[Off-Off Topic] (read anyway)
Yesterday, just outside Missoula, a freight train escaped from the custody of its engineer and assistant engineer when they left the train in search of 'helper' engines to take her over the pass. The 6700' long train quietly eluded it's captors until reaching escape velocity. The fleeing train, part of the rolling stock of Montana Rail Link, owned by billionaire Denny Washington, ended up accordioned like so much cordwood on a little-used siding. The train was shunted onto the dead-end siding near Rock Creek, a blue-ribbon trout stream, about 12 miles up the Clark Fork valley from Missoula, the train's presumed destination. Several tank cars carrying undisclosed hazardous materials at the engine end of the train were recaptured without incident. According to "RatMan", a former conductor for MRL, "If I hadn't been laid off so that the railroad could make more money for billionaires, that train would never have gotten away. They were lucky this time. Maybe those tanks didn't hold Iraqi anthrax, but they could have wiped out a blue-ribbon trout stream, and half of Missoula". |
