Norfolk Southern Nincompoops!

(Cleveland, Ohio, April 18, 2005) Early Monday morning, April 18, 2005, a Norfolk Southern trainmaster clocked The Amtrak Capitol Limited, Train 29, on radar coming out of Cleveland at 45 mph. He ordered the train stopped at Berea for exceeding a 35 mph speed limit. No engineer was available from the Norfolk Southern to get the train moving, so it sat and blocked one of their main lines while Amtrak sent an engineer by taxi from Toledo.  By the time the Amtrak engineer arrived, Norfolk Southern had notified their own trainmaster that he had made a “slight” error.  The speed limit where the train was clocked was, indeed, 45 mph!

The Capitol Limited sat for two hours and Amtrak incurred additional crew expense because of this bit of “managerial brilliance.” It is unknown at this time whether the Norfolk Southern trainmaster will be rewarded with a huge performance based bonus, a promotion or perhaps an all-expense paid trip to Hawaii.

Posted: 04/20/05