Train Wreck - March 08

    A small area of Central New York seems to be collecting train wrecks. The last one--the derailment of a CSX freight--took place in mid-January of this year. Circular containers rolled off thirteen overturned cars and almost ended their interrupted journey in the village of Canastota, home of the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

    The engineer and conductor were uninjured, and no local resident of 4,400 was hurt, including a local boxer and onion farmer Carmen Basilio, soon to be honored by his induction into the Hall Canastota is only five miles from another CSX crash that happened a year ago in Oneida, triggering the explosions of four propane tankers, causing the evacuation of hundreds of citizens. That accident resulted from an undetected broken rail. There has been an epidemic of faulty ties that threaten lives of Amtrak passengers and could ignite dangerous freight cargo. In one county alone, In addition to the International Boxing Hall, the Village of Chittenango sponsors Munchkin events to honor native son L. Frank Baum, known mainly for The Wizard of Oz. and a 2,000-year-old Egyptian mummy who just changed his sex in Cazenovia's public library--all of these famous locations might go up in a fireball due to a defective railroad track. Try to imagine an ancient pug, an unwrapped mummy, and some squashed munchkins flying sky-high over Mumsville's courthouse.

     "Today's event near Chittenango is just the latest reminder that CSX's persistently troubling safety record continues to threaten communities across Central New York," said U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. "It's time we demand they step up performance and safety." That's a gentle way of telling the railroads to replace those defective tracks before passengers are killed or a toxic explosion destroys an entire community.

     Now if Robert R. Young, the outspoken visionary of the New York Central Railroad, were still on the scene, I'm sure the fire would fly. He once said, "Hogs ride from coast to coast without changing trains, but YOU can't." During the 1940s, he ruled a string of railroads with an iron fist, accusing bankers of being money-suckers and other financial agents of being weasels. I heard him give this advice to a graduating class: "Go out there and make as much money as fast as you can, and then later if you want to make a few donations to charity, that's your choice."  When New York Central started to go belly-up and failed to produce profits for the stockholders, Robert Young couldn't stand the heat and committed suicide.

                     My Own Wreck

     Last month I told you a war story about soldiers landing in Naples in the middle of the Red Light district (which Pedro and a few other readers found hilarious). In this blog, let me tell you about the time I was in a train wreck. My own wreck didn't happen in New York, but in Ohio a few years ago. Upper Sandusky was the exact location, and I hope the overflow from the lavatories never reached Lower Sandusky, if there is such a place.

The caption read: "Big Collision. Two Wyandot County emergency workers inspect the damage from an early Sunday crash of an Amtrak passenger and CSX freight train near Upper Sandusky, Ohio. There were no fatalities or cargo spills. Three Hoosier crew members and a passenger were injured when the Amtrak train hit the 13th car of the 116-car CSX freighter."

Friends who had never been in a train wreck looked at me with renewed interest. Some of them were kind enough to ask if I had any injuries. I made a mental note to improve my slight limp.

     "How did it feel when the trains collided?"

That was a question I was often asked. I wish I could come up with a dramatic description, but I have to stay with the facts. The train was moving slowly. A dull thud and an instant stop. No screeching of brakes before the thud (which means, your honor, that the engineer did not see the freight train before impact). On the thud, those passengers sitting up suddenly leaned forward as if they were trying to see the engine. Those passengers curled up on two seats went on sleeping.

This rail travel was my first since the troop trains of World War !!, when I had solemnly promised that I would never travel by trains again. What was I doing on this Amtrak?

I had gone to the Big Apple mainly to visit some relatives, who live near LaGuardia Airport. A few weeks ago a plane taking off went off the end of the run and splashed down in the East River, close to my relatives' backyard. I decided it would be safer to go by train.

Would someone in this age of computers and advanced technology please tell me how it's possible for one train to broadside a second in a town the size of Canastota? Asleep at the throttle? Drugs in the system?

