posted
I just read in the, Orange County Lawyer, the most disturbing Amtrak story I've ever read. However I believe the full story was not told.
A passenger traveling to Los Angeles on the Southwest Chief, allegedly drunk, was "dumped" into the forest near Williams AZ.
The interesting details of story are that 5 miles from Williams AZ, the train crew "threw" a 65 year old drunk man (the family of the guy says he was not drunk but going into a diabetic shock) into a pine forest at 8000 feet elevation. There was no water where they left him and the nearest road was 2 miles away. It was 8 hours until daylight. He spent 4 days wandering into the wilderness until Coconino sheriff's found him.
Pretty bad stuff here, but this story bothers me a lot more. I've never heard of Amtrak making an unscheduled stop to drop off an unruly passenger. The normal practice is to drop them off at stations. What makes perfect sense to me is this:
1) The man was traveling to LA, so had to be on #3 westbound. 8 hours to daylight also corroborates this train being #3.
2) The train let him off at Williams Junction! If anyone has been here you know it is out in the middle of nowhere. I'm not sure but it could be 5 miles from Williams, and I know the road (that connects with 66 and I-40) is a good ways away from the station site. In fact I went there to see the place when it just started serving as a passenger stop and remember it took forever to get there after leaving 66. The article kept mentioning why didn't they let him off at Williams...well duh the tracks don't go there.
3) Since the guy was drunk I'm sure he did not use the Williams shuttle bus and hence you have the man in the "forest".
So does this sound like he was dropped at Williams Junction? Or could he have really been left off somewhere else?
I'm debating on writing a letter to the editor to give correct information about Williams Junction. So if my theory holds water can anyone please provide me with accurate distances and any other pertinent details regarding Williams Junction.
-------------------- Matt Visit gallery for photos of our train layouts Posts: 579 | From: San Bernardino Subdivison | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
This is old news. About two and a half months old. What happened was Amtrak called the police and asked them to meet the train to take an unruly passenger into custody. When the man saw the police coming he ran away into the forest. Amtrak did not throw him or or dump him in the middle of nowhere with no supervision. Amtrak followed company procedure.
The man was acting drunk, but his family said he had been diagnosed with diabetes just a few days earlier and was not accustomed to his medication which, they say, led to his strange behavior.
Amtrak does meet police at non-scheduled stops if that is more convenient for both police and Amtrak.
As usual, the way the story was portrayed in the news media was just plain wrong. Not unlike the "Amtrak giving away free booze" story that was circulating a few weeks ago. Which brings me to an issue that was raised in another thread. Reporters aren't so much politically biased, they're just stupid.
posted
Thank you much Mr. Toy. I knew someone here would know the real story.
Any idea where they planned to meet this guy? Not too many roads out there. Belmont perhaps, or was it Williams Junction?
-------------------- Matt Visit gallery for photos of our train layouts Posts: 579 | From: San Bernardino Subdivison | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
It was Williams Jct. The police met the train and the man ran off into the woods. He turned up still getting around on his own feet about four days later. Whatever his problem was at the time, it certainly was not diabetes related, otherwise he would have been dead by that time.
It was around June 27 or 28. News item appeared on the 28th.
Williams Jct is about 4 miles from Williams. As has already been noted, the train does not go through Williams and has not since about 1961 when the current line between Williams Jct and Crookton was built.
Posts: 2810 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
It appears, though, that the old line through Williams itself has NOT been retired/abandoned; I counted at least 6 BNSF freights using it in the 24 hours I spent at Grand Canyon Railway's hotel/restaurant/station complex. And they were booking, too!
Question: If the old line is still in service, what keeps Amtrak from routing the SW Chief through the town itself? Yes, I understand that it would lose some time in the canyons west of town, but is that really a major consideration? Or is there some other factor of which I am blissfully unaware?
-------------------- --------Eric H. Bowen
Stop by my website: Streamliner Schedules - Historic timetables of the great trains of the past! Posts: 413 | From: Houston, Texas | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
The trains you see in Williams, itself are going to/from Pheonix. West of Ash Fork, which is where the Pheonix line originally met the main line, the original main from there to Crookton the tracks have been taken up. (Crookton is where the the west end of the early 60's relocation meets the original alignment.)
