I’m now working part time. Just in time for snow season.
I’ve got to get dressed and get downtown on a snowy morning. Instead of cruising around here in my jammies sipping coffee.
Sitting here watching the early morning TV news as the snow continues to fall, I learn that a light rail train has just derailed down in the south metro area.
A coal train on the adjacent track derailed and tipped train cars and/or coal onto the LR tracks and the LR train driver couldn’t get ‘er stopped in time to avoid the mess. Nobody hurt, according to first reports, and the LR train stayed upright.
A Channel 9 employee was on the train when it happened, so naturally they are getting cellphone reports from him on the air. Sounds like the driver darn near managed to get the LR train stopped, so it wasn’t a high speed collision, bless him.
The picture above is just one randomly grabbed from the CDOT road ca
m website. To give you a sense of the morning.
EDITED to add these newspaper/TV pictures of the coal train wreckage (right) and the light rail train off its tracks (below).
Be careful out there.
PS: While I’ve been messing around here, it’s been warming up outdoors. To 19°F. Maybe I should wear my Hawaiian shirt after all.
Further update: It worked out that I’m working at home today. Still have to go out later for an appointment but the traffic madness has abated by now.
Did you watch Channel 9 as they were talking to their manager and the gal from RTD on this? The Channel 9 manager said more than once “no one was hurt”, and each time they’d end an interview about it, the Channel 9 anchors would say, “Wow, it’s a miracle that not more people got hurt.” Umm, the guy just said NO ONE got hurt. They spent the whole morning trying to put some sort of traumatic-explosive crash spin on the whole thing. (This is one of many reasons that I can’t stand local news.)
I know what you mean.
Sometime that day I looked at the story as posted on the website of one of the local newspapers. There was a statement to the effect that nobody at RTD could say why the RTD dispatcher hadn’t warned the light rail driver of the crash.
Well, DUH, the coal train was literally derailing as the light rail train was approaching. It all happened at once. But of course the journalists were already looking for gotchas, never mind finding out *first* such mundane facts as the time, if any, between the coal train wreck and the LR train approaching the site.
I just remind myself that reporters all think they are investigative journalists and news anchors all think they are Katie Couric or Tom Brokaw or Peter Jennings. It’s all about “gotchas” and drama, all the time.