Bomb Squad Called About Model Train

 

Yes, you heard that right--a bomb squad was called to investigate a "suspicious device" found on a road near Bechtelsville, PA on Oct. 30.

 

The story was published by the Reading Eagle, under the header "Device found on Bechtelsville street was model train,"

 

Here's the complete story:

 

"A state police bomb squad determined that a suspicious device found this morning on a street near Bechtelsville was a model train locomotive that apparently fell from a truck and was flattened by other vehicles.

"A Colebrookdale Township police officer spotted the device and some batteries about 9 a.m. in the middle of Mill Street between South Main Street and Route 100 in Washington Township, near the Colebrookdale line, said Trooper David C. Beohm, a state police spokesman.

"The officer called for state police, who cover Washington Township. Troopers called their bomb squad. A state police fire marshal and a agents with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also investigated.

"Mill Street has been reopened.

"Beohm said it appeared to be a larger size locomotive from a model train set. Troopers haven’t identified who it belonged to."

 

At first, I thought it was a joke. But a check of the paper's website and Facebook page show it was real.

 

The story prompted on person to write on the paper's Facebook page: "Clearly Al Qaeda is probing for weaknesses."

 

Part of me sympathizes with the trooper--all those wires and metal and, if it had a decoder, some computer-like looking stuff on top.

 

I know that I have taken extra precautions whenever I carried a locomotive with me while travelling by plane. 

Since I almost always only use carry-on luggage, I take the unit out of the suitcase before it goes through the X-ray machine. I have no interest in being taken to a small room and being strip searched because someone saw metal and wires and a computer chip on the scanner.

 

But what I'm thinking about the Reading Eagle story is this: Did it really fall off a truck, or did some model railroader have the misfortune of putting his locomotive on the roof of his (or her) car while he/she put other things away, then drove off forgetting all about it?

If that's the case, that modeler knows where it is now.