Your lucky.

 Another coat of paint on the freight would have changed the whole scenario.

     Pete

Wow! that must have been one time where the crews whished they didn't come to work.

What kind of delays were caused by this?

I'm glad no one was injured, and the loads were un-damaged.

dispatchers?  If a train has an accident, you can bet that everyone is going to look at the crew under a microscope to make sure it is avoidable in the future and if a rule was broken, someone may get some time off.  To my mind it is unexcusable that dispatchers don't know the dimensions of their oversize loads, or else the comunication is such that they are not made aware of the oversize loads of another train that they will meet and allow them to plan for the meet where there is adequate clearance.

Yeah I think we would have really missed those Next-Gen 737s at the Renton Plant come Monday morning! Glad everything worked out all right!

You are  correct Russ, there is probably no or a weak system for the communications for this to even be prevented. In my former life as a quality assurance manager my goal was to prevent errors from happening. It was always process or system driven, meaing it wasn't people making mistakes, something in the process allowed a bad decision, or no decision, to be made.  (Sabotage or pure negligence excused). It would be interesting to see what if anything was done to prevent this from happening again. My guess, since there was no incident, corporate America, or Canada, will ignore it and move on.  

  If there has not been a special instruction/message for the train crews - something got 'lost' between the special loads folks and the dispatcher.  When I worked for the railroad, there was a special file opened for every 'high/wide' load, and the entire route was mapped out.  On the old CB&Q, it was a 'Cravens File'.

  The train crew was issued a special message with their clearance card/train orders describing the special load and any restrictions(speed/tracks).  Any other train operating in that territory was also issued that mesage.  Usually meets were setup on tangent trackage and the opposing train would be stopped.  I worked a train with some kind of transformer/boiler assembly for a power plant and I remember having to stop and then crawl through the Prescott, WI swing bridge with the conductor/brakeman watching the load.

Jim

Before I retired, I worked on a/c units on mow equipment, mainly ballast tampers, but some construction equipment for both the BNSF and UP as an outside vendor.  I also did warranty repairs on Carrier refrigeration equipment installed on mechanical reefers for Amtrak, BNSF, & UP.  In the case of U.P. and Amtrak, both companies told me where the equipment was and trusted me to know all applicable "blue flag" safety rules.  In the case of BNSF, I always had a supervisor with me to make sure I did things safely, and that I was always briefed on appropriate safety laws for what ever siding the equipmewnt was located on.  For instance on some sidings, the switches were locked out, so I could work on the equipment without having to worry about trains coming by on the mainline.  Other sidings were controlled by a dispatcher, so I had to keep an eye out for trains and get off the equipment and stand clear any time a train approached in case the switch was inadvertantly thrown causing the train to crash into the equipment on the siding.  I just found BNSF's attitiude about safety to be ramped up to the next level compared to the other two railroads I worked on.  Unless those are leased pool units, I suspect that incident ocurred on the BNSF and I would expect that if the engineer reported it to his supervisors, the BNSF would take steps to keep such an incident from recurring.

Well Russ, of course you are correct, it does depend on the company. Maybe I should not have used such a wide paint brush with my comment. Once bitten, twice shy is the saying? I think I may have been chewed up once or twice!  

Steve

As a stockholder, thanks for your efforts!!  Glad no one was hurt!  I always wonder why nobody ever wonders what roll the dispatcher had any given mishaps.  From what I've been told, when accidents happen, it usually involved more than one thing going wrong.