Something similar to this occurred up in Duluth, MN between the North Shore Scenic Railroad and the BNSF in “yard limits”. When an inept reporter caught wind of the incident, he went to the NSSR and the BNSF for answers. He got his answers from them accordingly. But this nitwit was still not satisfied; so he proceeded to call both the FRA and the NTSB for more answers, as the ones he got from the NSSR and the BNSF were not enough. It was a very slow day in Duluth, MN for news that day.
From: dr strangelove <kaiserwillieii0815@yahoo.com>
To: CBQ@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Fri, July 20, 2012 7:12:50 AM
Subject: [CBQ] This is news???
I caught the Facebook news feed of the local station, WSIL,from back home in
southern Illinois and saw this ...
"Witnesses say train cars come apart on tracks in Zeigler"
There was also a picture of a coal hopper (I guess they are gondolas nowadays??)
They actually sent a news team to investigate the "incident".
I don't know if this is more a reflection of modern social media or the lack of
people's general knowledge about trains. It seems like when i was a kid this
happened quite often and nobody would have paid attention to this. It would be
sort of like "Semi has flat tire on back road".
How often did this happen back in the old days? I seem to remember the Mopac
working on a busted draw bar and/or coupler in Scheller when I was a kid,
interesting but not newsworthy.