WEBVTT - Thinking Sideways: Sunset Limited Derailment 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.280 Thinking Sideways is not brought to you by catch hot 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:07.520 tofoon vice. Instead is supported by the generous contributions of 0:00:07.640 --> 0:00:11.559 people like you, our listeners on Patreon. Visit patreon dot 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:19.480 com slash thinking sideways to learn more Thinking Sideways. I 0:00:19.520 --> 0:00:29.400 don't understand. I'm you never know stories of things we 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:34.479 simply don't know the answer too. Hey there, and welcome 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:38.360 to another episode of Thinking Sideways. What you have to understand? No, 0:00:38.880 --> 0:00:43.720 I'll be back to Thinking sideways. Okay. I am Steve, 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:48.000 as always joined by Devin and Joe, and today we 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:52.440 have yet another mystery to talk about. I'm really agreely mystery. 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.480 Ye does it involve my favorite thing? One of them? 0:00:55.520 --> 0:00:57.080 One of my favorite things? One of them? I do 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:59.160 have a lot of favorite things that you do. Yeah. 0:00:59.160 --> 0:01:02.640 Today we're going to talk about the Sunset Limited derailment 0:01:02.720 --> 0:01:10.880 that happened in and not correct. Actually it did go 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.360 off its rails. Well yeah, but it didn't. It didn't 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:19.640 like different reasons anyway. Anyway, you guys done. Yeah, before 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.000 we get off track again or get in too far 0:01:22.040 --> 0:01:26.920 into the story, Yeah, I do want to say that 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:30.319 this was a listener suggestion from Katie, so thank you Katie. 0:01:30.920 --> 0:01:34.200 Really like this, um, so let's go ahead and do this. 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:40.040 The the Sunset Limited, which is an Amtrak passenger train, 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.400 derailed in the middle of the Arizona Desert, which, by 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:47.000 the way, I'm kind of working on a travel disaster series, 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:50.320 it appears, and I'm really just trying to scare the 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:52.400 crap out of people so that they have a reason 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.640 to stay home because traveling is scary. You do last 0:01:56.680 --> 0:02:01.200 time the airline crash the South African Airlines. Actually, yeah, 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:04.560 I was researching this. I found a list online of 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:08.639 all these various train crashes. It's like, you know, the 0:02:08.680 --> 0:02:12.919 nineteenth century out to the present day. Some really amazing. 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:17.320 The problem with discouraging our listeners from traveling is that 0:02:17.360 --> 0:02:20.639 many of them listen while traveling. So our listeners, our 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.679 listenership may decrease a little bit. Okay, fine, as I 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:27.120 always do, at the end of this, I'll give your 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:30.880 reassurances why it can't happen anymore, why you're safe. It'll 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:33.360 be okay, all right, it'll be okay, good because I 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.040 just got back from a train trip. So alrighty well, 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:41.080 let's let's start our mystery. The name Sunset Limited is 0:02:41.200 --> 0:02:45.640 actually quite an old name it was used before the 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:48.080 turn of the twentieth century. Actually, at that time or 0:02:48.120 --> 0:02:51.920 for a short time, Southern Pacific Railroad was running it 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:55.560 under the name of Sunset Express. So the whole thing 0:02:55.600 --> 0:02:58.400 originally was if you just caught That was run by 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:02.639 Southern Pacific Railroad, which was a huge rail line that 0:03:02.840 --> 0:03:08.119 ran all over the United States. They were huge and beautiful, 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.040 and some of their trains were beautiful trains. A lot, 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:17.000 I'm sorry. The Sunset Limited was a passenger train, and 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.800 it was kind of a premier luxury train. It had 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:25.080 bar cars, it had sleeping cars, and it had just 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:27.880 about every other car that was needed to make it's 0:03:28.160 --> 0:03:33.600 kind of well to do clientele happy. Sounds like, actually, yeah, 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.680 it really was. Now today the Sunset Limited runs from 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.840 New Orleans to San Francisco because it takes a bend 0:03:40.840 --> 0:03:44.080 