OK, so this is a weird situation even for me. Today, my wife and I had a meeting with my son's principal. After the meeting, my wife and I split up in two different cars. I took my son to karate class and she took our middle daughter to collect my youngest daughter from day care.

After stopping at a gas station for a hot dog for my son, we drove to Cramerton, the small town where my son goes to karate class. We arrived and my son changed into his karate uniform in the van, while I talked to my brother on the phone.

I started noticing fire trucks going both directions on the streets, along with ambulances and several police cars. Police officers were even directing traffic by the intersection that goes underneath a train track bridge over the main street into town.

Soon, I started seeing helicopters in the sky, which for a small town is extra strange. Then about the same time, I saw a guy get out of a car parked near me, and start humping two very large cameras with telephoto lenses up the street and around the corner.

I was thinking about getting out of the car to see what was happening, when I started to see people up on the hill next to me where the train tracks were located, start to gather on the tracks looking up the tracks in the direction of the helicopters and photographer.

So with my curiosity getting peeked, I got out of the car, climbed up the steps to the tracks and started to walk a little bit near the tracks to see if I could see around the bend.

I thought maybe a train had derailed. The police weren't evacuating the town or anything so I wasn't worried about chemical spills.

I'm still talking on the phone with my brother while I'm walking and after a minute or two a police officer yelled up to myself and the other people (about 100 meters away further down the track) to clear away from the tracks.

I agree, but ask back to him what had happened.

He informs me that, 'Its a crime scene.'

Well, that was informative and not informative at all.

About the same time my sons sensei shows up. I drop my son off and drive out of the parking lot trying to figure out how to drive up the street and see what is happening, thinking there might be an article in it or something.

The police have a couple of the streets blocked off and so I start navigating a old subdivision trying to work my way up the tracks on the road.

I finally come up to a street running along the tracks, and see a freight train stopped on the tracks surrounded by some of the police cars and one ambulance and maybe some fire fighter vehicles, plus about 50 people in this town that probably has a population of 250.

I find a place to park and get out of the car, and had the conversation that you can hear with the recording that goes with this article.



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In retrospect that conversation was a little weird and morbid, but keep in mind that the people I'm talking to live about 40 feet from this train track and this type of thing happens and has happened quite a bit over the years.