County parks officials disputed several of Conrad's online assertions well before the crash that the train involved in the wreck hadn't run in years.

In a Dec. 4 posting on "Railway Preservation News," Conrad said the nearly 60-year-old train was sold in 1961 and didn't return to Spartanburg until 2003, at which point Conrad said the train "never really operated" and had a leaking transmission and broken brakes.

Spartanburg County parks spokeswoman Nisha Patel confirmed that the train had been sold but said it was in operation during the summer of 2009. The train wasn't running in 2010 while its engine and brakes were refurbished - work Conrad was hired to do in April, she said.

Patel also disputed Conrad's assertion that there had been "no appreciable" maintenance on the park's tracks since 2002.

In his blog posting, Conrad also wrote that damage on some of the tracks had become so severe "they were starting to cause derailments."

Patel said there had been no derailments prior to Saturday's crash.

Here is the thread in question:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=30511&p=150737&hilit=Spartanburg+County#p150737

The 04 December date was mistakenly pulled from the date Matt rejoined the forum.

An unfortunate reminder that one must be very careful what is said online, it can easily be dredged up, taken out of context, and come back to haunt you at some unanticipated point in the future.

Steve Hunter
Cardinal, ontario

No kidding. Google, Bing, and the other search engines do a wonderful job of digging up forum postings; unless it's been completely deleted from the server or there's some means in place to keep it hidden from those search engines, any relevant posting can (and usually does) show up in the search results. Couple that with what passes for "professional journalism" these days, and you can easily end up in hot water because of an offhand comment. It sucks, but that's the way of the wonderful world we now live in...