[SFS] Drunk Grizzly Bears cause railroad havoc...

[@Alawo-]

Ah, the circle of life. Trains drop grain Grain ferments Bears eat grain Trains eat bears Nature is truly amazing.

[@Shadowtiger2564]

Drunk bears hanging around a railroad sounds like the opening to a bad gay joke

[@subnormality5854]

Nah it's a pr0n title - "Wasted bears get absolutely RAILED 3"

[@MikuJess]

"When I said I wanted drunk bears to run a train on me, this isn't what I meant!"

[@94_Chevy_Z71]

Ok new meme idea: whiskey bottle with BNSF logo. Named "Loco Grizzly Mash" with a grizzly wearing a trainman's cap and overalls nappin' by the tracks

[@SDE1994]

Smokey with a jack daniels would be the logo for a shortline branch of the ES&D

[@jamesgroccia644]

⁠@@SDE1994Only *YOU* can prevent rail sobriety.

[@brayidur]

I want that as a merch item.

[@HighballMachineWorks]

I have a teddy plush from my childhood that fits that bill, I got it at Tweetsie Railroad in NC, just swap the Tweetsie logo on the bandanna for the ES&D. (I’d include a picture if I could but you can probably google it fairly easily)

[@adformer9212]

Looks like we got the sequel to Cocaine Bear now

[@6yjjk]

Bears are resourceful when it comes to food. Wouldn't put it past them to figure out how to derail a train to get more of that sweet, sweet alcomahol. There was a story here in Finland some years ago about beekeepers trying to keep the local bears away from their hives. They tried electric fences. The bears simply knocked a tree over onto the fence, sauntered along it, and got the goodies.

[@PikaPetey]

Bear... "hhuugghhaa! Ooh bother!! Christopher Robin i think there was something in that grain...."

[@Mrcake0103]

PikaPetey? Spotted in _railfan_ KZbin? ONE OF US! ONE OF US! ONE OF US!

[@kevinhicks1108]

Being from Montana originally, I remember when this happened. There were thousands of bushels of corn (I think it was) spilled, got wet from a combination of precipitation and the river, fermented into a wonderful moonshine mash, and got ALL the bears drunk. News stations had a blast with the jokes about this one!

[@kevinhicks1108]

Oh, did I mention that drunk grizzlies can become quite beligerent and agressive? Imagine the biggest guy you've ever seen in the bar that has had a couple too many and decided to take on the world, and multiply that by about 10. As memory serves, the park service/forest service closed that whole area to hiking/camping/boating/fishing/hunting for a decent amount of time due to the drunk bears.

[@Hyce777]

Oh my word. lol!

[@Johndoe-jd]

So what would the ES&D do in this situation? Would the drunk engineers cancel out the drunk bears in a lawsuit (basically a man hit a bear lawsuit) or would the drunk engineers hang out beside the drunk bears and no work would be done.

[@robertbalazslorincz8218]

Drunk reenactment of Emperor of the North ensues

[@complexcanvas3825]

The ed&d engineers would be right there with the bears getting drunk

[@fetzie23]

Surely JohnDoe writes a strongly-worded letter to the drunk bears, billing them for the time they wasted 😂

[@TheEpicDragonCat]

I’ve been to Glacier Park. Had a BNSF freight train go right over my head by the middle fork of the flathead river. Hands down the craziest train encounter I’ve experienced.

[@AppalachianMountaineer1863]

Reminds me of the time a high school friend’s cattle got drunk from eating too much fermented corn silage and the bull decided he wanted some prized black angus nookie from the adjacent farm so he kicked out the posts of the electric fence and went over to get some. Which obviously the adjacent farmer wasn’t exactly pleased about. Drunk animals are very humanistic in their behavior 😂

[@jasongoodman3495]

Drunk grizzly bear, that is not something I ever want to see up close😂

[@ayayaybamba3445]

I remember a similar story where a bottom unloading grain hopper hit something and one of the chutes got partially opened filling the area between the tracks with grain. It basically became like a 2 mile long feed trough for all the wildlife and yes, it too fermented.

[@philipdahl9001]

I worked as a fireman on Amtrak between Whitefish, MT and Havre MT inthe mid 80s after some of these derailment started occurring. Near the top of the pass the bears had dug large pits to get to the fermented corn, in this case. Some of the pits were within fifty feet or so of the main, so we would often a good look at the intoxicated bruins. I discovered that if I blew the horn one large male would sit up wave his front legs around trying to catch his balance! Quite a show for the passengers. The BN eventually told us to stop whistling there and for the conductors not to inform the passengers about the bears.

