(The following story by Eric Francis appeared on the Barre Montpelier Times-Argus website on November 26.)
BRAINTREE, Vt. — The southbound Amtrak Vermonter passenger train was delayed over two hours Sunday morning after an accident at a rural farm crossing sliced an air-brake hose clean off the lead locomotive.
Crew members said that a bucket loader approaching a private un-signaled crossing at Mile Post 49.6 was attempting to stop short of the rails when it hit a patch of ice and suddenly slid forward a few extra feet.
The bucket caught the front of the locomotive, a large General Electric Genesis unit, right on the chin, bending back the steel a couple of inches and leaving a long scrape mark down the side of the train.
The driver of the bucket loader wasn’t hurt, and the damage to the train would have only been cosmetic except that the edge of the loader’s bucket just barely caught an air hose right in front of the locomotive’s first set of steel wheels and sheared the hose clean off its socket.
The loss of the air hose meant that the Amtrak crew had to switch to the second engine at the rear of the train for propulsion and braking, which forced the Vermonter to slowly limp at greatly reduced speeds south from Braintree to Claremont, N.H., where it was met by a repair crew mid-afternoon.
The delay put the Vermonter into White River Junction at 1:30 p.m., where 60 holiday travelers had been waiting. Most passengers, who had already been told to expect at least 90 minute delays once the train got into the New York City area, took Sunday’s troubles in stride, but some decided to rent cars and take their chances at beating the timetable out on the interstate.