at Los Angeles and heads north. But prior to that 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.120 it used to run from I believe it was Orlando. Yeah, 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.280 it doesn't do that anymore because after Hurricane Katrina the 0:03:51.360 --> 0:03:55.080 tracks are sort of no good. I don't think I 0:03:55.080 --> 0:03:58.480 don't think it goes to San Francisco anymore, either, doesn't. Yeah, 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:00.720 I'm pretty sure that that's all on the I was 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.160 pulling up the root information and I'm almost positive that 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:06.960 it's still going there. That's kind of where it does 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.040 it's big turn. Well, yeah it doesn't. You can always 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:14.320 catch a plane in l a um. Now, the Sunset 0:04:14.320 --> 0:04:17.720 Limited was great, It was fantastic, and it just kept 0:04:17.760 --> 0:04:21.560 getting bigger and bigger. But of course the American rail 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.480 system started to go into decline and it couldn't escape 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:30.120 that general decline, so it started to go downhill and 0:04:30.279 --> 0:04:32.800 at its lowest point, this is actually where it's probably 0:04:32.800 --> 0:04:34.960 one of the saddest things about this train is at 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:38.800 its lowest point, the Sunset Limited was one engine, a 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:43.640 baggage car, a coach car, and an automat car, which, 0:04:43.680 --> 0:04:45.200 by the way, an automatic is just a bunch of 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.040 vending mission foods and tables, right, I mean, yeah, you 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.400 could sit down, but yeah. And the reason that it 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.880 had to have the automat is because the trip is 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.920 so long that it took you had to give people food. 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:03.120 Otherwise the automat would have never been there. They would 0:05:03.120 --> 0:05:05.440 have saved the weight in the space if they could have. 0:05:05.880 --> 0:05:08.600 Could you buy a beer out of machine too? I 0:05:08.680 --> 0:05:11.320 don't know, probably not, probably not. It would have been 0:05:11.320 --> 0:05:15.240 really foamy. Yeah maybe, although it was like the fifties 0:05:15.240 --> 0:05:23.240 and sixties, right, so who knows. Yeah, yeah, pull the 0:05:23.279 --> 0:05:27.120 Martini lever. They had whiskey vending machines. I mean, I 0:05:27.120 --> 0:05:29.000 think they were mostly novelty, but that was a thing 0:05:29.960 --> 0:05:34.560 I like the idea. Yeah, me too, Okay, okay, So 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.760 it's uh so, like I said, Sunset Limited starts at 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:41.480 the in the early end of the twentieth century. Now 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.800 we're going to move to The rail system is in 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:49.160 decline in general in the United States. Passenger rail I mean, 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:54.160 I think passenger rails still doing all right. It is 0:05:54.279 --> 0:05:57.240 still doing all right. It's not it's not what it 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.560 was at one time, but it's still doing well. It's alive. 0:06:01.680 --> 0:06:07.360 That year one is when Amtrak took over the rail 0:06:07.440 --> 0:06:11.200 lines for passenger trains. For those of you who don't know, 0:06:11.360 --> 0:06:14.920 Amtrak is the name that is used for the National 0:06:15.120 --> 0:06:20.560 Railroad Passenger Corporation, which is a US government funded company. 0:06:20.880 --> 0:06:24.480 It's not technically completely private, subsidized, I think is the 0:06:24.760 --> 0:06:28.600 right way to say it, and it's a it's a 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:33.480 government sponsored consolidation of most of the passenger rails in 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:36.039 the US. And if you actually look at the name 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:41.400 Amtrack American Tracks literally where they got the name. Get it, 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:45.640 I got it. The Sunset Limited, of course, is a 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.479 passenger train under Amtrack. So Amtrak does their due diligence, 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.200 and as with most of the lines that they run, 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:56.120 they managed to grow it and it's gotten bigger, and yeah, 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:57.680 I mean there's something to be said. I think that 0:06:57.839 --> 0:07:01.680 kind of luxury passenger trains ended up being really really 0:07:01.720 --> 0:07:06.039 expensive and not really worth the time. That's the that's 0:07:06.720 --> 0:07:08.719 was just like for that amount, I can take a 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:11.800 three hour flight and the nostalgia of it wasn't there 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:15.720 yet where it is now so amtrack or even a drive, yeah, 0:07:16.160 --> 0:07:19.680 I mean from here we're in Portland to go to