🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <2328@rsch.wisc.edu> jpexg@mit-hermes.ARPA (John Purbrick) writes:
>At risk of starting another round of "Trespasser sues for megabucks" stories
>in net.legal, here's a story.
>
>A couple of years back there was a fatal railroad crash just north of Boston.
>Four people were killed, three of them railroad employees. The fourth, however,
>was a railroad buff who had talked one of the engineers into letting him ride
>in the locomotive cab, against company policy and instructions to employees.
>Now, (you guessed it) the guy's widow is suing the Boston and Maine for her
>husband's death. 
>
>Is there any chance that the B&M could countersue the man's estate for his
>action in suborning one of their employees to dereliction of duty, thus 
>involving the company in an expensive lawsuit?


	This was a real nice article; I enjoyed it immensely, all eight times
(although I think the fifth was the best).

	All seriousness aside, folks, this gives me an excuse to post 
something I've been thinking about for a while now. I live in Baltimore,
more specifically in a lovely neighborhood called Pigtown, which is
right on the edge of the old B&O yards at Mt.Clare, which as all good
railfans know is the home of American railroading. This is where the B&O
started. Now it's  mostly a memory, and soon will be even less. The B&O
Railroad Museum is within sight of my house (I used to work there).
	What I'm getting at is the construction of a new shopping mall on
the sight of the old RR yards.  They've torn down two or three of the
buildings that were left and gutted the two that were structurally semi-
sound. I don't know what they did with the old iron gates that all the
RR employees used to enter through in the heyday of the place (1940's, I
believe - well before my time).  The plan is to make a Rouse-style
upscale shopping center/tourist attraction/museum extension. They've
been working somewhat with the Cheesie System, although I have no idea
to what extent. There was one article in the paper almost a year ago,
and nothing since. 
	It's kinda sad to watch them work on it. The place was a real
dump, literally and figuratively. Chessie had not made any attempt to
keep it up, and the place was an eyesore and a health hazard. So, in
that way, it's a good thing. But I feel a real twinge of regret to watch
the old place give way to yuppie expansion. One of the first things they
did was to drag out two old B&O coaches that had been next to one of the
buildings they tore down. Both were beyond repair, but it was sad to
watch them tear them apart with a blowtorch and backhoe and cart the
pieces off in a dumptruck.  One of them looked like the 1929 coach that
I had spent three months helping to restore (that's another story), so
it was particularly poignant to watch over the course of two weeks or
so.
	Well, that's it. Just thought someone might be interested in these
ramblings. I might occasionally post progress reports, especially if I 
see anything about what the plans are for the place.

John Lorch
JHU/HCF

What has the destruction of the Mount Clare yards to do with a railfan's
death? Both tragedies?

Anyway, I just read in the paper that the case of the railroad buff who talked
his way into a  loco cab and was killed in a crash was settled out of court.
(The man's widow sued, of course.)

			--jp