June 18, 1994

Two kinds of trains passed through Carbondale every day- a few Amtrak passenger trains (including the famous City of New Orleans), and 20 or more Illinois Central freight trains. Normally the same trains could be grouped another way- trains that stopped (Amtrak) and trains that didn't (the freight). On this day, one of those freight trains stopped. I don't know if there was a malfunction, or if it was waiting for something further up the line. The problem is that when a 200 car train stopped in Carbondale, there was no way to get across the tracks except the one shown here- a guy walked over to the train and climbed over the coupling between cars.