Seattle, 0:07:19.800 --> 0:07:22.280 I think it's a five or six hour train ride. 0:07:22.280 --> 0:07:24.880 Three and a half hours? Is it to get from 0:07:24.880 --> 0:07:28.560 Portland to Seattle? Does it take so long because you 0:07:28.600 --> 0:07:32.000 stop everywhere and you can drive. You can drive in 0:07:32.040 --> 0:07:35.160 the same amount of time. Yeah, And it's equaling costs 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:37.800 to a rental car because that family will fly into 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:40.480 Seattle and then drive down in rental all the time. Like, 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:42.800 where does you take the train? Oh, never mind, it's 0:07:42.800 --> 0:07:45.840 actually more expensive. We just went up to Seattle. On 0:07:45.880 --> 0:07:50.280 the train a weekend ago, and there it's long and expensive, 0:07:50.320 --> 0:07:53.000 but there's some nostalgia with it right now, but there 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:55.800 it wasn't. So when Amtrak took over, they lowered the 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:58.200 rates and kind of made it more of an economy thing, 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.760 and people really back on that. So that's that's kind 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.320 of when it's affordable, why not I can sit here 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:09.880 and relax and do what I want today. The line 0:08:09.920 --> 0:08:13.640 that the Sunset Limited runs is it's a route that 0:08:13.640 --> 0:08:16.400 it runs three times a week east to west and 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.600 west to east, so three times a week in one 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.920 direction and then three times a week in the other direction. 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:26.239 And it runs the course over two days is approximately 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:29.880 two thousand miles, which for folks on the metric system, 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:36.440 that's and in the train had grown again. It was 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.240 big enough that it required two engines and it had 0:08:39.280 --> 0:08:41.920 about a dozen cars. So we're gonna move to the 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:46.360 day in question. Well, that's where we're headed. The day 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:48.280 in question that we're going to talk about is the 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:53.960 wee hours of the morning of October nine. The train 0:08:54.440 --> 0:08:58.040 is at this point heading westbound, so from New Orleans, 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:04.800 heading towards San Francisco. The train derailed just before crossing 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:06.800 a trestle, And if you don't know, trestle is a 0:09:06.840 --> 0:09:12.679 bridge for a rail. They're smaller. Yes. Even though so 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:16.319 the train is derailed, it's got enough inertia behind it. 0:09:16.280 --> 0:09:18.080 And this is the thing about train crashes that make 0:09:18.120 --> 0:09:23.080 them so sometimes seriously deadly. It had so much inertia 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:27.120 behind it that the engines, even though they were knocked 0:09:27.200 --> 0:09:32.720 off of the rail, traveled across the bridge, and the 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:37.360 next two cars went across the trestle, and then after 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:41.760 that the rest of the cars actually fell off of 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:47.559 the bridge. The passengers reported feeling a giant jolt like 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:52.280 you would and then the world started spinning. No pun intended. 0:09:52.720 --> 0:09:55.720 So the train, like I said, we get the engines 0:09:55.760 --> 0:09:58.559 come off, the first two cars come off, as the 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.120 next cars start fall over, the whole thing jack knives. 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:08.160 And the way trains are connected now in the nineties, 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:09.600 that's what I do. When I say now, I mean 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:13.040 in the nineties. And all of the cars are connected, 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:17.480 and the connections are snug enough that they can't roll 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.320 too much independent of one another, so they're all locked together, 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:23.880 kind of like the links in a chain, so as 0:10:23.920 --> 0:10:26.640 you spin it, all of them roll. And that's one 0:10:26.679 --> 0:10:28.480 of the things that actually kept us from being a 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:32.480 much more deadly incident is that it pulled all of 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:34.920 them over and it absorbed some of the force of 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:38.520 the crash because it fall down into the ravine. One 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:40.840 car couldn't just you know, topple over and over and 0:10:40.600 --> 0:10:43.760 over in just the whole thing kind of doing one 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.600 slow roll wasn't. Yeah. I was reading about that then 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:50.640 earlier train wreck and the description of one of these 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:52.240 guys that was I think he was in the bar 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:54.600 car or something, and he said, you know, you put 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:56.120 dice in the cup and you shake the cup, and 0:10:56.200 --> 0:10:58.200 he pumped the dice. He said he felt like he 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.880 felt like that. Yeah, I felt like it was a yeah. Yeah. 