Aneta Shares How Her Dad Prevented A Train Derailment

This blog post came to us during a visit to Foothills Group Home. Aneta shared a story about her dad preventing a train derailment, and she showed us a newspaper article with all of the information about her dad and his heroic, quick thinking actions. The following was taken from the newspaper article, which appears to be many years old but it didn't have a date on it.

"William Randolph is a candidate for a Carnegie Hero Award. He prevented a derailment of the Royal Gorge passenger train near Castle Rock, when a flash flood sent a wall of water and sand over the bridge as the train approached. He ordered an assistant to place a seven foot cross cut saw across the rails to throw a red block for the approaching train."

Note:  We did a Google search to try to find out why laying the crosscut saw on the railroad tracks created a "red block" for the approaching train.  It is possible that having the metal saw touching both rails at the same time set off the red light for the approaching train so it knew to stop. To anyone with railroad knowledge, it would be appreciated to get more information on this by commenting here or emailing gstebick@imaginecolorado.org.  Thank you.

Aneta with her boyfriend Robert and the news article about
her dad preventing a train derailment.