                THE CONDUCTORS

A parade of conductors came through at about twenty-minute intervals. The first said: "There's been a minor accident." The next one said: "We bumped into another train." Meantime, sirens screamed for attention and lights on tops of police cars and ambulances twirled in the darkness.

Next to arrive, two important conductors. "Are there any injuries in this car?" None of the passengers responded. Under the stark emergency lights, the passengers stared straight ahead or moved like zombies in a horror movie.

A Red Cross lady passed through to cheer us up. No, she had no hot coffee or donuts. No, she couldn't help us make telephone calls. No, she couldn't get any heat turned up. She could offer us only cheerfulness.

Yet another conductor announced that we would continue our trip by bus. When pressed for an answer on bus arrival time, he said about four hours and hurried on.

The zombies began to change back to people and grew irritated and rebellious. We considered printing signs like "help" or "Amtrak is holding us hostage," and holding them up to the windows. The canteen and dining cars were locked. The explanation? No power to heat food or coffee. No power to heat the coaches. No one was allowed outside to make telephone calls or get food. The explanation? For our own protection, Amtrak ordered us to stay in our seats.

Commodes in the lavatories were soon plugged. On the toilet seats were the words from an earlier time: "Do not flush while train is standing still." The train couldn't be standing any stiller.! The overflow came close to the top edge of the shoes. I looked down at my smelly shoes and just then remembered Amtrak's motto: "Discover the Magic."

                Inspector Imtrack

Among the flashing lights, while it was still dark, I had noticed, rushing toward the crash site, dump trucks loaded with sand. The time had come for me to slip into my black raincoat and put on my Greek Fisherman's cap. Once outside, I could pass for a conductor. When the next one came rustling through the car, I got up, followed him down the aisle, down the steel stairs, and hastened to the impact. Sand was being dumped on something with an acrid odor. I overheard that a conductor had suffered a heart attack. Could it have been the engineer? The engine of the passenger train had been derailed and was leaning against a CSX car like a tired old man.

I couldn't get too close, but managed to make out two freight cars tipping precariously and a third on its side. Before being discovered and marched back to my coach by a rent-a-cop whose uniform smelled of mothballs. I had given myself away by asking if that was a doghouse floating in a swimming pool, a sight you seldom run into in real life. Instead of drawing attention to myself as a spy, I should have waited until the next day to read in a paper that a railroad shack had been pushed into a pool.

Thus ended the ignominious saga of Inspector Imtrack.

          Report to Fellow Passengers

Back in the coach, everyone felt much better when I told them what was happening. We passed the time by pooling food. Tins of cookies were quickly emptied in Upper Sandusky, whose citizens began discovering in the daylight that a wreck had occurred. Although my contribution of food was a popular one. I can't take credit for it. My daughter had shoved a long loaf of Italian bread under my arm when we were saying goodbye in Penn Station. I had protested: "A grown man doesn't walk around with a loaf of bread under his arm. Maybe in Italy, but not on an Amtrak train." Fairlie insisted: "Take it, Dad. You may need it before the trip is over." What a wise daughter I have!

The buses finally arrived. Passengers not going to Chicago were allowed off first. With two heavy suitcases hanging on the ends of my arms, I got off the train. A microphone was shoved in my face and a TV camera pointed at me. "Tell me," the young lady interviewer asked, "how did it feel when the trains smashed together?"

Oh my gosh, I thought, after twenty hours on the train I'm going to make the Six O'Clock News in Upper Sandusky. I said: "There was a thud and we stopped." She asked, "And since then, what's been going on in there?"

I turned to look at the coach that had been my prison. I was tempted to liven up the news with a vivid description of a Roman orgy. Or I wanted to complain about being held hostage by Amtrak, but I didn't. I said, "We just sat there." For over five hours, we just sat there. And now you'll have to excuse me. I have a bus to catch, and I wouldn't want to miss it."

Just before the bus pulled out, a lady and a man boarded it with donuts and milk. They weren't from Amtrak or the Red Cross. Neighbors living alongside the track had taken up a collection to buy breakfast for the strangers who had been staring out the train windows.

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