Very creative

'Borrowing' a Locomotive

Um...cute story about the drunk miner borrowing a locomotive...NOT!

30-odd years ago, when I was a teenager, I had a friend who often talked about how easy it would be to take an idling locomotive for a late-night spin on a local branch line.  His argument why it would be OK sounded a lot like the hypothetical court scene in the story.  I didn't have enough information to refute his argument, but I still refused to go along with his plan.  One time when I was out of town, he gave it a try anyway.  When he parked the engine back where he'd found it, the sheriff was there waiting to take him into custody.

When he belligerently asked what laws he'd broken, he found out: sabotage to railroad right-of-way and sabotage to railroad rolling stock, both of which are Federal offenses!  He spent a night in jail, and the railroad eventually ended up dropping the charges, leaving him with the bill for court costs.  Although someone could argue whether a joy ride truly constitutes sabotage, I believe they would be proven wrong in a court of law.

Because of the lessons I learned from my friend's stupid mistake, I really have a hard time finding this "humorous" story very funny.  If others do, it's their right to laugh, and I can't take that away from them.

But, everyone should keep in mind that any attempt to pull off a stunt like this in real life could have VERY serious consequences, ranging from fines and/or jail time (especially in our post-9/11 society today) to loss of life or limb to themselves or innocent members of the public!

For heaven sakes, stay OFF railroad property and equipment unless you have a legal and defensible reason to be there.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled railroad hobby enjoyment!!

(Not signing this by name to "protect" my friend)

Potlatcher

Uh,..... I think that's why

Uh,..... I think that's why it's called a Joke. Not sure Joe needs a warning label  ' Do not try this at home' 

Understood It's a Joke . . .

Just stating my reasons why I don't find it funny.

And, trying to relate those reasons in a way that helps other learn from what could've been a very bad situation.

Potlatcher

Jim's Railroad

The man built his own rail line from the garage to the mailbox and owned his own full size loco.    I laughed hard at this one.  Its very funny!

wacampbell , I think he is

wacampbell ,

I think he is getting all excited about the drunk miner joke on the bottom right of the page.

And I'm sure glad potlicker pointed that out a guy could get in trouble doing something like that. Who knew ???

Randy

Most jokes

Most jokes are about people doing dumb stuff - that's what makes them funny. You don't see jokes about people exercising common sense.

The joke ...

The miner was charged with "Theft" (of a locomotive) ... that is a key concept to understanding the joke ... the joke fails if he is charged with a different crime.

Note that your 'friend' was not charged with "theft"; perhaps because (as the joke infers) he did not 'steal' the locomotive.

But, yeah, if you have to explain a joke, that is a pretty good sign that the joke has failed.

Ha, ha, ha ...

Now, that was a good tale!  Thanks for sharing DaveB.  

Borrowing a locomotive

That really happened, but the guy was NOT drunk.

It appeared in Trains Magazine many years ago.  It may take me a while to find it but it's there!  It was with a steam locomotive.

I believe it was on the Chicago and North Western.  The guy knew what he was doing and he put up extra flags and was half way across the state before some clever operator checked in the books and no such extra was authorized out on the road.  They set up the order board and stopped him at the next station and arrested him.  But the judge threw the case out because the locomotive had never been removed from the railroad's property,

Kurt

Borrowing A Locomotive

Trains & Travel, January 1952, page 21.  You DO have the Trains Complete Collection DVD set, don't you?

Kurt

Testing after a rebuild

This story will take me back 30+ years ago when I was just a very small fish in the rebuild shop pond.  One of my may jobs was to operate locomotive during the short brake in periods, no mostly we rebuild small switchers (SW and NW’s) but this time we had a repaired U33C that need to be tested.  Now, when testing the switcher I would run across the front of our property for about 150 yards, well as you guess that won’t quite work for a large locomotive like a C truck U-boat.  So I was instructed to take it out the back gate onto the RR line that served our facility (names are left out) to run the unit up and down the ¼ or so of straight track. 

So I proceeded to do as instructed moved the unit out of the yard, through the switch (unlock) that lead to our yard and proceeded to run back and forth on the line.  This lasted about 15 / 20 minutes when on what turned out to be my last move I came face to face with a local powered by an SW 7.  Now we did not come anywhere close to each other I just dumped the air, changed directions and hightailed it back to the yard.  After entering the yard I jumped off (not so easy to do from that height) and returned the switch to the normal position.  By the time I got back in the office A couple of phone calls have been received from the railroad’s powers to be and we were read the riot act by them.  Of course the blamed me for it but that was only told the RR official on the phone to cover my bosses but.

I just wonder what the engineer of the local thought when he noticed the headlight of a much larger locomotive staring at him?  That evening there was a RR lock on the switch with no key available to us.  That never stopped us from doing it again but that’s a story for another time.

Andy Hauser