Maitland Derail

Back around 1983, a southbound Seaboard System freight rounded a curve at speed in Maitland, FL to discover that the local had left the switch for the propane distributor open. The crew dumped the air and jumped. Fortunately, the local had been making a pick-up, rather than dropping a full LPG tank, or this would have been much worse. No serious injuries, but the lead unit's front end was buried over the coupler in the sand at the end of the spur. Lesson learned for the railroad: the switch should be tied into the signal system so that the block won't indicate clear with a switch misaligned.