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:05.920 If if anybody has played with model trains, I played 0:11:05.920 --> 0:11:08.280 with model trains all the time as a kid. You 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.440 know exactly what's going on here is that, you know 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:13.520 model trains, it's hard to get them to go with 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.080 enough speed. So when you knock one off, the next 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.440 couple kind of fall over, but they don't just go tumbly. 0:11:21.200 --> 0:11:24.000 Now imagine that they were going ten times as fast 0:11:24.080 --> 0:11:26.760 and the cars were flying everywhere. That's what old trains 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:31.240 used to have happened. But like I said, the train 0:11:31.320 --> 0:11:35.840 cars because they're stuck together, prevents a lot of human 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.719 loss of life. They kind of just toppled. Yeah, one 0:11:38.760 --> 0:11:42.680 person died, the man by the name of Mitchell Bates. 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:45.720 He was an Amtrak employee. He's been but amtrack for 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.679 like twenty plus years, and he was on the train 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:52.640 as an employee. Correct he was he was working, so 0:11:52.960 --> 0:11:56.200 one assumes he was standing and he was probably walking 0:11:56.240 --> 0:11:59.560 around at one thirty in the morning doing his rounds. 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:02.040 He could have even been in between cars or something something, 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:05.680 But he was the only person that was killed when 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:07.559 the train fell off the trustle. And by the way, 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:09.720 just to give you a frame of reference, it fell 0:12:09.840 --> 0:12:13.360 thirty feet, which is equivalent to about nine meters, so 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:17.600 it's a long way down. Although it's how wide was it? 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:20.200 Do you remember? It wasn't wider than the car was 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:25.400 long right the ravine it was it was, it was 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:29.080 longer it was the ravine. The with the ravine was 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:31.679 more than the length of a car, but it was 0:12:31.720 --> 0:12:35.360 like two cars at the most. Wasn't some giant Grand 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:38.400 Canyon size pit, that's what it was, just a dry, 0:12:38.960 --> 0:12:41.800 dry river bed. You should just look up pictures. There's 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:44.200 lots of pictures. There's gonna be it's gonna helps in 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.480 a lot of places to do that. But so Mitchell 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:50.920 Bach is killed. A lot of people are injured, but 0:12:51.000 --> 0:12:53.599 not nearly as many as could have been. About but 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:56.360 a quarter of the people that are on board are injured. 0:12:56.440 --> 0:13:00.319 So we have seventy eight injured out of two forty 0:13:00.320 --> 0:13:04.559 eight passengers, plus an additional twenty crew. So that's a 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.040 you know, a quarter people. That's pretty bad. But that's 0:13:08.120 --> 0:13:12.120 all range of injury, right, it's not that's anything from us. 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:17.200 You know, spring ankle, brained ankle to contusion, yes, yes, yeah, 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:18.439 so that I mean, you know, it could have been 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.680 some of them. I heard some of them, like about 0:13:22.240 --> 0:13:25.240 seventeen or twenty were very seriously. I'm surest of them 0:13:25.240 --> 0:13:29.880 were minor engines. But the derailment happened, like I said, 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.160 it was at one thirty am. It happened about fifty 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:38.240 miles west of Phoenix, Arizona, and obviously, of course emergency 0:13:38.240 --> 0:13:41.920 crews scramble to get out to the site as fast 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:44.760 as they can. Now you might think, okay, well, it's 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.720 a train, it's going over a bridge, it's going fast 0:13:47.760 --> 0:13:50.040 in the middle of nowhere. So it was probably just 0:13:50.120 --> 0:13:53.560 some kind of natural accident, but you would be completely 