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Engineer Tries to Crash Train Into Hospital Ship

by AW1Ed••117


USNS Mercy

A Port of Los Angles locomotive engineer has admitted trying to crash a train into a hospital ship, federal prosecutors say. According to a court affidavit, 44-year-old Eduardo Moreno told investigators that he intentionally derailed the train at full speed on Tuesday because he thought the USNS Mercy might be there as part of a government takeover, not to help with the coronavirus crisis, ABC reports. He said he wanted to “wake people up” and knew the crash would attract media attention.

HMCS(FMF) ret sends.

IVAN PEREIRA

Investigators arrested a California train engineer Tuesday after he allegedly derailed a train in a bid to crash into the USNS Mercy, the hospital ship treating non-COVID-19 patients at the Port of Los Angeles to lessen the burden on area hospitals, prosecutors said.

Eduardo Moreno, 44, was expected to appear in court Wednesday for arraignment on train wrecking charges.

Around 1 p.m. Tuesday, Moreno allegedly ran the train at full speed off the end of the tracks near the Navy medical boat, smashing through several concrete and chain barriers, before sliding through a parking lot nearly 250 yards from the Mercy, according to the criminal complaint.

No one was injured and the boat wasn’t damaged, however, the train leaked a substantial amount of fuel, the complaint said.

Meltdowns are everywhere. Read the rest of the article here: Yahoo.com

Thanks, Senior.

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117 thoughts on “Engineer Tries to Crash Train Into Hospital Ship”

  1. “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” ~ Joseph Heller

    Another low altitude formation of 6 black helicopters of unknown variant and without visible markings just flew over my compound.

    1. Not his fault. With everyone buying up all of the essential supplies, Costco has run out of industrial rolls of aluminum foil.

  2. AW1Ed, there’s a problem with the article’s title.

    Dumbass is not spelled “engineer”.

  3. And y’all think I’m a crazy gubmint conspiracy nut? That boy’s cornbread ain’t baked all the way thru the middle.

    Saw this last night on Senior’s linky comment. Comment count is way up on the Yahoo article. Laffed then, laffing even more now. Sheldon Cooper is in mourning for the injured train.

    1. Correction, it was 11B-mailclerk’s linky/comment that I read the train article. Senior’s was on the Communist Originated Virus Infecting Disease of 2019. Mea culpa! I read every comment and click on every linky here. Sometimes my short term memory banks “short” out and I’ll get them confused with who posted what, where.

  4. Just imagine the possible charges , Utilizing a WMD to attacks a non combative hospital ship, Grand theft train?

        1. TIL that TIL stands for “Today I Learned.”

          Had to look it up ….

          Sheesh, in the old days it was easy to keep up with FIGMO, FTA, SNAFU, SOP, etc. Now I have to learn a whole new set of acronyms related to SMC (social media communications … I just made that up … I think).

      2. What I want to know is did he pass a background check and a ten day waiting period before he was entrusted with lethal instrument on rails.

      3. I have seen some train wrecks in my day. But never train wrecking.

        Kinda like wrecking a home versus home wrecking.

  5. I spent a day aboard USNS MERCY back in 2008 when a group of us PACOM staff officers were given an orientation briefing and tour of the ship while she was docked at Pearl Harbor while returning from a humanitarian op in westpac. Met some of the USN med personnel stationed onboard as well as the civilian mariners who sailed the vessel. Great equipment and capabilities onboard, and much needed now…

    1. I watched Mercy and Comfort when they were at NASSCO being converted from oil tankers to hospital ships – could see it from the back deck area of the Naval School of Health Sciences (on the Naval Hospital San Diego compound). Many at the time thought they would be “great white whales” and never be used.

  6. His entire life has been one giant train wreck. Hack is disappointed that he did not light a trash receptacle on fire as a distraction so that we could work “dumpster fire” into the conversation.

