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Car on the ground in downtown Kalamazoo. Should make the morning rush a peach.

https://www.woodtv.com/news/kalamazoo-a ... 1280651705

amtrak1007 wrote:Car on the ground in downtown Kalamazoo. Should make the morning rush a peach.

https://www.woodtv.com/news/kalamazoo-a ... 1280651705

Total of 15

Already on the GDLK thread.

Wow, only two posts on this thing.... You guys busy lighting off fireworks?
Looks like a classic case of "String-Lining". For anyone not familiar with the BO tower area in Kazoo, the incident happened on "the wye" from the GDLK to the NS/AMTK line. That is one real SHARP turn! Now, I know it is too early to make assumptions as to the cause, but I can tell you from 40 years of knowing that place that it is the sharpest turn in all of Michigan, if not the entire midwest. It was set up around 1969 or so, after NYC, and PRR merged to form Penn Central. At that time it was designed to allow a more fluid movement of local trains from Botsford Yard, going south.
Fast-forward to about 1981... Conrail decided to abandon the "Air Line" from Three Rivers to Jackson. So, then, all the big Auto related trains were routed through Kalamazoo, and thus, around that sharp-ass wye at BO. I spent a lot of time at BO in the '70's-'80's. In those years the trains that once went across on the Air Line had to negotiate that wye in K-zoo. It was an everyday routine for those trains with the 89 foot auto equipment to pull an air hose on the wye. Sometimes 5-6 times on a single lineup. They even had wooden crates of those little 12-inch long "Cheater-Hoses" lined up along the wye for the brakemen to use to make the trainline. And, I'll tell you, there were plenty of traffic jams in those days.
I think it is VERY fortunate that on this incident that there was no haz-mat or flammable cargo involved.

Todd Cline wrote:Wow, only two posts on this thing.... You guys busy lighting off fireworks?

The post literally above your's says this is being covered in the existing GDLK thread.

Remember all you said about the auto traffic. Also had those tarp strap looking things with hooks to keep the hoses from snagging something. You could find them on the ROW all the way to Elkhart. Also had those auto frame trains from GR to Marion In. coming down the PRR.

A couple photographs and it's pinned on the crew already. GM's everywhere would be proud.