| We chased 14 from Natron to the North end of Junction City at the grade at 661.3, after highballing out of Eugene. As soon as the crossing gates were lifted we heard the Amtrak engineer report over the scanner that they had just blown through a stack of tie plates that were stacked up on the west rail, thankfully only causing a severe "jolt" through the train, as he reported around 661.8-9. Very happy nothing bad came out of this, but i hope very badly the sociopath who put them there is caught, however unlikely that is. |