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:57.360 wrong to think that, because, as it turns out, it 0:13:57.440 --> 0:14:02.079 was completely and totally intention all sabotage. Yeah, which is 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.760 kind of a bumber. Yeah, And we're gonna we're gonna 0:14:05.760 --> 0:14:07.880 give some of the details on that shortly, but I 0:14:07.960 --> 0:14:09.840 just want to keep going on about in the timeline 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:12.680 of what happened for the folks in the train. So 0:14:13.120 --> 0:14:16.679 the crew goes along the train and says, hey, everybody, 0:14:16.720 --> 0:14:20.560 stay in the train. That's smart, it's smart. It's the desert, 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.480 it's night. You don't want to go trains and around 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:25.760 in the middle of nowhere. You're gonna be lost. And 0:14:26.160 --> 0:14:30.160 the rattlesnakes, there's scorpions, you know, exactly, lots of bad animals. 0:14:30.880 --> 0:14:34.280 But eventually people did start getting out of the train 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.080 because the A C is not working, the plumbing is 0:14:37.080 --> 0:14:39.920 not working, so it's a little stinky in the cars. 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:45.000 And as they started walking around outside the train, uh, 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:48.040 they started finding printed flyers on the ground, and those 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:53.080 flyers were held down by rocks, which very quickly led 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:57.920 everybody to realize they were intentionally placed there. Somebody knew 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:02.120 that the train was gonna crash beforehand. Yeah, that'd be 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:05.160 kind of creepy. Oh wow, would freak me the hell out. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:07.520 Realize there's cross hairs in the back of your head, 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.520 probably right exactly. So there's a total of four notes 0:15:11.560 --> 0:15:16.960 you're found. They're all identical. I haven't found a verifiable 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:21.080 copy of it around to know exactly what it said. 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.560 We Devin, you found. I found a copy and it 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.240 was it was two different texts. One was like a 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:29.960 much longer version of the second one and the one. 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.080 I can't verify either of them, but one of them 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.080 was reported to have been put It was in a 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.200 newspaper afterwards. That was you know, they printed they said 0:15:40.240 --> 0:15:44.880 this is what the letter said basically or something like that. Um, 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.680 and so, yeah, I can't verify that they existed or not, 0:15:47.720 --> 0:15:52.400 but it was. It's good. It's good reading either way 0:15:52.440 --> 0:15:56.520 it is. It's interesting if if the long one is accurate. 0:15:56.600 --> 0:16:01.040 It is a long, meandering ram will about the new 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.400 world order, like you would kind of expect from somebody 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.160 who might do something like yes, and it talks about 0:16:06.240 --> 0:16:13.560 it's it's written from the sons of the Gestapo. Excuse me, 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:16.760 thank you. Uh So, I don't know if it's right, 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.120 But and this stuff is in the copy that we found. 0:16:19.600 --> 0:16:22.360 There's but and then when you read the reporting on 0:16:22.400 --> 0:16:26.560 the Sunset Limited, it always talks about how the note 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:30.920 addresses things that were done or is addressed to, I 0:16:30.920 --> 0:16:34.840 should say, the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:39.440 A T F, the Federal Bureau of Investigation f b I, 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:44.680 the state Police, and the Sheriff's office, and the notes 0:16:45.080 --> 0:16:47.080 all the I guess I can just call it then 0:16:47.200 --> 0:16:51.760 note since they're identical. The note mentions incidents that those 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:55.840 agencies were all involved in, one of which is the Waco, 0:16:56.000 --> 0:16:59.760 Texas standoff, which was with David Koresh and the Branch 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:06.120 of Indians in as well as what happened with at 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:12.239 Ruby Ridge with Randy Weaver and his family in. And 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:15.480 then it's that's where it signed Sons of Gestapo. Yeah, 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:19.000 I mean this letter has again I can't verify that 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:20.879 this is what it is, but the text that I 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:25.080 found has things like the nWo New World Order right 0:17:25.560 --> 0:17:27.520 needs to bring about chaos in America so that it 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:29.639 