Re: Cattle vs caboose

Once upon a time when the Union Pacific was still moving live Hogs via rail into Los Angeles way back in the 1990’s a couple of carloads of Hogs derailed with several other cars in the yard In Cheyenne. The stock cars were upright, but leaning as they were off center on their trucks. The cars were going to need to be lifted and placed back on the trucks properly before they could continue on. Since the hogs were already skittish it was decided to contact a local Vet to give tranquilizers to the animals to calm them down before proceeding to the crane. The Vet arrives and he’s lifted on the top deck of one of the cars. As he’s going through the animals and giving them shots, a carman nearby decides he needed light his cutting torch, which being railroad sized is rather large. If you’ve ever lit a cutting torch you know that if you don’t pay attention when lighting it, it can make a loud banging noise once lit, which is exactly what happened. The Hogs upon hearing this in their already wound up status freaked out and all of them simultaneously ran to the opposite side of the stock car, which happened to be the side that was already leaning somewhat precariously. Said stock car now now proceeds to roll off the trucks and fall over with the Vet inside. Needless to say he was rather upset as he became buried in pigs, manure & whatever else was in that car. I would have loved to seen his bill.