I penned a stock "form letter" for a certain individual's use below; thinking about it leads to the question:

What is the weirdest or most unusual request (informational or operational) your operation has ever received?

Perhaps the most unusual the Maryland Rail Heritage Library has received so far was an engineer searching for construction plans that could show what thickness the substructure under the Baltimore streetcar rail on a railroad overpass was. It sounds disgustingly trivial--until one hears that the overpass's replacement was delayed for months because the demolition crew found twice as much material to remove as anticipated, and various parties were suing each other as a result.

So let's hear it. Ever been asked to run a train at 3 in the morning? Ever been asked to cremate a person in the firebox, or send a person's ashes through the firebox and boiler? Been asked what train went through such-and-such town on August 18, 1883? Been asked to jump a train Evel Knievel style?

LNER4472-NOSPAM-@bcpl.net

This wasn't directed at me personally, but I heard about it later...

Port Stanley Terminal Rail is an 8 mile tourist railway running between Port Stanley and St. Thomas, Ontario on the southern most section of the former interurban line, the London and Port Stanley Railway. The rolling stock consists of three or four converted cabooses and a small 25 ton GE locomotive.

About 4 miles up the line is the small hamlett of Union, Ontario which still bosts it's 10' x 10' station (see photo). Rightfully so, the railway advertises train rides from Port Stanley to Union.

Several years ago, a lady on one particular trip got very upset with the conductor when they arrived at Union. Why? Because she wanted a ride to another Union...Union STATION in Toronto, which is about 150 miles away.

I don't think Canadian National would have appreciated a little 25 tonner going down their Dundas Subdivision at 10 miles an hour.
;)

Port Stanley Terminal Rail

> What is the weirdest or most unusual request
> (informational or operational) your
> operation has ever received?

Keep in mind the WW&F is a two-foot gauge operation, with no RR link to the outside world.

I as websmaster received an email one day from a gentleman who owned several ex-Bangor & Aroostook cars (I forget what kind but at least one was a passenger car) on an abandoned siding. He asked us if we would be able to help him in moving the cars to another location (I forget what he wanted to do with them) by putting in a switch and hauling the cars off. I explained who and what we were, and referred him elsewhere.

We also get confused with the standard gauge railroad in Wiscasset (the ex-Maine Central Rockland branch, now operated by Maine Eastern) a lot. Many times when someone finds what museum I represent, they ask "Oh are you folks running excursions out of Wiscasset this summer?" I then have to explain we're two different railroads altogether.

And then there's the inquiries I get about Waterville, a fair-sized city (for Maine), home of the MEC shops, and a part of the museum name. I have to tell them the WW&F never reached Waterville and besides they're thinking of the Maine Central.

WW&F Railway Museum

At National Capital Troley Museum we have hosted a wedding and two memorial services. One of the latter was hosted by Willard Scott to honor one of his studio engineers who worked with WIllard when he was on a local Washington, DC radio station in the 1960s.

Wesley

> What is the weirdest or most unusual request
> (informational or operational) your
> operation has ever received?

Craig Lacey or Ken McConnell may have had requests more weird, but one I am aware of occured a couple of years ago when an unnamed "reality show" approached the railroad wanting to stage a stunt where the contestant couple (not professionally-trained stunt people) would jump from the passenger car roof of a moving train (height 35+ feet) into the Provo River (depth maybe 3-4 feet in spots) as the train crossed the bridge.

I don't think so............................................

sc 'doc' lewis


utweyesguy@aol.com

I had a doozy yesterday actually. A lady calls with a chip on her shoulder from the get go. HOW, she says, could Port Huron being celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2007 when she clearly remembers going to its 100th Anniversary celebration in 1949? I tried as best I could to explain that in 1949 we celebrated the VILLAGE of Port Huron's founding, and that the CITY of Port Huron's incorporation date was 1857. She then preceded to call me everything but, well, a male of a caucasian persuasion, stating that obviously we knew nothing of Port Huron history, that there could only be ONE date, and that I was making this all up to cover up our REAL history, what ever that meant.