  7. Train engineer?
    How bout nuclear engineer at a power station.
    Consider this. The normal nuke plant output is
    about 4200 MW for Iso New England until
    yesterday when it suddenly went down to 848 MW
    Your average reactor is abou 900 MW.
    So four reactors went off line yesterday.
    Iso New England is now mostly Natural Gas.
    Nothing in the news about it.
    Nothing to see or be concerned about.

    I am a retired electrical engineer.
    I don’t wear a tin foil hat but I am not at all
    surprised that those who do are coming unglued.
    And you don’t shut down a nuke plant instantly.

    2. Neesflash: Seabrook started a regularly scheduled refueling outage yesterday.

      Paranoia not required.

      1. Yeah, I saw that. 1298 MW.
        Millstone is due this month also.
        Still cant find the rest of the power lost.
        Amazing to see NG take up the load instantly
        along with hydro.
        Power is super cheap right now.

        1. Nuclear Power is as emissions-free as you can get, ditto with Hydroelectric, but the greenie-weenie-do-gooder dumpster babies want to do away with both!

          1. Hydro is able to ramp up or down instantly.
            Just open or close the flood gates.
            The water is just a hydraulic link in the
            total machine. The fuel is gravity.
            Elegance in engineering.

  8. Speaking as a former/retired Corpsman. While the actual ship is run by MSC folks, medical and nursing officers run everything else.

    If that guys thinks you can trust a bunch of doctors and nurses to run a conspiracy or attempt a take over of anything not directly involved with treating patients, he’s grossly overestimating their capabilities.

    During the unfortunate times I was forced to take orders to a hospital or clinic I would nearly have an anger aneurysm on the rare occasions we would have formations. Bunch of over-educated self absorbed narcissists can’t manage to stand in a straight line and keep their mouths shut for 15 minutes.

  9. Ok, so here’s my pitch – There’s this guy, ya see, who is really paranoid. And he lives in LA, but there’s been this really big viral infection and everyone is staying in their houses. So like, the government sends a hospital ship to his city but he thinks its a conspiracy. So he’s an engineer, right? Well he gets in his train in an attempt to RAM THE SHIP he thinks is a government conspiracy to take over. Well?! What do you think?

    1. Um, thanks for shoving your script underneath the bathroom stall, but I’m sure I’m not interested. . . .

    2. That’s the difference between truth and fiction …

      … fiction has to be believable.

      1. Well, you certainly wouldn’t have believed our current situation (even without attempted boat rammings with trains) if we weren’t living through it. I’m sure the future grand kids won’t believe it when ol’ grampy is describing the crazy happenings of the China Virus in aught-20.

  10. What a damned nutcase of a liquor store dumpster baby, I wonder which M’litia he belongs to and I also wonder if he wasn’t wearing a tinfoil helmet when he did that? It’ll cost some money to clean that mess up, the locomotive looks like an EMD GP40, a 3000 HP engine that weighs about 150 tons and has about a 3000 gallon fuel tank!

    2. If I have to guess, I would say something like a “resistance” group fighting the occupation of Aztlan. These Chicano separatist radicals are still around, just not on anyone’s current radar screen…

      1. Aztlan?

        Are they planning to reinstitute daily human sacrifices to bring the sun up every morning?

          1. That crap is still around?! I thought that died out years ago. Aztlan! What a bunch of morons!

  11. Looks like he got started off on the wrong track Tuesday. He is the only one to blame and he cannot claim that he was railroaded into doing this. At least his train of thoughts kept him on track and he didn’t derail in a spot that would have injured people. I’ll keep track of the situation and watch for further developments. At least I stayed on track and on topic.

    3. Jeff LPH 3, 63-66, did he “engineer” this plan while he was “track”ing down the “rails” or did he just pull this out of his “caboose” when he saw the ship?

      There must have been some kind of “signal” to his intentions prior to “railroading” the train towards the ship with a “full head of steam”.

      So his “loco”-“motive” was to wake people up to a government takeover?

