The First Day: August 3, 1993 at Amity Colorado

I have discover and interesting part of Colorado History. In 1898 the Salvation Army established a settlement between Holly and Granada and named it Fort Amity. The grand plan was to move underprivileged laborers and their family to ten acre tracts. Thirty families from Chicago and Iowa moved to Fort Amity where they planted cantaloupes and sugar beets. Fort Amity grew from the original 120 settler to 350. They had problems with water seepage which deposited alkaline residue on the land, making them unfit for farming. By 1910 the grand plan closed. Today there is a large gravel pit along with alfalfa farming.

In April of 1993 it started raining in the Midwest along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Since the great flood of 1951 extensive system levee had build around Kansas City to keep the water at bay. With all that work nobody thought in June of 1993 that a flood would close the railroad down for such a very long time. Amtrak stop running train between Kansas City to St. Louis on July 8^th and the Southwest Chief was stop on the 16^th because of a bridge east of the Grand River in Missouri wash away. On the 15^th I was deadheaded to La Junta, Colorado to be the engineer on the “X2000” train that was touring the country. We were flown back to Kansas City when water reach the bottom of the Grand River bridge. Then Santa Fe lost ten miles of track on July 21^st at Hardin, Missouri. That was when Amtrak 4 the “Southwest Chief” was surrounded by water at Kansas City Union Station

On August 2^nd Santa Fe opened the flood gates at the east end of Argentine yard but the track east of Hardin was still closed. Amtrak decided that they would turn the #4 Southwest Chief’s equipment, cut off the empty mail cars and run Train #3 west out of Kansas City. I was called as the fireman with Bob Patterson as the engineer. We left Kansas City on time but Santa Fe Railroad was not quite ready for us. Even though the upper management decided that this could be done, somebody did not pass it down to the dispatchers and track inspectors. We got our order to move pass Holliday onto the Topeka Subdivision but we was only cleared to Lawrence Kansas siding. Even though it was very dark we could see the black water of the Kansas River flowing up close to the track. We found out that a track inspector was walking the track west of Lawrence. He talk with the dispatcher that it was clear for us to proceed west. We left the west end of the Lawrence siding, did our work at the Amtrak Depot and proceed on. As we left town we noted that the signal was yellow. We call it out on the radio to the conductor on the train the signal aspect and the track inspector called us to let us know that the signals were out at east end of Lake View. Yes the signal was out because battery boxes were underwater. The river was lapping at the edge of the ballast. After we left Lake View we had a few dark signals over to Topeka. We had a good run over Santa Fe ever if we were running now 2 hours late. By the time we got to Garden City we knew, and so did everybody else that we were not going to make La Junta under the hours of service time of 12 hours.

We had just gone through Holly Colorado at Ninety mph when we notice that there was something going on south of the track about four miles ahead. We got closer we could see that there was a round bale grinder feeding the silage into the trailer behind a semi. As we got closer we noted that the truck was moving, it pulled out onto the road going north. You could always tell when a truck changed gear by the puff of black smoke, he never pull that truck out of granny gear. As the train got closer to Amity we could tell we were going to meet on the crossing. I was running at the time so I started the automatic whistle, strobes, bell and flashing ditch lights. His speed never change, I when to the floor and hollered at Bob to get down. He told me latter that at the last second the cab of the truck started lunging sideways, indicating that the driver had seen us and was trying to making that truck get off the tracks. We went through the space between the cab of the truck and trailer. The front safety glass on the left side of the cab was blow in, bounce off the bulkhead behind us and landed on top of me. The men on top of the grain elevator said that the truck cab spun three times before stopping. The front of the trailer was on the front of locomotive 512 and the trailer drop straight down to the ground. I had put the train in emergency stop just before I went down and the front of the engine stop at the start of the curve one mile west of Amity. The driver of the truck came down out of the cab without a scratch but he did want to get check out at the hospital at Lamar. There were two passengers that were hit with glass and they were also transported to Lamar. There was one other crew member that was hurt; along with me we were transported to the hospital at Lamar. I was x-rayed and I was ok so I was released. This was the only time, I believe I was going to die because I know at ninety mph hitting the dirt was going to hurt. I had small cuts on my head but I was fine. When the EMS works came into the cab of the locomotive they wanted to strap me to a board and push me out the window to somebody on the ground. I would not allow it, I told them WE would walk down the catwalk to the back steps to the ground. They agreed but they wanted one person on both side of me.

I was told much later that the driver went by ambulance to the Lamar Hospital. The first Colorado Highway Patrolman passes that ambulance as he was coming to the sight. After the patrolman arrived he found out that he had pass the ambulance that the driver was in, so he turned around and headed back to Lamar. In the mean time the driver was check out and he was free to leave. He called a friend who came, pick him up and they left. The patrolman pass the driver and his friend as they was going back to the drivers truck. When they arrived at the truck, the driver got in the cab, removed some items and disappeared for five days. I was told that the patrolmen looking for this man was not able to locate him until the driver’s lawyer called. Needless to say the driver is forbidden to drive anything larger than a tricycle.