A Very Bad Day on the Railroad - What an Absolute Mess!

Way back in the 1930's, my Dad as a young boy would walk the rails after the coal cars passed through the neighborhood. With a cardboard box in his hands, he would pick up the pieces of coal and bring them back to his home to feed the coal & wood burning furnace in heating the house in winter. If this coal car opened in his neighborhood, there would be hundreds of kids and adults scrambling to fill their boxes and pockets with coal chunks, to store and later feed their home furnaces.

A broken knuckle pin, two hoppers dumping coal, weak batteries on a locomotive and 5 degrees out, wow Dave when it rains it pours!!! At least no derailments, you guys did a great job extracting those hoppers out of those coal piles!!!!

Its hard on an older guy, Dave . You take it all with a good humor. I see the benefits of me simply being a model rail guy.

I really enjoy things like this being put out there so we can see what railroaders have to deal with, another day at the office it takes special hard working people to get the job done!!

During the beginning of the video my engineering brain was going through all of the ways that the coal spill might be dealt with, and the conclusions I was coming to all sucked. When you laid a timber across the tracks in front of the wheels and started plowing the coal I became positively giddy. Thank you so much for the wonderful video, and many thanks to your company for allowing you to share glimpses of their business.

Hello from a UK old railwayman, 51 years. I love your way of clearing that coal spill, sheer genius! We used to get the shovels out unless there was a digger available. Sometimes we'd use the digger to lift a derailed wagon back on, then rub dirt into the damaged sleepers [ties] so no-one ever knew! Also, full respect for not swearing, here we'd be on about 5 F*@#*S a minute in a situation like that!

That was one of those days that you say: "Darn this is too much to happen and all at once!" but you create a plan for clean up and repair and execute. That, is what you folks do - you guys are true professionals (even at 5 degrees F!). Only a moment to spend on being upset and then hard at it fixing things. A bad day for the coal mine - loss of load and loss of productive time :(

Why do I picture that old ad for Morton Salt where the girl's salt container is tipped backwards spilling on the ground "When it rains it pours" Cleanup on Tracks 1. Bring the jumper cables and all my tools and equipment. It is amazing how something as simple as a strong board helps you spread the coal as you drag the truck thru the gushing content. I did see this technique on a track building Project where the ballast was delivered in conventional hoppers and the board did the trick with no derailment. Stay safe and warm as you tackle this frustrating situation.

As always, thanks so much for such great content Dave! I respect you a lot for keeping your composure after all that mess. We had so much rain and wind here that the power went out last night and the electric company is still working on it, but thats why I have generators. I probably got more upset having to start the generators up than you did having to clean up 115 tons of coal. Anyway, be careful fixing all that. Stay warm, stay safe , and God Bless!

Brilliant work guys. 👍 Spent years working in transport at coal mines, watching huge coal trains leaving but never thought something like that would happen. Great job. Cheers from Australia 🇦🇺

Great video and I appreciate seeing it.sorry for the crews and the mess but thank you for sharing so much. it shows how much work there is in railroading!

Absolutely love what you guys do. You are the reason this country can run like it does. There always going to be bad days but you all always find a way. Great job and thank you!!!!!

WOW, I guess the colder the weather is it always brings out the most trouble with equipment, I cant remember how many times during very frigid days that our equipment world act uncooperative such as hydraulics on our trucks or the hyrail trucks in general and so on, I guess like we all say just another day on the railroad. What a mess with all the coal but your right it could have been worse if they hadn't stayed on the track or something else. Have a great rest of the evening Dave and thanks for sharing your eventful day with us.

Hi Dave, that must be an understatement of the day, "what a mess" As always a fascinating video and thank you and all the crew for braving the cold to show us and explain. Rgds. Peter.

Oh man Dave, I feel your pain buddy! Total mess but at least nothing derailed. Definitely not the way you wanted to spend your day off but it is what it is. I’ve never seen anything like this up close and personal, very interesting how you put the board in front of the wheel to push the coal off the track. Great video Dave, thanks for posting 👍🏼😎🇺🇸

OMG! How terrible, Dave! I wish you and your co-workers these best in trying to fix this and clean up everything. I hate seeing trouble happen to my favorite rail line!!

It’s a great day when something like this happens and no one was injured, that coal will be there tomorrow! Everyone please stay safe and keep Well! Stay warm too!

Great video Dave and sorry it had to be the start of a bad day. Thankfully this incident didn't cause a derailment that could've been an even BIGGER mess! The method of using the piece of timber to help empty the car is quite an impressive idea! Thanks again for sharing your videos Dave along with your time and effort to get the BEST FOOTAGE!

Good grief! What a mess - thank God for dedicated men like you that CAN do this work. May you always be safe!

This was a superb video My husband and I enjoy all your videos We learn so much every time and gain an appreciation of what you do There’s something fascinating about trains - not just the trains but the people who work on them and what they do for us Thank you !!! 🙏👍🏻