First Post: Thursday, January 4, 2024

As we do each year, we remember the events that took place on the railroad tracks at Chase, Md., on this date in 1987.

It was not a terror attack. Nor was it a mass shooting or a firefight on a battlefield or eradication via genocide or ethnic cleansing. It was not a trudge on a death march of forced migration. There was no famine or flood, no earthquake or wildfire, no airborne toxic event or global pandemic. It was not born of anger or hate. It was not any show of political or popular unrest, no retributive demonstration of power, no prolonged exercise in cruelty or domination by one band of humans over another. No.

It was much simpler than that. It was one train, a passenger train, making its way along the tracks as scheduled, traveling north, having already stopped at Washington, D.C., now heading for the station at Wilmington, Del., and then after that proceeding to its stop in Philadelphia. It was the same route this train had made without incident day after day, oh, maybe a little bit late or a lot late on most of those days, but arriving at all its appointed stations as planned, and then starting all over again with the next northbound train. The route was routine. The several hundred travelers on this northbound train were expecting as much, going to where they needed to get during the post-holiday season, arriving at the destination of the next thing they had planned.

On this day, though, Sunday, Jan. 4, 1987, this stretch of railroad track that this northbound train was supposed to occupy free-and-clear, unchallenged, with supreme right-of-way, was soon to be joined by another train, a freighter. The passenger train, scheduled and appointed, traveling at speed northward, would encounter the freight train, unscheduled, not appointed, traveling faster than it should have been. The freight train was now switching onto the stretch of railroad track meant for the passenger train alone. 

No terror or violence, no power other than that generated by the impact of two great trains coming together and combining their mass and velocity and tangling themselves on the snowy ground amidst the trees standing alongside the railroad tracks. No hatred or anger, no death wish from any of the passengers or crew. (It was later learned that the engineer of the freight train had been chemically impaired; he almost certainly was not murderous from that, merely blindingly reckless.) It was, on the whole, nothing more than an unscheduled collision of time and space, unpremeditated by man; it was, as these things have always been called, an accident.

No one on the passenger train arrived at their destination on-time that day, or even a little bit late. The lucky ones were late by a lot, and they did not arrive by train anymore. The not-as-lucky ones were too injured to continue traveling, maybe getting to where they needed to go a day or two later, or however long it took to be cleared to leave, but they got there eventually.  

And for some, luck ran off the tracks and came to a sudden and terrible stop forever: Sixteen people died in the accident. Thirty-seven years later, may their memory continue to be a blessing. 

BestLine Racing Society Recap:

Took the morning off to have an extended meditation & gratitude session on being one of the lucky ones who got to go home the next day, via automobile north on I-95. The response of the residents of Chase, Md., who lived along the tracks, their backyards and clotheslines and swing sets and sandboxes in plain sight of the wreckage, was heroic, angelic on that Sunday. The makeshift triage they provided — the blankets, the coffee, the cocoa, the comfort and conversation mere minutes after the crash — was grace-on-Earth. 

Since that day, we have come to understand that while a person is in control of his thoughts & emotions & actions & commitment & effort, they still may come-up woefully short of their planned destination, the appointed goal or aim or objective. Man & God are no match for Fate. For every inspirational story of someone who beat the odds, or who achieved their lifelong dream, please do remember that there are many, many, many more  stories that had a different or even diametrically opposed outcome. The pingpong balls of time & space randomly bounce around the cosmic hopper, and the numbers come up the way they’re supposed to. And sometimes it’s bliss and sometimes it’s a miss — and all of that is OK. It’s OK.

We normally disdain preaching, screeching & beseeching; however, maybe there’s a little wisdom to pass along here: No matter how life has shaken-out to where you are now, or how it appears to be going one way or the other, Fate has been decreed. The Calivinists might have been right about predestination & station & all of that. But what they failed to consider is that each moment is unique; your chance to push the cosmic pingpong balls, if not to your favor then at least to someone else’s, with a gentle word, a stronger encouragement, a warm blanket in a freezing forest alongside the train wreck.

Enough of those moments of grace & mercy, given & received, and that’s a pretty good life right there; maybe not the one you had hoped for, but one that you can say you lived the best you could.

As far as the equine pingpong balls go, a couple of post-press-time connections from last night’s (Wednesday’s) late action: At Chas. Town, W.Va., Race 4 went to #8 Tough Enough (.236 Win Prob / 3.24-1 Fair Odds / 4.08-1 Premium Odds) at $20.20; completing your winning $133-even exacta was #1 Travel Smart (.165 / 5.06 / 7.48), with the premium price on that comboa (comboa!) being $69.19. Next race there, #5 Victory Royale (.254 / 2.94 / 3.72) ran to that billing at $11-even; your winning $102.20 daily double had a premium price of $47.95.

As for today (Thursday) it was, absent the usual morningtime (PST) ovals, down only to Delta & Turfway.

BestLine Racing Society Nightcap:

Chas. Town again!

Strongshots

BestLine Output: 4Jan24 1CT

BestLine Output: 4Jan24 3CT

Longshots

BestLine Output: 4Jan24 2CT

BestLine Output: 4Jan24 5CT