Firecrackers in South Dakota, etc.

I just read that it is illegal in South Dakota to put firecrackers on the tracks and it brought back an experience from my childhood.

My brother, the next door neighbor, and myself were all about 10 and my brother and I were spending the summer at my grandmother’s house in the late 60’s. The CP mainline at the time ran right in front of her house and we used to walk the tracks all the time.

We had cap guns in those days and no end of caps, and we wanted to see what would happen if a train ran over some. So we cut individual caps off of the roll and spaced them several feet apart. At the end of the string of caps, we must have gotten tired (or lazy) so we just put the remainder of the roll on the track. Trains came by on a regular schedule so we climbed the tree right beside the tracks and waited.

To our surprise one of the small motorized maintenance cars came by after awhile. As soon as they hit our caps, it was bang, bang, bang ... and at the end it was one big BANG!

It was more noise than anything, but there were a few guys on the car and they stopped after the last big bang, and jumped off. We thought we were in big trouble so we got out of the tree faster than we ever had and I actually ended up falling from the lowest branch. We ran away as fast as we could and waited well away from the scene for the maintenance crew to get done swearing at us (or whatever else they were doing).

Luckily, nothing happened but I remember that event to this day. We did a few other things but nothing as blood rushing as that. One other thing we did was tie a bunch of elastic bands together and stretch it across the track a couple of feet high. Needless to say, that did not slow the train much.

Mostly we just waved at the engineer and the conductor in the caboose and counted cars.

I wonder if they thought they

I wonder if they thought they just ran over a torpedo.

I doubt...

....they thought it was a torpedo. If you have ever been on a speeder and run over a detonator ( as we call them in Australia) you certainly know. It happened to me once and my heart still hasn't slowed down!!

This reminds me of a story

This reminds me of a story told by Herbert Stitt in his book “I Remember” (The book was hand-written by the author, a former CPR engineer and fireman, in his 86^th year, and gives the reader a fascinating glimpse of what life was like as a railroader in the first half of the 20^th century. Highly recommended if you can find a copy).