For the Ferroequinologists
Auto-train collision in Hermann Park, Houston, on Sunday. No injuries reported.
Seriously, people, don’t try to “beat the train.” Image via @EssBradley.
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Update, January 23: Bob Huddleston points to this video from the train:
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Dead Confederates, A Civil War Era Blog 
Don King – Only in America
When will drivers learn that even a big car will lose in a fight with a train of any size!
Very funny, Andy. With all the serious stuff on these blogs/groups, it’s refreshing to have a little humor now and again. I’ll bite. What’s a ferroequinologist? Couldn’t find it in the dictionary.
Here is a video made by someone on the train:
It would appear the train is going too fast as it comes around a blind curve. OTOH, what idiot would park a car on railroad tracks! The crossing is protected by gates but the @#$% ignored them.
This was a minor accident with no one hurt. I met a former railroad engineer who had to retire: a mother in a hurry raced around crossing gates and his train hit her. When the engineer tries to go to sleep all he sees is the little girl in the back seat looking up at him in the last second of her life.
And, Bob, check http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ferroequinologist :>)
Take care,
Bob
Judy and Bob Huddleston 10643 Sperry Street Northglenn, CO 80234-3612 Huddleston.r@comcast.net
“The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.” —Mark Twain
Nice creative word for Iron Horse studier or one who studies trains, locomotives in particular. Although you do have to appreciate the hauling capacity of a train and the fact that rails crossed the country relatively quickly and was the main reason the US developed so fast. Without that hauling capability, the west would never have been developed like it was.
Interestingly, for all the talk about the Civil War and why it was lost, I really think it would have been impossible for the Union to prevail militarily over the South without the railroad. On the other hand, the South could not have supplied the large forces it required to repel armies without the railroads hauling capacity to supply its army. We would probably have seen much smaller armies and they would have had to live off the land in ways far greater than we think they did. The need for horse power would have been much greater and that would have decided the logistical battle to maintain troops in the field.
I never picked up on that. Very clever. “Iron horse” fancier. Agree with you completely on the railroads as being one of the major reasons the Union won. Federalizing the railroads and putting Herman Haupt in charge was a stroke of genius.
In this case, it’s more an Iron Shetland Pony than a horse, but regardless, that’s a great Latinization.
Well, the confederacy does have some historic issues with, shall we say, “safe train operation”… http://youtu.be/ilPk-SCHv30?t=44m30s
Three cheers for all the ferroequinologists!
Love that movie. Fess Parker’s got nothin’ on Buster Keaton.
“Driving that train, high on cocaine. Casey Jones you better watch your speed…”
The most powerful version of the “Ballad of Casey Jones” has nothing whatever to do the historical Casey Jones, but was a labor-organizing version written by Joe Hill called “Casey Jones — the Union Scab”:
I’ve heard that version as well. But I had a college roomie who was a big fan of the Dead, so I think of their version first. One of my student last year is a train and ship buff and he knew all the details about the real Jones…