INCIDENT TRESPASS

It is not too cold on the bench. The man has been sitting quietly watching the joggers for some minutes. The heavy snow of three days ago is melting. It is a mild 38 degrees. The man is not thinking about very much. His mind is made up, at last.

A young couple walking the path strain to keep their black dog from getting too close to the man. The dog is trying to sniff around the bench. They say ‘hello’ and the man nods in reply. He is dressed in the dirty layers of a man used to being outside in all types of weather. A man with no place to stay. A river runs to the right of the jogging path and on the left a fence runs alongside the Norfolk Southern main line to Chicago.

One doesn’t understand fences along railroad tracks. Holes are always cut where people feel a need to cut across. Many small paw and claw prints indicate that the park’s critters agree on the need for a crossway to the other side of the tracks. Strangely, there is no fence on the other side. The snow is well trampled through the hole in the fence where the joggers cut across in great numbers.

Now a train whistle sounds in the distance. Amtrak’s westbound Twilight Limited is running on time and coming into the station, two miles down the tracks. The couple with the dog smile at their good fortune. They are train enthusiasts and they enjoy watching them go by. And they are in a good position to do so, by the hole in the fence. They walk through the hole and up the slight incline to the tracks. There is an access road, two tire tracks in the snow, on their side of the rails. So there is ample room between them and the main line. Here it is a single main. They tighten their grip on the dog's leash as the whistle sounds again. The train cannot yet be seen. It is still on the far side of a gentle turn through the park that parallels the river. They don’t notice the shabby figure walking through the hole behind them.

The man looks tired. He slips a bit climbing the small embankment to the tracks, and has to use his hands. He makes the top and walks to the left of the couple with the dog, who have started walking in the direction from which the train will appear. They stop and wait but he keeps going. They note him going by, but think nothing of it. Several joggers on both sides of the tracks have stopped to await the train. The dog strains and prances nervously.

The train suddenly appears, almost ghostlike because the sound of its roaring turbo diesel is still far away and muffled by the curve. This train is being pushed to Chicago. The engine itself is actually on the rear. The engineer is operating the train from a remote control car, or cab car. The cab car looks like an old F40 engine, because it was, before it was gutted and re-fitted as a non powered remote control unit slash baggage car. And it sounds very much like an engine when the whistle blows again.

As the train rounds the curve at track speed, sixty miles an hour, the engineer notes the joggers, the couple with the dog, and the man walking. They all appear to hear the whistle and be aware of the train. They are very close. Often along this stretch there are kids walking with earphones on their heads and music blasting so loud that they cannot even hear the train whistle. There have been close calls, and even an incident a few weeks ago where someone wearing earphones and walking the rails was actually grazed by a train and knocked aside, luckily unhurt.

The shabby man stops, turns slowly to the tracks, and steps calmly into the gauge. He faces away from the train and lifts his face and arms to the sky. Two young girls cover their faces and begin screaming.

The engineer dumps the air, or throws the train into an emergency brake application. He lays on the horn. It is for naught.

In an instant, the shabby man is dead.

The trains drawbar, or coupler, hits him in the middle of his back and nearly comes out his front. His clothing keeps him from exploding. The trains snow plow is the next to make contact, striking him behind the shin and forcing the bones out the front of his legs. He feels none of this because the force of the impact has at that instant thrown his head back against the onrushing pilot iron and accelerated his skull to sixty miles an hour. This is too fast for the lower jaw to keep up, and it recedes towards the back of the head, only stopping when it too hits the metal. His brain is a pinkish cloud that rapidly disperses.

The impact has transfered the trains momentum to the clothing sack that contains the mans remains, which travel a hundred feet or so in the air before gradually losing enough energy to land in the untracked snow. Where it skids another fifty feet leaving a gory trail. The train travels another half mile before coming to rest.

I am standing in the vestibule of the train as it approaches the station. I have my passengers up and ready to detrain. I hear the prolonged wail of the whistle and then the subtle bang of the main and auxiliary reservoirs releasing their air and applying the brakes. The train, which was already slowing for the station, now slows in earnest as the brakes are applied at twenty five percent greater application pressure than full service. A lady talking to me notices nothing and keeps on talking. It is hard to stop a train very fast.

