<img src="http://bellsouthpwp.net/j/b/jbms12/Pics5/underpass.jpg" align="right" vspace="2"hspace="2"/>There's an underpass, almost identical to the one in the photo, under the Burlington Northern railroad here in town. The land is flat and when the underpass was built they basically dug a hole under the railroad, and both ways requires going down a fairly steep incline to go under it and up an equally steep incline on the other side. The underpass is on the main state highway that goes through town and is the main route for trucks, I have to go under it going to work and back home everyday. The underpass was built in 1954 when it was the Frisco railroad, trucks were smaller than those on the roads today and it was built to give a foot clearance over the trailers of that time. The trailers used now are much taller, as well as much longer, and as a result of the underpass height and inclines several times a year a trailer is too tall for the underpass and will get stuck.
Most of the trucks that get stuck aren't jammed in too bad and can be pulled out, that usually takes an hour or so but occasionally one will really get jammed in that can't be pulled out. When that happened in the past the city got a humongous jack from the railroad and jacked the underpass up enough to pull the truck out. It takes several hours to get the jack, get it positioned, the underpass jacked up and the truck pulled out. Traffic is always backed up for miles and there's always a lot of pi$$ed off people.
A couple of days ago a truck jammed a tall trailer in, really jammed in. The police and fire department people were called, the police blocked the highway and traffic started backing up. The truck driver, firedepartment people and police walked around looking at the situation for about a half hour and had pretty much arrived at the conclusion they would have to jack the underpass up to get the trailer out.
Just about that time a little black boy about 10 years old rode his bicycle down the sidewalk that goes under the underpass and stopped to look. He looked for a few seconds and yelled at the closest person to him, who happened to be the truck driver. "Hey Man, how y'all gonna get that thing out of there?" The truck driver said they hadn't decided yet but it looked like they would have to jack the underpass. The boy said, "Hey man, why don't you just let some air out of the tires and drive it out?" Bingo!! They let most of the air out of the tires and the truck driver backed the rig out until the tires could be aired up. In 40 years of having trucks stuck in the underpass, no one had thought of letting air out of the tires.
Most of the trucks that get stuck aren't jammed in too bad and can be pulled out, that usually takes an hour or so but occasionally one will really get jammed in that can't be pulled out. When that happened in the past the city got a humongous jack from the railroad and jacked the underpass up enough to pull the truck out. It takes several hours to get the jack, get it positioned, the underpass jacked up and the truck pulled out. Traffic is always backed up for miles and there's always a lot of pi$$ed off people.
A couple of days ago a truck jammed a tall trailer in, really jammed in. The police and fire department people were called, the police blocked the highway and traffic started backing up. The truck driver, firedepartment people and police walked around looking at the situation for about a half hour and had pretty much arrived at the conclusion they would have to jack the underpass up to get the trailer out.
Just about that time a little black boy about 10 years old rode his bicycle down the sidewalk that goes under the underpass and stopped to look. He looked for a few seconds and yelled at the closest person to him, who happened to be the truck driver. "Hey Man, how y'all gonna get that thing out of there?" The truck driver said they hadn't decided yet but it looked like they would have to jack the underpass. The boy said, "Hey man, why don't you just let some air out of the tires and drive it out?" Bingo!! They let most of the air out of the tires and the truck driver backed the rig out until the tires could be aired up. In 40 years of having trucks stuck in the underpass, no one had thought of letting air out of the tires.
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