Another unforgetable Charactor .. John Fabrizi...

One day a short time after he had retired, he came down to work a bit later than usual, and asked me if I would take him to Wyoming Ont. near Sarnia, at which I told him I would take him anywhere, if he put the gas in the car, my 1951 Buick with the straight 8 and got about 8 MPG.

John told me that there was a bad wreck down there and that someone had called for his help.

I headed off to Wyoming with my brother Max and Robert S. after work, with a stop off at Pat's Steak on a Bun.

When we got there we found a big 6100 series Steam Engine 300 feet or so off in a field with eight or ten refer cars off as well with doors open, and sea food in cans all over the place, also the 250 Axillary from Sarnia, which was on it's side, it seems the greenhorn crew from Sarnia didn't know how tro properly use the machine.

We walked the scene while the Toronto Auxiliary was being set up, and it should be pointed out that, the Toronto Auxiliary was Steam so they needed water for the boiler, the Sarnia Auxiliary was diesel.

Initially the Toronto Auxiliary had water but because of the magnitude of the derailment would need more water several times.

The way they got the water was to call the fire department, in Wyoming I guess, and they would bring their pumper to the crossing and fill up the auxiliary with water that way.

The first order of business was to re rail the Sarnia Auxiliary which had to be taken to the Shop and checked over making sure everything was OK, then get busy on the rest of the wreck.

It's my understanding that the fire department didn't want any money for payment, but said they would like some of the seafood that was lying all over the tracks in cans, at which time someone gave the OK for that.

What wasn't understood at the time, was that this was a through train from Vermont, to Chicago
with no stops in Canada, as this was the shortest route, and none of these cars should, or would clear customs, and seeing as they had been off loaded in Canada someone caught shit.

There had been that evening in the London area and there were hydro poles down all along the road, and we were doing about 90MPH when we passed a car sitting just off the road, and I thought Cop, we needed gas anyway and a half mile up the road we pulled into a gas station when in turns a cop, I guess the one I noticed, he just gave us the eyeball and off he went.

We got back to work at 7:30AM to let Bob get his car and Max and I went home, we left work at 11:30 PM the previous night, went to the restaurant, then to Wyoming, inspected the wreck a mile up the track and were back at 7:30 which means we were really dusting our ass.

Allan