RR Overpass vs. Deere Excavator arm
Received the following via email. Photographer was not identified.
There aren’t very many times I have ever been inclined to exclaim (as the younger generation now so often does) “Whoa…DUUUDE !!” This, however, would have been enough for me to do it, had I come upon this scene on the Yellowhead Highway in Saskatchewan. This unintended highway clearance project was abrupt and…LOUD! I cannot imagine the truck driver came through the sudden stop entirely unscathed. I’ll bet he sure wished he’d paid closer attention to the yellow clearance sign posted on the span. Had there been a pair of 415,000-pound CP Rail locomotives crossing that span at that moment, the extra mass would have tilted the F = MA equation outcome a wee bit more in the bridge’s favor. The railway was just lucky no train was approaching this spot, right then, or the outcome would have been much, much worse. This is not an unheard of event: at the beginning of January, a truck rolled one and displaced a second RR overpass on the CN’s Bessemer Subdivision, just one mile from our house here in Greenville, PA. Fortunately, the active third track bridging the road at that location was unharmed. That truck and culprit have yet to be found. Pictures illustrate need to know your load heights. This happened on 10/11/11 to a CPR bridge at Lloydminster, SK, Canada.
