WAUKESHA, Wis. — Bruce Rogers says that when a hot air balloon with people in it was caught in his train Wednesday evening in southeastern Wisconsin, he felt helpless.
“The worst thing is watching it unfold and not being able to do something about it,” Rogers tells Trains News Wire.
What Rogers says he saw was a hot air balloon caught by freight cars and dragged along the Canadian National right-of-way through Burlington, Wis. He says the balloon’s basket and the people in it went from a “dead stop to 30 miles an hour.”
“I looked through my rear-view mirror. It’s never going to end well. It never does,” Rogers says.
Three people in the balloon were seriously injured and taken to area hospitals for treatment. Several local, state, and federal agencies are investigating the incident.
Rogers is a locomotive engineer and a railroader of 44 years with service in New Zealand, on the former Wisconsin Central, and now, Canadian National. He was operating train M347 on the first leg of its run from Indiana to British Columbia near Burlington shortly after 8 p.m. Wednesday, when he saw hot air balloons in the area. He lost sight of them but was concerned when he saw them again. They were hovering about 200 feet above ground.
Rogers says that he slowed his train of lumber centerbeams to about 5 miles under the 35-mph speed limit near Burlington. About 10 car lengths after he passed one balloon, it touched the ground and immediately deflated.
“Then it started to move to the train and I immediately placed [the train] into emergency,” Rogers says. “I don’t know if it helped or anything. People were still seriously injured. I hope my actions were enough to save some of their lives.”
By the time he was able to stop his train, the balloon’s remains were about 1,500-feet back from the lead locomotive, or head-end, and that emergency crews were already on the scene by the time his conductor walked back to them.
Rogers says he took a day off of work on Thursday, but doesn’t say that he’s personally rattled by the experience. What does bother him though, are insensitive comments posted on social media about the bizarre event.
“Pity people who have no idea make snide comments on things they know nothing about,” he wrote, in part, on Trains Magazine’s Facebook page.
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