Ch 5: Kyle Palmer

March 15th, 6:39 PM CT, Mile 210, 5 miles west of Burlington, IA

Bob Benjamin was on his first solo run driving a train. All his effort and his time, all the schooling, all the training, all the assisted runs with the experienced engineers had come together to this point. This was his dream, to be an engineer on a famous passenger train, moving hundreds of people to their destination. Not only was this a glamourous job, to Benjamin; this was a decent paying job. The perfect convergence of doing what he wanted and being paid well to do it.

This was prime trackage and his train had the highball. He was, perhaps wrongly, running the train too hard. The limit was 79, and the train was touching on 84 mph. But what difference would that make? The train had lost a few minutes at a signal a mile out of Burlington, and he was going to bring his first run into Omaha on time, damnit.

He calmly hit the button that turned on the alternating ditch lights, perhaps a little later than he should have. The crossing was approaching sooner than he had expected- he hadn't calculated for the decrease in time the slight increase in speed created. But in this instance, the seconds made all the difference in the world.

Maybe Kyle Palmer would have been able to slow down or speed up if the train had announced its presence earlier. Certainly, it had been announcing it for some time before he noticed it. Or maybe not. Clearly, the train not running fast would have not made for the perfect (or imperfect) combination of a train running fast, an over eager engineer, and a man too emotionally distressed to pay full attention to his surroundings.

Whatever what could have been if things had gone differently, they hadn't. It had all come together, and now the third person involved in the situation was going to die. By the time Bob caught the movement in his eye, it was too late.

It took the inexperienced engineer a few seconds to recognize what he saw. It was a car or truck, and that car or truck was moving too fast to be intending to stop and wait for the train. Bob wasted precious moments calculating that, indeed, the car was not going to stop. A more experienced engineer, perhaps, would have applied the brakes immediately, perhaps avoiding or reducing the severity of the collision by striking the truck a more glancing blow.

A lot of maybes, a lot of perhaps. None of them mattered.

Benjamin quickly changed his use of the horn from the regulation morse code "G" trains were supposed to use at grade crossing to an insistent, constant caterwaul, a loud, long, mournful plea of warning. Bob held down the horn button with all the strength he had, as if that button alone could prevent the accident.

He screamed, with all his might, "NO! NOOO! STOOOPP!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!" The no seemed to go on for ever and ever.

Perhaps a more experienced engineer might have first punched the emergency brake panic button. Another perhaps that wouldn't matter.

Bob caught a glimpse of the truck, recognizing it as a late model Ford F250, as it came directly into the train's headlamp. It snapped him out of his trance, and he dumped the air. He braced himself for the jolt he knew was going to come, surprised as it happened that it was much heavier then he expected.

Practically corresponding with the hiss from the train dumping the air out of its automatic brakes, the jolt came, the train smashed into the truck, and then for a moment all Bob Benjamin saw was a ball of flame out his windshield.

As it dispersed, Bob put his eyes back on the speed display. It seemed to take an eternity for the train to finally grind to a halt.

March 15th, 6:40 PM CT, Mile 211, 6 miles west of Burlington, IA

George's experience let him know what was coming before it happened. The sudden cry of the air horn combined with the dreaded KACHISSSS of an emergency brake application had made him stop and brace himself.

"JILL BRAC-" but it was too late. The combination of the brakes and the collision coming at once made for a jolt even stronger than usual, and even George almost lost his balance.

Inexperienced Jill was even less lucky. She tumbled down with muffled grunt, and hit her head on the floor, luckily decreased by her quick reaction time making her hands cushion the blow. But it still knocked her unconscious.

George immediately knelt next to her and turned her over. There looked like there would be a bruise and probably a bump on her forehead. He had seen her fall broken by her hands- not well, but he was pretty sure she didn't suffer any kind of serious concussion. He shook her and she moaned- a good sign.

He thought he saw her eyes flicker, but they stayed closed. He brought himself down close to her and started to examine the mark on her forehead.

So concentrating on the injury, he failed to notice her arms move around him until they pulled him down on top of her, and she gave him a smothering, wet, and warm kiss. He pulled back to see the smirk on her face.

"JESUS JILL!" he yelled, "Don't EVER do that to me again!"

"I'm sorry," she said, suddenly worried she did something really bad.

"It's ok," he said, softening, "I was just terrified you were hurt, and I would have preferred to know you weren't sooner!"

She started crying. "I'm really sorrrrrryyyy!" she wailed, tears streaming down her face.

"It's alright, sweetie," he said, "You're alright, that's all that counts."

Slowly she calmed down under his warm caress and loving.

"What happened?" she finally asked.

"I don't know exactly," he said, "I know we hit something, that it wasn't something that huge. But the engineer fucked up somehow. The brakes should have engaged long before we hit whatever we hit. I'm sorry I couldn't warn you, it came too fast."

"It's ok," she said, "I know you woul-"

A cough came from above and behind them.

George looked and saw a line of people behind them.

"Are you two going to get up and get a room any time soon?" the man asked with a supercilious smile.

"Uh, sure." George said.

With that, they got up, brushed themselves off, and continued to the dining car.

Bob shook himself and woke himself from the trance that had come after the collision. He picked up his radio mic.

"Oh my god, Joe, we hit something, a pickup truck. Oh my god," he said, emotionally very upset.

Joe Mitchell was a conductor for well over 25 years now, and this was not his first grade crossing incident, nor his first fatality. He had developed an almost clinical regard for them- you have to.

He picked up his radio

"Dispatch, come in Amtrak 35," said the metallic voice on the other end.

"We just hit something at the CR-406 grade crossing. Train all stop, please contact relevant authorities, I am going to inspect train and scene, Amtrak 35 out." He said in a monotone voice, "Bob, come meet me by the baggage car."

"Ok," came a clearly distressed voice.

Bob climbed down the engine's steps and walked back to the baggage car. Joe was already standing there.

"It's hard, isn't it?" Joe asked in a fatherly way.

"You don't even know..." Bob muttered.

"Oh, but I do know, Bob," Joe said, "I've been through this before. Many times. If you keep on with the railroad, this will not be the last time. It's part of the job, man. And it sucks. It sucks horribly. You were there, and you saw him, and there was nothing you could do."

"I could have gone slow-" Bob started.

"Hogwash," he snapped, "All engineers fudge the limit a bit. It's how we do things. We want to make time. We want our train to be on time."

"I could have hit the bra-" Bob tried agan.

"Sure," Joe interrupted again, "but man, this was your first time! You were in shock. You never thought about it. Now you know. Trust me man, he should have seen and heard the train and signals long before it hit. Perhaps the signals were out. There was nothing you could do, trust me."

"Alright," Bob said, clearly not sure of himself.

"Check the engine for damage and then start working your way down the train to check for derailments. I'll join you once I go survey the wreck and see if there is any chance anyone got out alive."

"Ok," Bob said, going to check out the engine for any damage.

Joe walked over to the pile of burning metal that had once been Kyle Palmer's pride and joy. Joe somehow could tell that this truck had been special to its owner. He noted that the metal of the license plate was beginning to darken and crumple, so he took note of the number before it became unreadable.

There was no chance of anyone having survived it. The truck had practically exploded in flames the moment it had been hit. If the impact didn't kill them, the fire did. And he bet the impact did, especially since it was on the driver's side.