Some good — and bad — train experiences

It started out like any other Wednesday.

Then I got a call from Chief Mike O’Neill inviting me to ride along while members of the Benton Police Department worked a railroad detail in town with representatives of Union Pacific.
“Absolutely!” — or something like it — was my reply.

I have always liked — and at the same time, somewhat feared — trains.

I can remember my mom telling me about riding the train up to Chicago when she was in sixth grade and getting to see a museum and various other sights and sites in the Windy City. (Naturally, the school board canceled the trip the year I was in sixth grade, and not even my signature-filled petition could get them to reconsider!)

I can recall bicycling down to the trestle with Bobby and Debra to watch trains roll by — and to smoke an occasional contraband cigarette provided by my crafty stepbrother. (Trust me, the “smoking experiment” never took with me or Debra, thankfully.)

We used to look for hobos hiding in the box cars that sat on the tracks just south of my dad and my Grandma Ginny’s houses (they lived only a block apart in Shelbyville), but, of course, we never found any.

Not all of my experiences with trains have been good ones — hence, the fear.

When I was 16 and had received my driver’s license not all that long before, I decided to take my dad’s El Camino out for a spin.

Dad and Helen had driven the Thunderbird out to Pikes Peak on vacation, and Dad had left behind the keys to the “Elk” — knowing that it had a manual transmission, and that I’d had only one (rather unsuccessful) lesson on “driving a stick.”

As if that’s going to stop a 16-year-old with access to wheels!

I talked Debra into joining me for a cruise. I knew that getting the car rolling — timing that push of the gas pedal with the release of the clutch just right — was the difficult part, and that once we got moving, we’d be just fine.

And we were, too, as I shifted seamlessly from first to second to third to fourth and back down again, occasionally, avoiding as many stop signs as I could while doing so.

Then we got to the train tracks that were located near the park. There was a bit of an incline going down to them, though, and I managed to be going slowly enough that, right as I approached the tracks, the El Camino stalled.

We were stopped dead on the tracks!

My sister tried not to panic while I tried to remember everything my dad had taught me about starting the car: Put it in neutral ... push in the clutch ... turn the key ... shift to first gear ... gently push the accelerator as you gradually let up on the clutch ...

Which is all fine and dandy when you’re trying to get moving on level ground, but not so easy when you’re attempting to start while going uphill. That, as I learned in later years, requires a much more delicate sense of timing and revving and whatever-else-ing you have to do to get the car to GO!

Luckily for us, there wasn’t a train around for miles, so the three or four minutes we spent fooling around on the tracks didn’t result in dire consequences. And, needless to say, as soon as I got us out of that predicament, I made a bee line for Dad’s house, parked the Elk in the garage and didn’t take it out again the rest of their vacation!

(I also have the whole “Hobbling through Europe” saga brought about by my sprained ankle suffered on the Metra outside Chicago, but I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned that story — probably multiple times — before.)

The recent police detail involving the local railroad crossings resulted in 20 RR-related violations over the span of about four hours. From our perch in the Union Pacific engines, we could see the warning lights flashing as we approached the crossings ... and, unfortunately for a few local residents, some drivers were “caught in the act” as they went through illegally.

A few of them actually drove around the crossing arms, which I thought everyone on the planet knew was a no-no — and an automatic fine if you were caught doing so.

Some, however, made the mistake that I may (or may not have) done a time or two myself: They saw the flashing lights and the train, seemingly far off in the distance but approaching the crossing, and went on through.

At $250 a pop for a crossing violation, this is a rather expensive lesson to learn. And I was reminded that when you see flashing lights and the train is moving in the direction of the crossing at which you are sitting, stay put.

Nothing is worth getting hit by a train.

— Diana Winson is editor of The Benton Evening News. You may e-mail her at dianaw@neondsl.com.