"Is This His First Train Derailment?"

Why, yes it is. How many does this make for you?

I should probably start by telling you, if you don't already know, that there was a train derailment in Douglasville today, not 1/4 mile from our house.

We woke up this morning to the sound of a helicopter in the sky. It was about 7am. We hear helicopters fairly often, either covering traffic on I-20 or a robbery at the mall or something. So I didn't think much of it and carried on with my morning. Josh, on the other hand, can't stand it. He has to know what's going on, and whether we should board up the windows. (Just kidding, but he does get a little panicked sometimes).

So anyway, he told me to turn on the news to find out what was going on, because apparently he had also heard the helicopter at 5am. So after a little news watching and web surfing, we found out that a train had derailed downtown.

I couldn't tell from the news clips where it was exactly, so after I took Bennett to Montessori, I took a little drive downtown before heading home. The road was closed, obviously, but I was able to drive down the back street and look up through the cross streets to the main road. It happened right in front of the old courthouse (which doesn't mean anything to most of you, and those of you that it does mean something to probably already know that, which means I could have gone without stating that fact). Right past the old courthouse, I was able to peek up through to Bankhead Highway and it looked like a giant toy train had wrecked and was sticking up in the air. The train derailed in an area of the track that goes down in a big ditch before coming back up to the surface of the street. So you couldn't see the track, just all these big train cars jutting out of the ditch. Pretty crazy.

Greg was able to go up there today and get some photos. Mama said, "How were you able to get past the police tape?" Greg said, "Well, when you have two big camera bags hanging from your shoulders you don't get asked many questions." They probably thought he worked for some newspaper. Anyway, here's what he captured:


Tonight, Josh and I took the boys to Gumbeaux's for 50 cent shrimp night and while we waited for our food Bennett and I took a walk up the street to check out all the action (Gumbeaux's is right downtown, on Bankhead Highway).

There were several other people standing around watching the clean-up, and it was then that I was asked the question that is the title of this post. I mean, really? He's three. Just how many do you think he's seen in his short little life? I'm thirty one and this is my first train derailment and most likely my only one. Maybe he was fishing for the "Yes, is it yours?" so that he could then launch into this big story of how he had seen some other train derailment somewhere. Wow! Cool! But I don't care. I don't know you.

But it was pretty cool. Bennett was in heaven. He didn't care much about the wrecked "choo-choo wain," it was the big tractors that he was interested in. And he got to see them in action.







They certainly didn't waste any time cleaning up. I couldn't believe how much had already been done. Most of the train cars had been moved down the tracks in either direction and there were giant piles of debris on the opposite side of the tracks. I heard on the news tonight that they hope to have the track re-opened by 2am. Wow.

I should also add that, living so close to the train tracks, we hear lots of trains and we can hear them very well. It makes Bennett a little bit nervous sometimes, and he says, "Mama, that choo-choo wain is coming to get us?" To which I will respond, "No, Bennett. That choo-choo train is not going to get us. Choo-choo trains don't come off their tracks. They stay on their tracks and go right on by."

Today has been a bit confusing for him.