It was a lot like.....

Last Thursday I was meeting with an industrial door repair contractor who was driving up from Las Vegas to look at some of our large, locomotive sized doors. I arrived at my office and waited, but the guy didn't show up. I called down to the engine house and discovered that he was already down there inspecting the doors. It was a quiet and sunny day at the rail yard so I went walking down to the engine house, trudging through new snow that fell the night before.

Passing the freight barn I noticed that one of our diesel locomotives was parked outside in the yard. As I was walking it almost looked like the locomotive was moving (you know how it can look if you're moving and you're looking at an object that isn't). After not being able to convince myself that the locomotive wasn't moving, even though it was quiet and there wasn't anyone around, I stopped walking. By the time I had stopped walking the "not moving" locomotive had really picked up some speed. I could see that it was heading down Machine Shop Track #2 towards the engine house. I began to panic, wondering if I should shout or try to stop it (this thought was tossed out almost as soon as it entered my thoughts). In another instance the locomotive went crashing through the closed roll-up door.

As it turned out the door contractor had been standing on the other side of the door just seconds before the locomotive came crashing through. No one was hurt, but the door had been ripped down and now had the face imprint of a large locomotive on it.

Later that day as I sat down to write a narrative to the insurance company all I could think to write was,"Well, it was a lot like watching a train wreck."

On the upside, we really couldn't have chosen a better day to have the door contractor on site. I thought the door was un-salvageable, but they worked a miracle.