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(erielack) Dunellen Railroad Days - Safety Commentary



I apologize in advance for the quadruple posting however I would like as
wide an audience for this as possible.

First, kudos to everybody from Transit, the Susquehanna, the Dunellen
Merchants Association, and the Historical Society for making this thing
work despite all kinds of things going wrong that were beyond the control
of anybody there. There are a large number of individuals who I would
like to name but I would be almost certain to miss somebody so please
consider yourself named. The passengers who tolerated the delays and
actually kept behind the yellow lines also deserve our thanks. After all
they were paying for this trip and we were running it for them, not for
us. I was very pleased to see that the bulk of the fans  followed the
normal safety rules. 


Second, [ and this is the unfortunate exception to the last sentence in
the paragraph above] there are two Golden Jackass awards to be given in
the railfan community and some Darwin Award candidates from the general
public. Please note that a Golden Jackass award brings with it Darwin
Candidacy, the higher award is because you were not merely stupid but you
knew better. 

The Darwin candidates are the kids on the dirt bikes who paced the
various runs. Not all of them got caught. 

Saturday's  Golden Jackass goes the person who was on top of a hopper in
the Bound Brook Yard with his cameras. If you can be identified from the
pictures taken from the train my inclination would be to charge you.
Defiant trespass can get expensive, especially if you are in the habit of
taking pictures from railroad property.

Sunday's Golden Jackass goes to the photographer who has the perfectly
centered shot of the eastbound E unit taken near Lebanon on the third
trip. I strongly suggest that you do not show that picture to any one
from Transit or the Susquehanna or try to get it published. There are at
least two crew members who are more than a little bit ticked off at you
for standing in the gauge of the track. You also caused the train to run
even later because of the speed reductions while they were praying that
you would move - that is before the nose of the E threw you off into the
woods. Remember, cow catchers were designed to keep the train from
derailing, not save the cow. I suppose it never occurred to you that the
train and everybody on it would have been stuck out there until all of
your body parts had been accounted for.

It is the behaviour of jackasses like you two who make railfans suspect
and cause guys like me to budget fencing, security guards, et cetera.


Michael E. Allen ["meallen_@_juno.com"]
General Manager
_____________________________
PRINCETON TERMINAL RAILWAY
Management Services

[Acting herein in my role as chief safety officer for Somerset Terminal
Railway]  



  
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