Here a few months ago, October 5th to be exact, a friend of mine and myself had decided to go out and do some train watching. We had started out the day keeping ahead of Amtrak and catching him at Kanawha Falls as it passed under the bridge. After we had got through with Amtrak, we decided to call it a day or so we had thought. After I had got back home, I decided to go and get some lunch and I just happened to take my scanner with me. After I had finished lunch and was on the way back home. I heard an eastbound coal train calling out emergency over the main road channel used by CSX through here. At first I thought that it was nothing and that the air brakes had went into emergency due to an air hose coming undone or the train uncoupling. I was thinking that it was going to turn out to be nothing and that the train would be moving within a few minutes. 

 

The successful Amtrak video of the day.

 

That would turn out not to be the case when the conductor came over the radio and said that he saw nothing but a cloud of dust coming up from behind the seventieth car in line. The cloud of dust was the fifteen loaded coal cars piling up as the seventieth car had somehow jumped the tracks. These cars had all piled up neatly between 48th street and about 45th street in Charleston. It almost came close to being a bigger disaster as the photos below will show. 

 

This entire neighborhood in Charleston had someone watching out for them that day