can pose martial law, which will be enforced by the 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.199 United Nation troops. The bombing in Oklahoma City was the 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.840 first step in creating this chaos. Many crucial records from 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.720 Waco and Ruby Ridge were destroyed in the bombing, but 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:39.959 also destroyed where the records from the Germans who were 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.200 brought to this country after World War Two. Their first 0:17:42.240 --> 0:17:46.640 home in America was Oklahoma. It's that letters, and I'm 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:49.520 inclined to believe that the letters likely were that kind 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:53.960 of letter. Yes, but the lage and the theme, it's 0:17:54.040 --> 0:17:56.680 kind of anti government kind of stuff, but very world 0:17:56.800 --> 0:18:01.320 order where that writer, so, I think sense of humor 0:18:01.560 --> 0:18:05.600 is comes through this group supposedly as Sons of Gestapo. 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:08.280 So he's anti government, and I think he wants to 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:12.560 name himself after a very large, very effective government agency. 0:18:13.080 --> 0:18:16.639 I think he's tweaking us that that's going to come 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.280 up in our very section. Yet you're absolutely right. Um, 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:22.880 Now here's a problem with the Sons of Gestapo other 0:18:22.960 --> 0:18:26.760 than the fact that they write an unintelligible pamphlet, is 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.560 that I've never heard of him, nobody had, nobody did 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:34.040 before that, and nobody has heard of them since. And 0:18:34.320 --> 0:18:39.080 it it almost seems as if it's, uh, it's meant 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.040 to redirect the attention away from the people who might 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:48.760 who are responsible. Yeah, very likely actually, uh, now, that's 0:18:48.880 --> 0:18:51.040 kind of weird and sinister on its own. But even 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:55.520 more sinister about the derailment and the sabotage is that 0:18:56.040 --> 0:19:00.000 whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing, because 0:19:00.000 --> 0:19:03.520 as they bypassed all bunch of safety stuff. It does 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:06.440 seem like there should be some kind of safety measures 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.560 there are for trains, like, hey, guess what that got 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:13.879 derails And we're going to talk about the safety systems, 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:16.439 and we'll actually talk about the derailment and how it 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.000 was done in depth. It's very It's something that you 0:19:20.080 --> 0:19:23.000 basically can't do anymore, so, which is good. None of 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:24.720 you group balls who were listening to go out and 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:26.840 try and do this. Please you're not gonna be able to. 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.399 But also don't be nervous about it happening. You can 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:35.439 keep taking railway railways well, actually many places around the 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:37.520 world they're probably still doing it the old fashioned way. 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.080 So there's probably places where you can still do this. Yeah, maybe, 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.399 hopefully I think that they're there are fewer and fewer 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:47.840 every day. So we're gonna talk about the crash, but 0:19:47.920 --> 0:19:50.560 I first want to describe, just for folks who don't know, 0:19:50.800 --> 0:19:53.600 the anatomy of a rail line. I can't imagine anybody 0:19:53.600 --> 0:19:56.000 who doesn't know, but it is important, it's very let's 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.600 talk about it anyway. Okay, So the anatomy of a railroad, 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:02.520 by the way, a rail and road set of rails 0:20:02.640 --> 0:20:06.200 on a road. That's literally what the name means. It 0:20:06.320 --> 0:20:09.520 is made up of a series of large wooden beams, 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:12.720 which called railroad ties, and they sit on a bed 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:16.960 of gravel and that's literally called your track bed. And 0:20:17.119 --> 0:20:21.800 it has sections of steel rails that are laid across it. 0:20:22.160 --> 0:20:26.800 And those rails are attached to the wooden beams. They're 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:30.560 tie plates, steel tie plates, or those are attached with 0:20:30.760 --> 0:20:36.239 giant spikes. Yeah, this is really the basics of it. 