"The train is in emergency." Is all I can say to her.

Suddenly my radio crackles to life.

"Hello, rear end of fifty four, we just had a suicide."

"Rear end of fifty four, make your ‘Emergency Broadcast’, Tim. I’ll get on the phone."

I am trying to figure just where we are. I know we crossed the road and passed the dragging equipment detector. We must be about a mile and a half from the station. It is my worst nightmare. I am likely to be the first one at the scene and I dread finding a half dead person relying on me to tell the ambulance how to find us. I grab the Amtrak cell phone and head to the rear. There isn’t time to make any announcements, I just go.

As I enter the rear unit, a 500 series G.E. or Dash 8 locomotive, I look out the window but can see nothing. We’ve come too far. The engineer has made his "emergency, train in emergency", broadcast to alert any other traffic that we are stopped on the main. I hear him now, trying to raise the dispatcher. So I call National Operations who, to my utter amazement, answer right away. I tell them who I am and what has happened, and they begin making calls from their end. The dispatcher is finishing with Tim and saying they’ll call the authorities. I ask if he is ready to back up to the scene. He says yes and suggests I try 911 and see if it works on the Amtrak cell phone. It does and I describe where we are as we begin to back up. 911 passes me off to a closer operator and I start again. I see a bundle by the tracks.

Still talking on the phone I stop the train and climb down. I have them on the line when I get close enough to see that there is no rush, and pass that information along as well. I am sadly relieved only because they are having a hard time figuring exactly where we are in a large park system with no landmarks near the tracks for me to give them. I know what mile post I am near and what street I crossed and how far back that was but it is of little help to the emergency services people. They can’t seem to locate any park entrance near my location. And it is nearly thirty minutes until the first police car arrives, having driven up the jogging path. Once before, about 12 years ago, I sat with a badly mangled guy after he was struck by our train. Then too it took thirty minutes until help arrived. That fellow lived, but it was the longest thirty minutes of my life.

The couple with the dog have stayed, and agree to remain as witnesses. They are a little shaky, but OK. They saw exactly what the engineer will describe. More cops show up. And then fire rescue. And then helicopters overhead. I start telling my story for the first of many times. I have learned to keep it brief, keep it simple, and to the point.

The tracks mark the boundary between two police jurisdictions, and representatives of each are arguing back and forth about why the other should take charge of the case.

"Hey, look, the guy landed on your side of the tracks."

"Right, but he CAME from your side."

Because it is a holiday no one with sufficient authority to release the train can be easily found. They have to be hunted up, notified, and then come on down. And the accident reconstruction team has to be brought in, and they’re off too. And the coroner has to pronounce death before we can leave and nobody in his office seems to know where he is. By now there are thirty cops and emergency types around, and two helicopters. I have gravitated to a sergeant about my age who cautions me to watch what I say as the news guys have pin point microphones that can pick up our conversations from the air.

The Norfolk and Southern police arrive, and an NS trainmaster. They begin to help me push to get the train released. It has been over an hour. Finally a tall uniformed guy in combat boots bloused to the knees arrives and announces that we should get the folks to busses so he can impound the train. We explain that usually, after everyone finishes with their various ‘protocols’, we just go on to Chicago. Somewhat chastened he backs off but insists on waiting for the laser measuring devices. The old sergeant suggests that maybe someone could just step off the distances, since it’s getting too dark for the laser stuff anyway.

Finally a detective arrives with the authority to release us, but that still takes another half hour as she touches base with all the parties involved. By now it is full dark. The older cop is taking the rookies, who have never seen anything like this, over to the remains one at a time.

And finally, two hours and thirty seven minutes since an unknown unnamed man took his own life, we depart.

This is a true story. Some of it was reconstructed from what the couple with the dog, and other witnesses, saw and remembered about what happened before the train got there. Everyone did their job to the best of their abilities. A fatality out in the country delays the train for at least an hour. But the state cops are used to train trespasser incidents and they get things underway pretty quickly. In the city, on a holiday, it took a little longer. I don’t blame the guy who wanted to get his measurements. After all, a man lost his life. But no amount of measuring how far it took to stop the train, or how far the guy slid, will bring him back.