A farmer was pulling a lowboy trailer loaded with a backhoe as he crossed the railroad track on Cemetery Road north of Haines, Oregon.  The pickup that was pulling the trailer successfully crossed the railroad, but was jerked to a stop as the jack on the heavily-loaded trailer snagged the tracks.  The hang-up caused the pickup’s rear wheels to leave the ground.  With the wheels off the ground, there was no way for the pickup to get traction.  The pickup and trailer could go neither forward nor backward.

The view down the tracks to the south showed no trains in sight for many miles.  To the north, however, the tracks were visible for only a mile before they made a wide easterly bend.

Dave was the first to arrive at the scene.  He quickly surveyed the situation, went to his truck, got jumper leads, and attached the leads across the tracks.  He knew that this would complete a circuit that would alert approaching trains of a hazard ahead.

Indeed, at that very moment a red light came on in the cab of an engine that was approaching several miles to the north.  The engineer puzzled over it, and debated what it could mean.

Meanwhile a neighborhood farmer in a tractor arrived at the scene of the hang-up.  A chain was brought out, and the tractor was hooked to the trailer so that it and the pickup could be pulled backward and off the tracks.  However, as the tractor applied power, the trailer was so firmly hooked to the track that the tractor’s engine died.  The seemingly good luck arrival of the tractor quickly became an additional problem as the tractor refused to start.

The tractor’s battery was low.  The tractor needed to be jump-started.  Dave’s jumper leads were removed from the track, a pickup was positioned beside the tractor, and the two vehicles’ batteries were connected.  The tractor still refused to start.

The engineer of the train was watching the red light, and debating whether it was malfunctioning, or whether there was actually a hazard ahead.  As he pondered over the light, it suddenly went out.  By that he determined that all was well, and proceeded full speed ahead.

When the tractor refused to start, Dave removed the jumper leads from the batteries, and reattached them to the tracks.  The red light in the train’s engine immediately came back on.  At this point the engineer decided that there was, indeed, a problem ahead, and began applying the brakes.

As the braking train came around the long bend, the engineer could suddenly see the obstruction on the tracks ahead and understood the reason for the red light.  The feverishly-working men at the crossing were horrified to see the oncoming train, but could tell that it was doing its best to stop.  A loaded, speeding freight train carries a tremendous amount of weight, and requires a long distance to overcome its forward inertia.  Whether this one would be able to stop in time was a big question.

But it did.  The train came to rest just 30 feet from the trailer and backhoe.  The crew jumped down from the train, and sized up the situation.  “How did you know to put those jumper leads across the tracks?” the engineer asked Dave.  “You saved our lives!  How can we pay you?  Is there anything we can do?”

“Well actually,” Dave replied, “I’ve always wanted to take a ride in one of those things.”

“Hop in,” the engineer said.  “We’ll take you to Baker.”

The trailer was gotten off the tracks, which weren’t damaged, and Dave got a free 10-mile ride to Baker City in the engine of a freight train.