WAUKESHA, Wis. — Bruce Rogers says that when a hot air balloon with people in it was caught in his train Wednesday evening in southeastern Wisconsin, he felt helpless.
“The worst thing is watching it unfold and not being able to do something about it,” Rogers tells Trains News Wire.
What Rogers says he saw was a hot air balloon caught by freight cars and dragged along the Canadian National right-of-way through Burlington, Wis. He says the balloon’s basket and the people in it went from a “dead stop to 30 miles an hour.”
“I looked through my rear-view mirror. It’s never going to end well. It never does,” Rogers says.
Three people in the balloon were seriously injured and taken to area hospitals for treatment. Several local, state, and federal agencies are investigating the incident.
Rogers is a locomotive engineer and a railroader of 44 years with service in New Zealand, on the former Wisconsin Central, and now, Canadian National. He was operating train M347 on the first leg of its run from Indiana to British Columbia near Burlington shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, when he saw hot air balloons in the area. He lost sight of them but was concerned when he saw them again. They were hovering about 200 feet above ground.
Rogers says that he slowed his train of lumber centerbeams to about 5 miles under the 35-mph speed limit near Burlington. About 10 car lengths after he passed one balloon, it touched the ground and immediately deflated.
“Then it started to move to the train and I immediately placed [the train] into emergency,” Rogers says. “I don’t know if it helped or anything. People were still seriously injured. I hope my actions were enough to save some of their lives.”
By the time he was able to stop his train, the balloon’s remains were about 1,500-feet back from the lead locomotive, or head-end, and that emergency crews were already on the scene by the time his conductor walked back to them.
Rogers says he took a day off of work on Thursday, but doesn’t say that he’s personally rattled by the experience. What does bother him though, are insensitive comments posted on social media about the bizarre event.
“Pity people who have no idea make snide comments on things they know nothing about,” he wrote, in part, on Trains Magazine’s Facebook page.
Like so much we face today, any good thing can unfortunately be made into bad. That said the discussion of “Fakebook” is one example.
I have commented on opinions shared by: Gearld, Robert, Charles, and they have a point. However, I have watched this incident ONLY from TRAINS publishing.
So, …….did the whole squabble about observations of the engineer START on a Facebook post? If that be true, shame on TRAINS for having TWO articles of the incident. First was general news, second is the BEST accounting of what happened. But Trains should be “ashamed” (sarcasm) to have reported info that according to some should ONLY come from cooperate PR. That’ll be the day when reporting ONLY from cooperate PR can tell all/trusted. Remember, Paul Harvey that said, “The Rest of the Story”. PR and even the serious news can miss the crucial facts. endmrw0607221545
First, as a retired media professional, I have to say that almost nobody is “qualified” to speak with the media for themselves, let alone their employer. Second, I don’t have a “Fakebook” account. When I was working, I was the IT “go tgo” person on our team. I showed our folks how easy it is to create a fake persona online. Needless to say, it scared our people. Worse yet was the “Password Security Checker” our company made available, but wasn’t highly publicized. I demonstrated one of my passwords. The solution estimate was 10,000 years! My boss of the time tried her banking password that she thoght was “clever”. The estimate was three seconds…
In a former transportation role I was instructed that in case of any accident I should speak to the police and never the press. Despite this engineer’s first-hand account, I imagine his employer may take exception to his statements given that he does not represent the railroad.
I highly doubt they’ll be talking to the railroad or railroaders about this incident…it’s entirely on the balloon operators at this point.
What is Gerald McFarlane talking about? Who is they? The police?
His point is that employees, like train crews, are not supposed to be speaking about incidents like this to the press or the public, especially public spaces like Facebook, because it can appear that they’re speaking for the railroad. Train crews don’t have the training, experience or qualifications to be representing the railroad in an official capacity with communications.
In this case, fortunately, the engineer noticed the balloons and was able to see the one collide with the side of the train and he stopped, but what if the timing had been different and he didn’t notice and he didn’t stop and the victims had been dragged for miles by the time someone contacted 911 and 911 contacts the railroad and the railroad reaches the train? Potentially turning into fatalities, even tho we all know no fault lies with the railroad or the crew, a great deal of attention and scrutiny will be applied anyway and the railroad will be watching every detail extremely closely, including the engineer’s Facebook comments.
I don’t have a Facebook account, so I can’t read the “snide comments on things they know nothing about”, comments that engineer Bruce Rogers is referring to with regret. (Even if I did have a Facebook account, I’d best let it be.) One thing I learned in my highway engineering career is not to comment on traffic crashes one knows “nothing about”. Leave it to the traffic safety professionals. Everyone else put a sock in it. Ditto OJI – On the Job Injuries. Leave it to the workplace safety professionals.
I have to commend Bruce Rogers for keeping his composure and coming forward. And thank him for his many years of professional service.
Although I am not a RR crew member. As often as I can, Explaining how trains work is a subject I hope to get across to the uninformed.
As a crew carrier, I heard a RR detective explain to a crew after a suicide by train, “Guys, when people do this, they only see a big machine. They have no idea, two people in the cab will live with this for the rest of their lives”. endmrw0602221855