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:41.240 Railroad tracks come in two sizes, which isn't really important 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.520 in their length for us, but they do come in 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.280 a multitude of sizes, which is actually I kind of 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:49.280 got into the science, haven't It's really kind of interesting 0:20:49.440 --> 0:20:51.880 as to for when and how they're they aligned. But 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:54.119 we're not going to go down that path. I have 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:56.600 read something very interesting about railroads and why they are 0:20:57.160 --> 0:21:01.240 what is it five or four point eight five inches 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:06.000 across the physical rail. Yeah, it's very interesting. There's a 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:08.679 lot of really interesting. Basically, it comes, it goes, it 0:21:08.720 --> 0:21:13.720 comes back to ancient Greece and all that stuff interesting. 0:21:14.119 --> 0:21:18.040 So you're going to have individual sections of rails, and 0:21:18.080 --> 0:21:21.200 those rails are going to be attached to one another 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.440 using a steel plate and big old bolts. Those plates 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.760 are called fish plates, right, and those are they're under right, 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:33.159 the rails, they're right, that's sorry, they're under the like 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:36.160 the part that the wheel attaches to. So the easy way, 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:38.120 I'm not going to use the technical terms. So if 0:21:38.200 --> 0:21:41.160 you are a rail fanatic, I apologize. I'm just trying 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.080 to keep this as simple as possible. A rail is 0:21:44.600 --> 0:21:50.360 I shaped, It's like a capital yes, And so what 0:21:50.480 --> 0:21:52.439 Joe is saying is yes, it is in the middle 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.680 on the upright that they are bolted together in the race. 0:21:55.920 --> 0:21:59.520 The train wheels run on the top of the eye 0:21:59.640 --> 0:22:01.920 and the bottom of the eye sits on the When 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.560 I said under, I meant under the overhang. I knew 0:22:05.560 --> 0:22:07.880 exactly what you meant. That's why I wanted to clarify. 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:10.240 I think the ibeam is the simplest way to put it. Yes, 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:15.600 perfect now described a train track the track, yes, just 0:22:15.680 --> 0:22:18.480 the track. Of course, we don't want our two pieces 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:24.440 of rail coming apart, so they're bolted together. But as 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:26.480 we talked about, trains move really fast and they have 0:22:26.520 --> 0:22:29.880 a lot of inertia, and if for some reason they 0:22:29.960 --> 0:22:33.680 come apart of conductor is not going to be able 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:36.800 to easily stop the train if they even see it. 0:22:36.960 --> 0:22:39.480 Do you mean the engineer is it an engineer? I 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:41.720 always I heard it call the conductor the engineers the 0:22:41.720 --> 0:22:43.840 guy that drives the train, right, and then the conductor 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:46.200 is a guy that who who takes your ticket and 0:22:47.040 --> 0:22:50.560 and all that stuff. Google says engineers operate the train. 0:22:50.640 --> 0:22:54.160 Conductors don't they do procedural stuff. See this is why 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:57.960 I shouldn't rely on my childhood knowledge of trains. The 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:04.520 tank engine was lying to you, freaking Thomas. Okay, but anyway, 0:23:04.560 --> 0:23:08.080 the point is is that you don't want these these 0:23:08.080 --> 0:23:11.320 things driving the train, whoever the guy driving the train, 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.520 the person driving the train to not see that because 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:16.040 they're not gonna be able to stop it in time. 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:20.240 So what is done is that a small electric charges 0:23:20.359 --> 0:23:24.760 run through the rails and that is connected to a signal. 0:23:25.119 --> 0:23:26.879 Is it through the rails or through a wire on 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:30.480 the rails, So the rails the way I understand it, 0:23:30.520 --> 0:23:33.720 and I may be incorrect, but the way I understand 0:23:33.760 --> 0:23:36.560 it is run through the rail because two pieces of 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:40.359 rail don't always perfectly attached to one another because of 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:45.080 the fish play expansion contraction. I mean, even though the 0:23:45.119 --> 0:23:48.040 train wheel doesn't know that, they use a wire to 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:52.159 connect the two and if the current between from the 0:23:52.240 --> 0:23:55.440 rails from one or the other is broken, then that 0:23:55.640 --> 0:23:59.160 flips a SWITCHTCE safe distance away, they say, hey, there's 0:23:59.160 --> 0:24:01.400 a problem. They can stop the train and then send 0:24:01.480 --> 0:24:06.919 somebody out to investigate it. Okay, that's that's the safety system. Okay. Now, 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:10.920