Three steps past Midnight . ................................................................

Long ago, in a time almost forgotten, it was an annual spring time job for maintenance crews to burn the dead grass and undergrowth that grew along the RR right of way. Sometimes I would explore the section of track that crossed the bottom of our farm, finding a few bent spikes and maybe an empty coke bottle or two. Real treasures to an eight year old. For various reasons, this practice has long since been abandoned. Grass and weeds are now firmly established and in some places along sloping embankments are as tall as a man.

Farming in an urban area has many unique challenges. You don't get 500 acres together, you have 50 here, 200 there; some are close together, others maybe miles apart. You buy what you can afford, rent what is available. All told we farmed nearly 3,000 acres in 24 fields the last few years.

One challenge is moving equipment between locations. Often there is more machinery to move than there are people available. Sometimes it is quicker or more convenient to walk between the fields than it is to wait for a ride, as was the case in this story.

I had finished working in the one field and had moved the tractor to the next field about a mile away. It was late, just before midnight. Rather than call and wake somebody up for a ride, I elected to walk back to where the pickup had been parked. I had two choices, walk along the road or along the RR that crossed both fields. The RR was shorter but not as easy walking especially in the dark. A clear night, new moon and lots of stars. The RR was an easy choice.

It was quite a pleasant walk, warm, windless, quiet, and very relaxing after a long day. Being dead tired was almost forgotten. I had just passed the edge of the field I was headed to when I saw the train signal far down the track change. I was doubtful if I would make the field entrance before the train caught up to me, so I decided to casually head down the embankment and hop the field fence - a short 25 feet away. The weeds were waist high but would be easy enough to push through.

During the preceding 30 years I had walked this track too many times to count. From my house it is the walking man's shortcut to town. As I grew older, I searched this section a dozen times or more over the years looking for insulators. I knew it well. When I was old enough and had a car, I hunted further and further from home. I developed a routine for my collecting exploits. I would park my vehicle and as I went along I would set any finds in the slag rock beside the rail. When I had gone as far as I intended, whether just a mile or five, I would head back picking up the treasures as I returned. I was able to do the searching / digging part at the start of the day when I had more energy. When I was returning the pack became heavier the closer I got to the car. Being naturally lazy, I figured this was the easiest way to do things. Very seldom was I caught out on the tracks after dark but on occasion it did happen . Maybe I had walked further afield than I should have or maybe my mid-day nap was longer than planned. When a train was approaching I would find a safe place, the tall grass and weeds along the tracks provided good cover. Push my way through a few feet and sit down. Only way to spot me would be with a helicopter. Fast moving trains that close are, at least to me, frightening and loud, so stick a finger or two in each ear, put my Atheism on hold for a couple minutes and wait for it to pass. I don't know how many times I would find that I had just sat down in a patch of poison ivy. That plant certainly seems to thrive and is very prevalent along the tracks here. I know one section almost two miles long that is 100% poison ivy both sides of the track. I found many insulators along that stretch as most collectors ahead of me had passed it by. I am one of the few people who are resistant to it's effect. Simply put, it does not bother me and I pay it no mind.

So, here I am walking the track back to the field where I had parked my truck early that morning, in the dead of night, when a train begins to approach. My destination is the fence some 25 feet away, a few steps down the weed infested embankment, across a shallow dry ditch, through some knee high grass and hop the fence. Farming and collecting along various tracks, active and inactive, means I have done this hundreds of times before. The field is empty having just been harvested that day and is easy walking, more so than the tracks.

What could possibly go wrong ? Do you think you know what's coming ? Not a chance.

In the dark hour of midnight, I headed towards the fence, downhill into the tall weeds growing just past the edge of the slag. One step, push weeds apart, two steps push weeds, three steps........nothing but space. I had time enough to think two thoughts. 'WTH' and 'This is going to leave a mark" . The ONLY place along that 10 mile section of track -track that I know so well- that has a concrete flat toped culvert and I had chosen that exact spot. I had walked right off the end of it; just five or six feet either side and it was all good. There was maybe 2 feet of stagnate water and mud slime that I landed in from about a 10 foot drop. Muddy, wet, more surprised than hurt I headed home.................sometime l o n g after the train had passed.

Steel culverts are round, which naturally shed the dirt and leave a few feet of the end exposed. Even in total darkness you would realize your footing had changed. This concrete culvert with a flat top, had dirt and hence weeds / grass growing right to the very edge: I didn't have a chance - or a leg to stand on.

This is not a Hunts and Fails insulator adventure as such, but it only takes a little imagination to envision a different outcome had I not been farming that day, but it was instead at the end of a long exhausting day collecting insulators and I stepped off that culvert or one like it, in the dark, miles from anywhere, with a 60 pound pack of insulators on my back !

More than 20 years have passed since this happened. To say I am grateful this turned out the way it did, would be a massive understatement. To my dying day I will always know just how lucky I was that I did not hit any rocks, bottles, metal stakes or wood posts. I will always believe that the odds of me not being injured, seriously or otherwise, is very comparable to buying the winning lottery ticket.

To the CJOW printing, Howard Banks added this astute observation. 'For those of us who venture into the wild to hunt insulators, it's a good reminder to never to become over confident in one's abilities or surroundings. I've crossed a lot of wild and dangerous looking places, but typically have only fallen on my face on terrain I took for granted.' [id=543054213;next episode]