SACRAMENTO-
A man drove into the railroad in Old Sacramento, stalling weekend excursion train services for a few hours Saturday morning.
Sacramento Southern Railroad Trainmaster Mike Collins witnessed the driver go out of control.
“I asked, ‘Well, what’s this guy doing?'” Collins said. “Basically, we thought he was down there, and thought, ‘O.K., he is going to get off the track.’ And then we saw the back up lights come on, so we said, ‘O.K., something is wrong.'”
Witnesses said the man drove his red Chevy erratically on and off the boardwalk near Joe’s Crab Shack and onto the rail area, until he got stuck on top of the rails. They said he was blowing into his own Breathalyzer before authorities arrived to arrest him.
State Rangers said the driver is Lawrence Clark. Authorities said he was not cooperative with Rangers, as he was being taken into custody.
Clark and his car did some minor damage to the rails, and because of that, the 11 a.m. Sacramento Southern Railroad train excursion was cancelled.
However, volunteers with the Railroad Museum “Maintenance of Way” crew quickly fixed the broken pieces.
“A tie plate, which is the piece of equipment that distributes the weight from the tie, got pulled out,” volunteer Richard Paul said. We repaired that, we re-spiked the track, and everything is now certified as being safe, and ready to roll on.”
The train tour resumed by noon.
Paul said they are a valuable asset to the preservation of the rail system in Sacramento.
“If we weren’t here, I don’t know if there would be trains running because they would have to pay to have all this work done,” Paul said. “And that would be very expensive.”
No one was injured in the incident. Clark has been booked into the Sacramento County Jail.