Good evening. 37° and raining with a strong "breeze". To those in the severe weather zones, "Stay Safe".
Garry: Those GP9Bs were everywhere. Only had them once. We were supposed to detour around a wreck one afternoon, and had a consist of a GP9, plus two GP9Bs. Had to wye them first. They were quite interesting. It might be my perception, but the GP9B seemed to run the best with other Gp9s or GP30s.
David: Head on collisions are the worst possible scenario a crew member will ever have to deal with. The consequences are never good. All too frequently, the cause is a crew nodding off to sleep while enroute, although that's not by any means the sole cause. Over the years, I have investigated only one head on collision, that was caused by dispatcher error, routing a train against the current of traffic, against another train running on the same track with the current of traffic. I have also investigated several rear end collisions. Their outcome is also always bad. When one works shift work or over the road transportation at odd hours that interfere with the body's circadian rhythm, chronic fatigue develops. It comes with the turf, and there is no real solution to it. I'm thankful, I was never personally involved in one.
Curt: Get well.
I have to report tomorrow for jury duty, along with 699 others.
They have 800 more victims scheduled to report on Thursday. My count is that they burned through 2600 jurors since Monday. Criminal Trials have 12 plus 2 alternates, I'm not sure about civil trials in NJ. Last time I actually was selected for a trial jury, and the trial lasted two days, time before that I got kicked off of two juries in one day. Needless to say, I'm not a happy camper, but there ain't a whole lot I can do about it.
Later.