OK - MR and Trains for April 2001 have finally arrived on the shores of Australia. MR had a great April Fools Joke about Warren Buffet building an HO Scale Wisconsin Central (the whole WC with no selective compression at all) but it finished with a Happy April Fools Day line. But Trains on the other hand has run an article about an Amtrak Special train (football fans bound for Portland) that was involved in a grade crossing accident with a house that was being moved. The article comes complete with photos by Mike Rademacher. Am I missing something? Did this really happen? Does anyone know? Is "Rademacher" German for "I can't believe you fell for these Photoshop manipulations." I mean it looks like the bits of the "house" are stuck on with glue! What gives?!?!
I've looked all over the net - but I can't find anything that looks official. It's just such a strange thing to hit - and to run the story in the April issue... it just makes a guy wonder...
It happened on December 23, 2000. Check out this TrainBoard topic. There are quotes from newspaper's, media, etc.
Rob, This did happen as stated in the article. Mike Rademacher is a conductor for Amtrak out of Portland that I work with quite a lot. The Engineer who was running the train is still off work trying to rehab injuries. To show you what kind of fine magazine Trains is they didn't even tell Mike they were running the story he had sent into them. He first found out when I came up and asked for his autograph at work, he just looked at me and figured I was pulling his leg about something. I never did hear the outcome of any law suits or legal matters over the house incident. Seems this guy decided to move this house across the tracks and he even had a police escort but apparently he wasn't aware of the extra Amtrak football special coming back to PDX from a Seahawk game. Seems he didn't pass the breath test either, makes you wonder why the sheriffs going along with the move didn't notice he was impaired. Also there was a rumor that he had contacted BNSF but that seems doubtful.
Oh and the pictures are not made up and no glue was used. Mike took a whole roll of film of the engine and it was bad. the company also took some later at kingstreet. There was what looks like a 4x8 beem that came right thru the engineers window that came thru at head level that would have decapitated the engineer if he hadn't dropped to the floor.
Wow! Sure glad no one got seriosly hurt. I don't know how I missed the trainboard topic - this was the first place I searched! I still think Trains should have thought twice about running the story in the April issue though Did Mike at least get paid for it?
