By Jon Walker, F268778
FMCA National President
April 2018
Have you ever been driving along in your motorhome and crossing over a railroad track, only to find that the back wheels suddenly are off the ground, and you are stuck on the tracks? April Fool’s Day joke? No, this is a true story.
I am asked quite frequently whether Sondra and I have had any bad experiences since we started our RVing journey many years ago. The answer to that question is “yes,” and it is the real reason we joined FMCA.
When we bought our first motorhome, we had never camped before. We had rented travel trailers and then small motorhomes in order to entertain customers at University of Notre Dame football games in South Bend, Indiana, near our home. It was very expensive to do this, but we really enjoyed the tailgating experiences at Notre Dame. Ultimately, university officials decided that only buses could be parked near the football stadium. RVs had to park over a mile away in a field north of campus. The way we solved that problem was to buy a real bus, a Prevost that had been converted for motorhome use.
The bad thing about the bus was that it did not come with any manuals, and the person we bought it from had never stayed overnight in it. The only instruction he gave us was to turn the key halfway, wait until the little yellow light turned off, and then turn the key the rest of the way to start the engine. That was our introduction to the world of RVs.
We embarked on a shakedown trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, to meet up with two couples we grew up with in southern Illinois. That story is for another time. Afterward, we found out that we had driven all the way to South Carolina and back with no air in our inside dual tires, and the air bags on several of the axles were not working.
Sondra was ready to get rid of the bus, but I convinced her that we would learn how to drive and use the thing. That is when we joined FMCA. We also found out about chapters and became members of Great Lakes Converted Coaches. That was the initial source of our education. Every trip since that first one has been a learning experience for us.
I think my vision for FMCA to be the world’s greatest reservoir of education took root on the day I started that bus for the first time, heard the distinct sound of the Detroit 8V92 diesel engine . . . and saw the great puff of smoke that always came out of the tail pipe when the engine first fired up!
After joining FMCA and the Great Lakes Converted Coaches chapter, we started getting serious regarding learning about our equipment, the RV lifestyle, and this great North American continent.
It has been a wonderful journey for Sondra and me. In fact, if we had it to do over again, we would have started camping and traveling with our kids when they were young. We are trying to make up for that loss by taking our grandkids with us when we can.
Well, back to the worst day we’ve had on the road. Our daughter, Susanne, joined us on a trip to visit a good friend of ours in Montrose, Colorado. First, we drove south from Denver to Colorado Springs and then kept heading south, with plans to ride the Cumbres & Toltec narrow-gauge railroad, which travels from Antonito, Colorado, to Chama, New Mexico, and back.
We liked that experience so well that we drove on to Durango, Colorado, to ride the railroad from there to Silverton and back. After that, we headed over the mountains north of Silverton to Montrose, where we visited our friend, Chip Marlow, who grew up with us in Herrin, Illinois.
Chip spent his whole career working for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and oversaw the southwest quadrant of the state of Colorado. During our visit, he took us to a then-new national park, the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. His office was involved in the development of this national park.
We decided to circle back to Boulder, Colorado, where Susanne was attending college, before heading home to Elkhart, Indiana. As we approached Interstate 70 at Grand Junction, Colorado, something happened and I missed the east entrance to the interstate and kept going north. As we reached town, I realized what had happened; so, I turned and tried to find my way back south through town. I knew if I kept going south, I eventually would run into the interstate.
While heading south, I saw a railroad track coming up and started to slow down, but it was too late for me. As I approached the track, I suddenly realized that the other side of the crossing went downhill at a steep angle — much too steep for our bus. As we rolled over the tracks, I slammed on the brakes, the nose of the bus dropped down over the incline, and the rear wheels lifted up into thin air. The middle of the bus scrunched on the tracks, and we stopped.
Sondra immediately screamed to Susanne, who was napping in the back bedroom, to get up and get off the bus. We also had our two Sheltie dogs with us, and Sondra grabbed them and we all hurried off the bus. Sondra, Susanne, and the dogs moved about a half block back, well out of the way. Sondra just knew that a train was coming at high speed and was going to destroy our bus.
As it turned out, a little old man was walking his dog close to the tracks. He saw everything and had already called 911. He told me that we were stuck on one of the busiest east-west railroad tracks in the United States.
Within a couple of minutes, the county sheriff showed up. He tried to call the railroad to report the blocked crossing but could not get through to anyone. Next, a state policeman arrived, and the two of them talked about how to contact the railroad. They decided that the state policeman would have his office get in touch with the railroad, and the sheriff dispatched two county patrol cars to go one mile east and one mile west of our crossing to sit on the tracks with their red lights on.
I heard the radio conversation as one of the officers in the county cars called back and reported that he was positioned on the tracks. The deputy in the second county car radioed to say that he was sitting on the tracks with his lights on. After a few seconds of silence, one of the deputies radioed again and said, “What do I do if a train comes? Do I have to sit here?” That sort of broke the tension among us. The sheriff promptly let the deputy know he could bail out at the last minute if the train did not stop.
Next, a TV news truck showed up, and their cameras started rolling. The state patrol officer got out of the way and asked Sondra whether he could look inside our bus. Sondra said, “Yes, but what are you looking for?” He shared with her that he was in such a hurry to get to the crossing that he had left his uniform hat in his car, and if he ended up on camera without his hat on, he would be in trouble with his boss. Sondra let him hide.
The next discussion was how to get our huge bus off the tracks. The little old man who was walking his dog said he knew the owner of the local towing company, and he had already called him. Sure enough, very shortly a super-size tow truck arrived.
At that point, a discussion ensued between Sondra, me, the police officers, and the tow truck driver as to how to get the bus off the tracks without hurting the bus or the tracks.
To our relief, a call came from the state police headquarters indicating that they had made contact with railroad officials, and they had stopped an eastbound train that was approaching the cop who was sitting on the tracks a mile west of us. The railroad also dispatched a crew to check the tracks for damage, which had to be done before the train could continue its journey.
After our bus had been removed from the tracks, the next conversation involved what to do with the undercarriage. Again, and I simply can’t explain this, the little old man who was walking his dog said he knew a retired Prevost bus repairman who lived a couple of miles away, and he had already called him to see whether he could help us.
The tow truck driver called the Prevost mechanic, and he gave the driver advice for tying up the smashed exhaust pipes on the underside of the bus. The mechanic asked me to drive the bus to his house so he could take a look.
When we arrived, he directed us to his shop, located in one of his barns. His wife came out and took Sondra, Susanne, and our Shelties to the porch on their house, where she served them iced tea.
The mechanic insisted that he could fix the exhaust pipes well enough for us to get home. When he finished, he told us we were good to go and noted that he could see no other damage to our coach. I asked him what I owed him, and he said, “Nothing.” He told me that anyone who’d gone through all we did at the main railroad tracks on a Sunday morning in Grand Junction deserved a break. We talked about FMCA, the Denver Broncos, and the University of Notre Dame. I found out that he liked Pabst Blue Ribbon beer; so, I sent him a case when I got home.
And by the way . . . the little old man walking his dog . . . he was nowhere to be found, but I do know that he was our guardian angel that day.
FMCA Annual Membership Meeting Notice
FMCA will hold its annual membership meeting on July 21, 2018, at the Cam-Plex Multi-Event Facilities in Gillette, Wyoming.