      (Man, this is hard work. With you, it seems to be a gift) (smile)

      2. Keep this up you’ll get coal in your stocking. Your puns have me steaming to the point I’m sweating so hard all I smell is my B&O.
        Some brakeman should spike this tread before the whole thing boils over.
        Toot toot bitchez!

        1. C&O whatcha done started? What’s UP next? Before you know it no one will be able to CSX through all that NS!

          1. How about a link to Johnny Cash singing “Wabash Cannonball”?

            Maybe that’s what ol’ Eduardo was listening to while he was making his run towards the ship, thinking that he was gonna be the “Moreno Cannonball”.

            2. I prefer these lyrics:

              Listen to the rumble, and hear old Merlin roar
              I’m flying over Moji, like I never flew before
              Hear the mighty rush of the slipstream, and hear old Merlin moan,
              I’II wait a bit and say a prayer and hope it gets me home.
              Itazuke tower, this is Air Force 801
              I’m turning on the downwind leg, my prop has overrun
              My coolant’s overheated, the gauge says 1-2-1
              You’d better call the crash crew, and get them on the run.
              Air Force 801, this is Itazuke tower
              I cannot call the crash crew, this is their coffee hour
              You’re not cleared in the pattern, that is plain to see
              So take it on around again, we have some VIP.
              Itazuke tower, this is Air Force 801
              I’m turning on the downwind leg, I see your biscuit gun
              My engine’s runnin’ ragged, and the coolant’s gonna blow
              I’m gonna prang a Mustang, so look out down below.
              Itazuke tower, this is Air Force 801
              I’m turning on the final, and running on one lung
              I’m gonna land this Mustang, no matter what you say
              I’ve gotta get my charts fixed up before that Judgment Day,
              Air Force 801, this is Judgment Day
              You’re in Pilot’s Heaven, and you are here to stay
              You just bought a Mustang, and you bought it well
              The famous Air Force 801 was sent straight down to Hell.

    6. It would appear his train of thought was derailed when his boiler exploded due to overpressure when the relief valve failed. Maybe if he’d just coupled to another car this would have all been avoided.

  12. Had I not seen this elsewhere I would have thought it the annual April Fool’s column.

  13. He was coming down the mountain doing 90 miles an hour
    When the whistle broke into a scream!
    Well they found him in the grass with his hand on the throttle
    he was scalded to death by the steam.

    1. She was coming down the mountain, doing 90 miles an hour
      When the chain on her moped broke;

      Well they found her in the grass…

        1. Or “the handle bars rammed down her throat”.

          Don’t matter. Ole John made a great recording of that one.

          Old 97 was actually a mail train and the wreck was because the air pressure in the breaking system hadn’t built up enough to slow the train for the grade.

          Look it up. It’s a great story that made a great song. Wish we could all sing it along.

          1. No thanks; that “Train Wreck of a Movie” shows up around here enough as it is.

            However, thanks for The Monkees!

  14. The best part is the track stops way short of the ward, parallel to the ship. There is no way he could have hit the ship that involves the rules of physics.

    1. ^this! Friction is a bitch and trains aren’t good ATVs. You’d figure “an Engineer” would understand this, unless his cheese slid off his cracker…

      1. That’s my take. There is no way he was even scratching the paint.

        IDIOT.

      2. Hondo, report to the Urinalysis Coordinator Petty Officer. These’s a test waiting…
        *grin*

        1. Sorry, amigo – unless I somehow get recalled to active duty, my days of taking “whiz quizzes” ended some time back. Tell the UCPO not to wait up for me. (smile)

  16. Did he attempt to get up to 88 miles per hour like Doc instructed?
    “Where I’m going I don’t need tracks”

  18. OK, so the USS Torsk torpedoed a train, and ballsy folks from the USS Barb blew one up, BUT… has there ever been a ship sunk by a train?

  19. He had a plan but it went off the rails, and now it’s just a train wreck.

    Funniest part of that is that it’s NOT a metaphor!

  20. “The world is watching.”

