared. He called out and then saw a
group of 12 boys of the same age. An
idea popped in his head. He motioned and
told the group to come to him quickly and they complied. A quick round of questions and he knew he had
found the culprits of the placed spikes.
At that moment the radio dispatcher advised over the outside
speaker on the patrol car that the train could not be contacted. The deputy was not surprised as he knew that
radio communication with a train failed at times. Far away he could now see the headlights of
the eastbound speeding train that was coming from the Los Angeles freight yard.
He had to make a decision to protect life and property which
was his sworn oath as a law enforcement officer. He had decided to put the group of kids to
work. He told them that the spikes on
the train would cause a train wreck and that many people could die. As a result he and the kids started taking
spikes off the rails by hand. The train was only about a mile away—still a comfortable
distance--when the spikes were finely all removed. Jay yelled for the kids to run away from the
tracks. A moment later the freight train
roared by, on the just-cleared rails.
Jay was later advised by the Railroad
Police that the large number of railroad spikes would create two possible
dangers: One would be flying half pound
steel railroad spikes being propelled like tiddlywinks which could kill people
even inside their homes and vehicles.
The other would be a derail of the speeding freight train, and a strong
possibility of fire or poison gasses from damaged railroad cars. The latter created a clear danger of killing
the nearby residents and drivers on this highway.
He then resumed his patrol of his district, slightly
disturbed by the near-tragedy that had been averted by an unconventional
procedure, having the children who caused the problem fix the problem. He logged the incident, but the details would
never fit the daily patrol activity sheet, so he just wrote it off as an
assistance to railroad police observation.
He could have arrested the twelve juveniles but he felt that it was not
necessary. The boys fully understood
what danger they caused, and all promised to tell their friends that placing
objects on the railroad tracks could cause destruction, injuries, and even
death. He felt that running all these
boys through the Juvenile Court system would be a waste of time, paperwork and money
as he personally felt that the issue was resolved.
The day wore on and the deputy sheriff had not received a
single call over the radio. He had
traveled down most of the streets in his assigned districts. He was very much aware now, that he only had
three hours to go before he could return to the station and end this Sunday
shift. Once again, he felt a strange
feeling about that location where the railroad spikes were placed on the tracks
and as a result, ended up at the same place for the third time, just watching
the rails. There were no foreign objects
on the railroad tracks. He was now
finally tired and ready to go home at any moment, but decided to watch one more
approaching freight train traveling west, this time toward Los Angeles.
He started counting the box cars and tank cars as they rolled
by, just as he had done as a child. This
relaxed him and caused the previous incidents of the day to fade away in his
mind.
He stopped counting, as he saw a boxcar with a set of wheels
on fire. The fire had been building for
some time and was apparently spreading to the entire underside of the
boxcar. A “Hot Box” that had gone this
far could cause complete railroad car axel failure and a disastrous train
wreck.
Jay popped the transmission into gear, and voiced a 10-33
over the car radio to get priority traffic for an emergency. He advised of the boxcar fire and the
direction of the train; westbound heading for Los Angeles. Since the County Fire Station was only five
blocks away, the response to the fire would be swift, except that this train
was moving at a speed of 45 MPH with burning wheel bearings.
Traffic was almost non-existent this Sunday Afternoon, so Jay
decided to turn on his overhead red and blue lights. He drove on the far left and wrong side of
the road with lights and siren. As he
came abreast of the crew in the lead engine he held his hand out in a fixed
position in a way that said “stop.”
To his pleasant surprise, the diesel locomotive engineer
quickly and smoothly stopped the train in less than a mile. Jay ran up to the stopped engine and climbed
up the stairway, which he soon found out was a mistake. His palms were now crusted with black soot. Trying to put that aside he advised the
engineer of the boxcar fire, and that the Los Angeles County Fire Department
was just arriving to what was a significant fire that was close to the middle
of the train.
Note that he freight train also had
what was called a Caboose at the rear of the train. The purpose of the railroad employees of this
last railroad car was to detect and report if an axel bearing overheated. Apparently the Caboose personnel missed the
whole thing.
The fire was put out without further incident. An inspector with the railroad stated that
the axle would have failed within a mile and stopping the train definitely
prevented a derail and maybe even a train wreck. The Industry switching yard was close by and
the damaged boxcar was shunted to a spur that was only 50 feet away.
As Jay returned to the station at the end of his shift, he
had a warm feeling inside that he had somehow maybe prevented two train
wrecks. What were the chances of always being at the right spot at the
right time? The deputy definitely knew
that somehow, he was always there on the spot when a critical incident was in
progress today, and he also knew that this was absolutely no coincidence. He was just a deputy sheriff on patrol that
was placed at these times and places, and as a result, protect many people. And that was his job as a police officer but
he was actually a tool of his Lord.
To the
present day, Jay could still boast about one thing: Not
many cops can say they actually pulled over and stopped a moving freight train
with red lights and siren.
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