O.K., I can understand the confusion between the City and village incorporation dates, but this lady actually believed that someone would go to real lengths to CHANGE and COVER UP the REAL 150th Anniversary for personal gain, or some political block-ops style reason. After I finally hung up the phone, I mumbled something about people having too much time on their hands and watching to many X-Files re-runs, and went back to work.

Port Huron Museum
tjgaffney@phmuseum.org

I remember John Corby, currator of the Canadian National Museum of Science and Technology wondering how the Mayor of a small town in Ontario could possibly phone and ask for ex.cpr 1201 and coaches for a major town anniversary.

Nice request, etc, except that rails were removed 2 months previously. You'd think the mayor of a one stoplight town would notice the removal of a grade crossing, yards, and associated cruft.

John Stewart
Ottawa, Canada.

Shay running.
freewrl-1@rogers.com

Mid-Continent was asked by a film producer doing a Cadillac commercial at the museum if they could keep filming into the early morning hours. This filming involved a train pulling into the station over and over again, with the whistle cord tied down (just for the steam coming out of it, it was silent footage being filmed). He was informed that the citizens of North Freedom wouldn't be happy, and that the area dairy farmers were already upset with the noise disturbing their cows, resulting in decreased milk production.
The solution - Money. The filming did take place. The production company gave the village a sizable donation for their treasury, and all the area dairy farmers were paid for 2 days lost milk production from their cows.
The kicker to it all, Cadillac never even used the commercial!
At least some good money was received for all the work and inconvenience experienced by Mid-Continent, and the local residents.

Boyd

bowens@rypn.org

Let's see. Working in the MOT library we get quite a few. There are the family researchers who want to know about their forebearer's work in the mid-19th century on a railroad that they can't even locate, let alone name. Or those who insist that the personnel records of the XYZ RR still exist from 100 years ago and have been told we have them by another agency trying to get rid of them. We don't have any such records for any rr, by the way. Or the guy who starts by asking about the history of a specific 1930s NP caboose by number, one we don't have (we do have a couple of BN ones that started out on the NP). Turns out after a loooong talk it was his dad's in the 30s, but why didn't he start with that. Or the one asking about the history of the "railroads in the old days." Let see, do you mean 1830, or just when? After another marathon of words he meant when he was young (1920s) and the history of the NP in his home town. On the outside of our grounds we have a set rate for weddings on the front of our "Big Boy," and are routinely asked if we have moved our tunnel over the past 20 years since someone last visited. We have substantial steps against some of our locos to allow visitors into the cab, and some ask how they could have gotten down the railroad with these sticking out. We sometimes say "that's whey they were retired," but they still don't realize these were added by the museum. Working with the public requires great patience and self control.

Museum of Transportation
rdgoldfede@aol.com

The Western Railway Museum is an electric railway museum dispalying street cars and Interurbans.

A shile back a visitor asked me where were the steam engines?

I explaines that the line was powered by the electric wire over there on top of those poles, they did not use steam engines here.

Then the guy esplainde that they did not have electricity in the 1920s, his father told him about using kerosene lamps back then.

Sometimes you have to say "Hope you have a good day" and walk away!

Ted

ted_miles@nps.gov

I'm General Freight Agent of TYBR, and was long ago the same for NHIR.

Often a business person asks the silly question "How does the freight get from the railroad team track siding to my factory floor?"
After hearing that many times, I pulled out an old Less-Than-Carload tariff, which we had forgotten to withdraw from or cancel, and told him the rate that included delivery for an entire carload of LCL. We now do a sizable business transloading and delivering a lot of the freight that moves over our line!

