Chances are good that I was out at my train-watching bench with my dog a week ago last Friday, when that Union Pacific train with the “very impaired” engineer at the throttle rumbled by.
Just another day in the neighborhood, I guess.
(They're working like crazy on a $1.2 billion data center about a stone's throw from our place. Construction cranes are sprouting like weeds.)
Kind of hard to spot erratic driving when strings of 4,500-horsepower locomotives lumber by on rails. So I didn't notice anything different that day.
But, there had been some high drama going on in the cab of the lead locomotive.
The train – stretching two miles in length and hauling all kinds of dangerous stuff – was approached by sheriff's deputies shortly before 4 p.m. that Friday, and the engineer was taken into custody. He was charged last week with reckless endangering, being under the influence of a controlled substance, and interfering with a police officer.
Throughout the eight-hour trip from Omaha to Cheyenne, the conductor noticed erratic behavior by the engineer, who said he had killed his cats, and that he wanted to build a small nuclear bomb.
(!)
They got into two physical altercations, and the conductor spent the last leg of the trip, from North Platte to Cheyenne, barricaded in a separate compartment. For 10 to 15 minutes, the engineer tried unsuccessfully to get at the conductor.
The conductor called the railroad, which notified the Laramie County Sheriff's Office, and deputies caught up with the stopped train at milepost 506, which is behind Dish-Echostar on the east side of Cheyenne, and in the neighborhood of the Sierra Trading Post distribution center, I-80, and a Walmart. There's a large residential neighborhood on the north side of the tracks.
The engineer was “disheveled” in appearance, with a piece of rope holding up his pants. He had reportedly wet his pants. Twice. And when asked, he said he might have slept for part of the trip, or maybe all of it.
We've lived next door to the main line of the UP for 13 years, and we like it. They used to blow their whistles when approaching a blind curve behind our place. But someone complained, and they stopped. (I miss the “mournful whistles” blowing.)
At night from our house, when a particularly heavy train rumbles past, you can feel the subtle vibration as you snooze in bed.
At two miles long, the back end of the train was stopped about a mile west of our place. It's freight, among many other things, included diesel fuel, liquid petroleum gas residue, ammonium nitrate and hot asphalt. Bad stuff.
You probably don't want to know what's on board the trains going by. But in the time we've lived here, there's only been one derailment of a few box cars about a quarter mile east of us.
It's sobering, however, to think that the engineer at the controls of a train loaded with freight like that might be under the influence of meth or cocaine.
Or sound asleep.
Stopped where it was, that train was in close proximity to Dish-Echostar, the State Liquor Warehouse, a huge Microsoft data center, the Lowe's Distribution Center, Wyoming Machinery, two big new data centers under construction, and numerous other businesses. Had the impaired engineer not stopped the train where he did, a collision at the downtown depot – in the very center of Cheyenne - could have been reminiscent of that disaster three years ago at East Palestine, Ohio.
The railroad did not comment on this event, calling it “a personnel matter,” but stressed safety efforts to prevent such episodes.
We still like living by the tracks. But at a time when officials are getting truck drivers who can't speak English off our highways, it might also be a good idea to get a closer look at the crews boarding locomotives over in Omaha.
Then maybe give them a look-see at North Platte, to make sure the conductor isn't barricaded in a compartment, and the engineer hasn't wet his pants.
As a neighbor, that doesn't seem like too much to ask.
Dave Simpson can be contacted at davesimpson145@hotmail.com
