what is the strangest thing .?

Question

while working on the job.

Answer 1

I was on a train at two a.m. going through Fargo one night. Speed there in town is 35 mph. There was a young guy walking on the track ahead of us. The train went in to emergency, the engineer was laying on the horn, the bell was on, I was on the front of the engine yelling at the guy, although he couldn't hear me over the horn. His shadow kept getting shorter and shorter in front of him as the headlight got closer. I kept thinking, 'He'll turn around any moment and see us.' But he never did. We hit him at about 17 mph. I jumped off and ran back. He was about 5 cars back when the train stopped. He was a big kid, and face down between the rails. I crawled under the train and talked to him, even though I was sure he probably couldn't hear me. The Fire Dept and Police showed up shortly. The Railroad sent us home. I called the hospital every hour to get a report, but no one really told me much. I have never in my life felt that bad. I'm not here to hurt innocent Americans. The last time I called was about eight a.m. and a nurse told me they sent the guy home. WHAT?????? "Yeah." she said. "He just got knocked out is all." I felt like I had been reborn. But how that big kid fit under that locomotive snow pilot blade I could never know. He's a Cop now, and I still see him and we get together for coffee when I'm in Fargo. He's a good man. I've reminded him that he's probably in the top .05 percent of people who have been run over by a train and gets released from the hospital six hours later.

Answer 2

Strange, and in large part, unbelievable. But it did happen.

Sometime in late spring, 1985, I was working in an official capacity for the Southern Pacific, in Dunsmuir, California. This is mountainous territory. And, in the spring, we get torrential rainfall from time to time.

The conductor on a westbound train radioed the office shortly before arriving at Dunsmuir, calling for an official to meet the train upon arrival, including the words, "You ain't gonna believe this..."

The train arrived and when met, there were four people in the caboose. The brakeman, conductor and an older woman with a younger man. Not unattractive people in the least. This was more appreciable, and furthest facilitated opinion, owing to the fact that each were completely nude.

It was during one of our bone chilling downpours that the train passed the unclad pair. They appeared, well, "disoriented," and in peril of hypothermia. So, when the train stopped the caboose nearby, the pair eagerly accepted the offer of a ride into town.

Of course, as with any good story, there are a couple of twists, in the end.

You see, these two were covered, head to toe, with "curve grease." I may have understood their intent, but I'd think there is a better medium I'd recommend.

The pair was transported via ambulance to the hospital and treated. Apparently curve grease was found in places where it shouldn't have been.

The final kicker? Mother and son......... it can be a sick world out there.

This is a RailTail...

Answer 3

Some of the people I worked with.

Answer 4

I operate cranes for a living , specifically tower cranes (the kind you see on top of tall buildings.
One day I was idle and facing a tall apartment complex and I always keep binoculars in the crane.
I spotted movement on a balcony about ten floors down and grabbed the binoculars, much to my amazement there were two couples on the balcony having sex.
I dropped the headache ball to their level and trolleyed it out to the end of the jib which made it about fifteen feet away from them.
I called all the other hands on the radio and told them to go look at my headache ball.
as the other workers gathered on the railing I blew the horn on the crane and one of the "ladies" spied the headache ball dangling just off their balcony and panic ensued.
They grabbed their blankets and made a hasty retreat into the bedroom accompanied by catcalls and jeers from 100 plus construction workers.

Answer 5

I worked for a doctor, we had one patient that was a exhibitionist. He would wear stretch shorts and let his package hang out in the waiting room. Then when I called him in an exam room he would do the same thing.
Had one guy that worked as a cable tv installer. He had an ant in his eye, when i looked at him thru the slit lamp/microscope there was this ant, latched to his eyeball and his butt sticking out beyond the eyelid, just wiggling around. I could not help but laugh, even though the guy was in pain.
At a previous job I was filling orders, I had on a new underwire bra and it was driving me nuts. I took it off and stuck it in my purse. Next thing I know it is hanging in the reception area stuffed with packing peanuts.

Also worked at a police impound yard, I can not even begin to tell you the odd crap people did when they got arrested. Lets just say a lot of them involved sex toys.

Answer 6

Nothing to do with rail but it is transportation related, well sort of.

The Big Cheque

I used to work in a bank in a little Australian country town back in 1969. Our biggest debtor was a road building contractor who had a job in a desert area of Australia. His bad luck, the area got several times its average rainfall that year and the rain was nearly constant. You can’t build roads with mud. So he was way over his overdraft limit and the state management of the bank wanted to foreclose. The local manager was pretty sure he’d be good for the money and staved the state management off as long as he could but eventually the matter was taken out of his hands.

So at length the fateful day arrived, the manager spent hours signing and countersigning legal documents and the following morning told the junior clerk not to go to the post office to pick up the mail, he had to go to sign mail certificates at the post office and would bring the mail back.

He returned with the day’s mail and the junior clerk set to and began to open it. After a few moments he gave a sort of squark, jumped up and all but ran into the manager’s office. There was a cheque for the contractor from a state government for almost a million dollars. It didn’t wipe out the contractor’s debt, but it took him way under his limit. The manager went off to the post office to sweet talk the post master into giving him the foreclosure letters back. That was technically illegal, but the manager got them.

It's still the biggest cheque I've ever seen.

Answer 7

WOW, that is a great question.
Still thinking, i have seen some very strange things but trying to get it down to one is going to be tough.
There is strange behavior, lots of that everywhere you go LOL. there is haha strange, or damn scary strange.
I saw a freight car derail, drag a wheel several miles down the track on the ties and re-rail itself, that is a bit strange but to someone outside the rail industry it might not seem like it.
This is not on the job but still pretty strange, years ago, I had a horse die, and was sitting in my kitchen, feeling very bad, and totally out of the blue my sister called, and she did not say HI, or anything else, she said "what's wrong?"

Answer 8

Well I own and operate a custom auto center - and every day I get someone in there that wants a quote.

I dont know what they are thinking that I am going to spend hours looking at thier 100,000+ mile rusted out POS all day trying to get a repair price.

I dont work on junk - and my shop will not be laughed at for having that POS parked here.

Answer 9

People using logic, especially where we work. Common sense regardless of what you hear is not that common.

Answer 10

It depends on what day it is I guess.