From Bad To Worse
"Scranton Dispatch, come in Scranton Dispatch. Halt all traffic. We've gone on the ground and are spread all over the right of way. Repeat, we're all over the ground and spread across the right of way."
On February 1, 1968, Penn Central was created. Not even 2 years later, it was the biggest financial failure in American history at the time. Bad trackwork, conflicting operations, in-house competition... Anything that could go wrong, did.
PC train EV-4 was the unfortunate victim for today, as a broken rail sent the cars digging into the ballast, and a few off the embankment. Certainly a mess afterwards; spilling loads from the hoppers, cargo on the ground, even a trailer on its side.
Dispatch sends GP30 2233 to help clear the line. No one is surprised - this is the 3rd derailment this week. The engineer is tired of it all. After losing one of his good friends in a wreck a few years ago, he wonders if surviving the bankruptcy was even worth it.