    Is a Q anon tag line.

    Awfully close to “The whole world is watching”.

    And this kind of crazy conspiracy theorist has Q cultist written all over him

    1. Ermigawd, he didn’t say “Orange Man Bad” once! Close with Q-Anon, but somehow he avoided it. Somehow, this defied all possibilities and isn’t (He Who Must Be Named for Everything)’s fault!

    1. Where he’s headed, he won’t be driving a train… he’ll be pulling it.

  25. Well, I’m confused. In 1968 I went on a Naval hospital ship off of Hue. I thought it was the Comfort but now I can’t find any ref that my memory is correct.

    And, no, I wasn’t wounded. I was with the 3/82nd (ABN)(SEP) in beauiful Phu Bai and had to have a hearing and eye test. My bud, the Aviation Det CO heard this and said he always wanted to do a carrier landing and this would probably be his only chance so off we went since the war was quiet. He thought it was off Hue but it was near the DMZ so after two hours of a turbine and staring at an ocean I couldn’t hear or see shit. I got a pencil whip pass.

    1. sj, the ship was probably the USS Repose (AH-16). She was on active duty during our time there in Viet of the Nam.

      1. Y E S !!!! You’re right! I could have been marked as a phony had I had claimed Comfort. Tnx!

        1. You’re Welcome. According to her Wiki entry, she was a three war veteran before being scrapped out as too long in the tooth.

        2. No one would make any such claim, sj. Forgetting the name of a ship you never actually visited is hardly a case of Stolen Valor.

          Now about the do-rag and vest…
          *grin*

    2. Either USS Repose (AH-16) or USS Sanctuary (AH-17) as both were there then. Probably the Sanctuary as it was off the I Corps tactical area moving around, while the Repose was at Da Nang proper.

      1. Well, now I don’t know. If I ever tell this story again (doubtful) I’ll just say Hospital Ship. I know the helo crew was excited about the venture.

      2. Yep, you’re probably right. After reading the Wiki on the Sanctuary and her rotating schedule, more than likely it was her versus the Repose.

        Thank You.

    1. Likely not totaled, but it will need some serious time in the shops before returning to service, it looks like the front plate was bent to hell and we’re talking about 1” steel plate! It’ll likely need a new fuel tank and the traction motors will probably need to be replaced. As long as the frame isn’t bent and it wasn’t in a fire, a good Shop Crew can work wonders!

  27. I knew a driver that was sent to a farm he had not been to b-4 to pick up what milk he could. It was the spring flush when cows really produce. He only had room left for a couple thousand pounds but he went. There were two ways in there both over the tracks. One was steep and the other level but he didn’t know that. He headed up over the steep crossing and he said all he could see was a big brite light. He kept it floored and the train broke that milk tanker in two. My cousin saw it happen and she said it looked like a geyser . CB handle was Barn Yard Special.

    1. I’m trying to remember the joke Flip Wilson (another USAF veteran) told about the guy taking a test to get a job with a train company. He was shown some signs and asked what they meant and what he would do. He was shown a sign and said that meant a train was coming from the south and he would stop any south bound trains until the oncoming train passed. He was shown another sign and said it meant a train was coming from the north and he would stop any north bound trains until that train had passed. He was shown a third sign that showed a north bound and a south bound train were both on the same track, he said would go home and get his brother. When asked why he’d do that, the man replied, “Because my brother has never seen a train wreck.”

  28. with all the good rock n roll and nobody mentions Grand Funk Railroad…..

    Strange days indeed as Mr Lennon once said

    1. Or Midnight Train to Georgia…
      Next time some idiot tries to hit a ship with a train someone should dust this thread off

  31. My guess is that he was operating the train drunk, and has concocted this tale in an effort to escape accountability for that action.

  35. When he gets to prison, he’ll be pulling a train aright, just not what he thinks it will be!

  36. I expect to see this “engineer’s” story on r/TIFU next week…

    what a maroon!

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