Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Another Kaboom!

I was on weekday service again, and it was briefly exciting.  The morning was mostly light rain, but there were visitors arriving, so I got out the 415 as usual.

I actually had a good-sized crowd for the 11:00 departure.  We went around the carline, and then proceeded to Depot St. and I got ready to stop and throw the electric switch.   Then: Kaboom!   There was a lighting strike not too far ahead!   The DC went off, and we came to a stop.  It never came back on, so I had to unload the passengers where we were.  They were all very accepting of the situation.


The substation would not reset, so there wasn't much I could do.  Luckily Gregg was in Barn 2, working on the doodlebug, and he agreed to run the Army Diesel to put the 415 away.  That took us a while, but we got it done without much trouble.  I believe the B&G guys were trying to find out what was wrong and isolate the problem, but when I left DC was still off on the property.  Luckily we never lost AC.   Thanks again to Gregg for helping out in an emergency.  I was told that Max is in hospital.  We certainly wish him well and hope he recovers soon.

The rest of the day was occupied with sorting parts and cleaning in both the 321 and 451.  I just regret missing the photo opportunity of a lifetime!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Randy- It appears to have been a lightning strike. AC was lost to some of the property. DC is restored to the whole railroad. Work will continue Wednesday morning, but it should be mostly business as usual.

R. W. Schauer

Randall Hicks said...

Thanks, that's good to know.