In my New Hope days, a neighborhood quarryman discovered that he owned half of a concrete plant in Sanford, Fla. Why weren't they buying his aggregate stone? Because it's cheaper to truck the stuff from North Carolina. He asked me if I could come up with a better rate from the New Hope area to Florida so he could make some money selling his stone. Through various means that business schools don't teach any more because railroads aren't relevant, I got the business. But first, ConRail wanted assurance that this wasn't existing business being discounted. My customer dug up an old bill from the last time they used rail, back in the '70s. The routing was the Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania Canal to New Hope, Pa., the cable ferry to Lambertville, N.J., the Delaware & Raritan Canal's feeder Canal to Coalport (a neighborhood in Trenton, N.J.), the United New Jersey Railroad and Canal Company's Railroad to South Ambouy, N.J., and lighterage (a barge) beyond. The last time this quarry had shipped by rail was in 1870!

104577.651@compuserve.com

My favorite is the time I was standing on the platform next to a lady and her son. The train came in, spotted for water, and the fireman climbed up on the tender, pulled the spout down, and porceeded to fill the tender. The lady turned to me and asked, "If it's a steam locomotive, what do you need water for?" I told her thet, "Here at the Huckleberry, We make steam by boiling water!"

Martyhuck@aol.com

A couple of years ago I was doing some work alongside the siding where my caboose was stored, when I was approached by a photographer and a high school kid. The photographer produced his business card, and asked if he could take some of the kid's senior photos on the end platform of my caboose. I told him to go ahead, and they started the photo shoot. The photographer came back over to me and asked if I could move the caboose out of the shadows. I explained to him that I had no locomotive to move it. He then pointed to my snowplow (built from an old loco tender), and said "I'm sure that thing could move it". I then had to explain how snowplows are pushed by locomotive, not self propelled. Even though I very politely explained all of this to him, he left angry with me, and the kid didn't get his photos taken on the caboose platform.

Boyd


bowens@rypn.org

Secondhand story, but good nevertheless.

Back in the 70s a friend and I were given a tour of Penn Central's Conway Yard near Pittsburgh. The supervisory guy who was assigned to guide us told the story of how the nearby Northern Lights Shopping Center was holding a sales promotion or celebration of some sort and asked PC to provide a railroad-theme display. PC said yes, we can man a table and hand out some literature. Obviously thinking bigger, the shopping center manager wanted to know why the railroad couldn't supply a caboose for people to walk through. When reminded that there was no track leading to the shopping center (which is probably 40-50 feet higher in elevation than the yard), the guy said, "Oh, I thought you could just drive one of those down the road."

Dan Cupper
Harrisburg, Pa.

cupper@att.net

Like Ron at MOT, we get hundreds of requests each year and I have a few classic stories myself. Perhaps the most unusual story I can relate involves a visitor experience many years ago, in which a person looking for a bathroom decided to use the P70 restroom (a museum exhibit) instead of the public restrooms. You can bet the custodian on duty that day was none too pleased with his findings.

> Let's see. Working in the MOT library we get
> quite a few. There are the family
> researchers who want to know about their
> forebearer's work in the mid-19th century on
> a railroad that they can't even locate, let
> alone name. Or those who insist that the
> personnel records of the XYZ RR still exist
> from 100 years ago and have been told we
> have them by another agency trying to get
> rid of them. We don't have any such records
> for any rr, by the way. Or the guy who
> starts by asking about the history of a
> specific 1930s NP caboose by number, one we
> don't have (we do have a couple of BN ones
> that started out on the NP). Turns out after
> a loooong talk it was his dad's in the 30s,
> but why didn't he start with that. Or the
> one asking about the history of the
> "railroads in the old days." Let
> see, do you mean 1830, or just when? After
> another marathon of words he meant when he
> was young (1920s) and the history of the NP
> in his home town. On the outside of our
> grounds we have a set rate for weddings on
> the front of our "Big Boy," and
> are routinely asked if we have moved our
> tunnel over the past 20 years since someone
> last visited. We have substantial steps
> against some of our locos to allow visitors
> into the cab, and some ask how they could
> have gotten down the railroad with these
> sticking out. We sometimes say "that's
> whey they were retired," but they still
> don't realize these were added by the
> museum. Working with the public requires
> great patience and self control.