Posts: 2810 | From: Olive Branch MS | Registered: Nov 2002
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posted
It sure would be nice if Amtrak could use that BNSF line and put Phoenix back on the map. Would there be any stop from Flagstaff west where Amtrak could park a train or do some switching without blocking the transcon mainline tracks?
Just dreaming, of course, but how about Tucson-PHX-Williams-LAX-San Francisco?
Posts: 1572 | From: St. Paul, MN | Registered: Dec 2002
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posted
My secondhand understanding is that at the time when the Williams bypass was constructed, Santa Fe had not yet given up on passenger trains and so built a nice and well-equipped new station at Williams Junction to service the Grand Canyon and Phoenix lines. Once passenger service to those destinations was dropped and Amtrak bypassed Williams in favor of Flagstaff (Williams was a regular stop while Flagstaff was normally a flag stop during most of the ATSF years) the nice new station became redundant and was bulldozed to save on property taxes. After Grand Canyon Railway made a success out of the line to the Grand Canyon Amtrak again began stopping the SW Chief at Williams Junction, but with the original station long gone uses an Amshack (or worse). Again, this is secondhand--I have not seen the current or former Williams Jct. stations. But it appears that there were once adequate facilities there and so there could be again, if someone ponied up the $$$.
-------------------- --------Eric H. Bowen
Stop by my website: Streamliner Schedules - Historic timetables of the great trains of the past! Posts: 413 | From: Houston, Texas | Registered: Mar 2006
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quote:Originally posted by TwinStarRocket: Just dreaming, of course, but how about Tucson-PHX-Williams-LAX-San Francisco?
Actually, Santa Fe had (and may still have--George?) a line west from Phoenix called the Cadiz cutoff which branched off from the line from Williams and Ash Fork at Wickenburg and joined the westbound transcontinental line at Cadiz, a hundred miles east of Barstow (roughly). So if you could get UP's cooperation between Tucson and Phoenix, a Tucson-Phoenix-Cadiz-Barstow-L.A./S.F. routing becomes a distinct possibility--perhaps with the Phoenix cars being added as a section to the SW Chief and a revived San Francisco Chief.
(I like to daydream, too!)
-------------------- --------Eric H. Bowen
Stop by my website: Streamliner Schedules - Historic timetables of the great trains of the past! Posts: 413 | From: Houston, Texas | Registered: Mar 2006
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posted
The former SF line to Cadiz ia now owned by the California & Arizona RR (or AZ & Cal) and connects to the Williams to Phoenix line at Matthie (10 Miles west of Wickenburg). This line, and the line from Phoenix to Matthie are not signalled and west from Matthie to Cadiz wouild have to be substantially upgraded to handle any AMTRAK trains at more that 40MPH.
Additionally there are no facilities at Cadiz, which is in the middle of the Mojave Desert, to handle an interface with the SWC; or to allow a run-through all the way to Barstow.
It would seem that on a list of 100 ideas to enhance AMTRAK service this one would be in the last ten.
Posts: 467 | From: Prescott, AZ USA | Registered: Mar 2002
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posted
Since the thread has now morphed into something completely different than the wandering drunk story (I never believed the "diabetes" angle for a minute,) I'll throw in an old story: Years ago before Amtrak took over the T and E crews (some say- the "good ol' days) I was working the Sunset Limited out of LAX. An "ATSF" operating crew showed up! and I knew something was seriously amiss. There had been a big derail/chemical spill somewhere near Yuma...so off #2 went, onto the home rails of the Santa Fe. The fun wasn't over yet, because at Cadiz, we switched over onto the Wickenburg line and s-l-o-w-l-y made our way down to Phoenix, and back to the SP home rails. I remember after the sun came up, it was a wonderful, scenic ride on this rare freight-only trackage. The passengers enjoyed it too. As I recall, most of the late time was eventually made up, and we got an unusual ride to boot...funny how things like this seemed to happen to the Sunset more than the other LD trains; it was something of an adventure to crew One and Two back in the eighties...(gosh, I am starting to sound like a codger--or a geezer!)
Posts: 588 | From: East San Diego County, CA | Registered: Oct 2004
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