[@SteamfanScott]

An unrelated bear story, this one involving black ones. Back in the day, a local coal town here had an open dump at an old strip mine with black bears that would live there and eat the food scraps. After decades of human interaction, the bears had become friendly to the point of people would be able to hand feed them. My grandpa would take me up there on his four wheeler when I was a little kid and while I never fed one or got particularly close to one (I wanted to but grandpa wasn't too fond of the idea, lol), I remember seeing them rummaging around the dump hunting for food treasures and thinking about how magical and cool it was to see those big black bears in the "wild". There was a story (maybe one like those in Little Engines and Big Men, lol) of a drunken man going up and slapping one across the face. It apparently chased him down and pinned him up against the mining highwall. It didn't kill or even hurt him, but just went back and finished its meal, the man in question learning a lesson he probably never forgot.... Thankfully it was later reclaimed by the state, but I always wondered what happened to them and how they fared after losing their food source.

[@ELDRGW]

Just recently the forest service went after bnsf for spilling grain on the tracks and hitting several bears in the same area

[@435now]

Microsoft put out a train simulator back in the early 2000’s and the freight portion was Marias pass. Fast forward 11 years and I was on a trip in the area where the lumber mill is/was and was able to recognize the area from the game.

[@haxorouse3265]

I have taken the Empire Builder, I have very clear memories of approaching the grade into glacier while having dinner in the dining car... at sunset, by the time we got into glacier it was already becoming night so we couldn't see most of the scenery, one of the many shortcomings of only running one train a day

[@IndustrialParrot2816]

Fun Fact, Grizzly Bears only live in 3 US states right now, Alaska, Montana, and Washington since Glacier National Park and North Cascades National Park are the only places in the lower 48 that still have Grizzles and of course they were recently reintroduced to North Cascades

[@kennethrobinson2962]

Don't forget Idaho too, there's been recent reports of Grizzlies in the CDA NF and Selkirk mtns

[@susantreibs6593]

They are also in Wyoming, ie Yellowstone and Teton Parks, and surrounding areas.

[@IndustrialParrot2816]

@@kennethrobinson2962 oh they Have been?

[@IndustrialParrot2816]

@@susantreibs6593 oh interesting I didn't realize they made it back to Yellowstone

[@awildjared1396]

Kinda funny, being from california and seeing the grizzly bear on our flag all the time you'd think we would have some, but not for a long time

[@Spanderson99]

Presumably, this is how folks figured out alcohol back in the day! I’ve heard of this from guys up in Canada as well, but maybe not quite the same scale. One of my favourite bits of RR trivia.

[@Pyrotrainthing]

Never ask a A Woman- Her age A Man- His salary The BNSF- What they were sued for in the state of Montana in 2023

[@sonicnick5192]

Next sfs inspiration, have you ever have any moments of engines, rolling stock or just something that shouldn’t be working but was?

[@Hyce777]

Hmm. I'll have to think about that.

[@robertbalazslorincz8218]

That was basically the Geep not even Smiley Man could kill... right?

[@pootispiker2866]

BNSF: no matter how far the car tumbles, go pick it up. NS: Ssh, the train cars are sleeping. Wait until they're awake.

[@Joeybagofdonuts76]

As soon as you said "the grain gets wet". I was like 😮 oh no. 😅

[@dantepark3540]

Hey Hyce, heard about the major snow storms happening in the Golden area, my sister lives there and just wanted to say be safe. Your content is amazing and each and every episode you upload is filled with pure joy, have a great day and be safe!

[@rshackelford4445]

Ive heard stories of cattle on the line but never drunk grizzly bears. This is definitely a new story to tell the boys.

[@NWFProductions]

I remember hearing this story from an old engineer that was my neighbor. Just recently back in mid October another westbound loaded grain went on the ground about 5 miles east of Essex, MT. Being from Kalispell I took a trip up to get loads of pictures, this time almost all of the grain was cleaned up and animal fences were put up.

[@thecolonel4037]

re: drunk bears... A T-shirt from Eagle Products [the perpetrators of the "Bear Whiss Beer shirts] of 4 very drunk bears in a 57 Chevy convertable, with the caption "Where in the Hell is Kalispel?". They also did the Yellowstone F.D. shirt "We tried and tried but the park still fried!". with the Bear whiss bear doing his thing on the fire. classic.

[@dominicdeeble4829]

I work out of Whitefish, the Hi Line Sub is sure a beautiful run to Havre. It feels exactly like Microsoft Train Simulator. Grateful for the beautiful runs.

[@andywomack3414]

Not very related to this story, but I was riding with my dad, an engineer for the B&O, on an Amtrak train approaching Washington, DC at 70 mph. It was dark, and rainy and we struck two cows on the track. Felt a slight bump. A few minutes later the conductor showed up and asked what we had hit. I guess the jolt was felt throughout the train. Those cows practically exploded on impact. The cow-catcher was covered with red and green slime even after 20 or so miles running in the rain.

[@Austriantrainguy]

When I was a kid some friends and I had an enemy. This enemy was the old "Ferl" (Austrian short form for Ferdinand) who had a farmers house with some sheep, pigs and mainly chickens and he absolutely hated kids. So we found it would be a great idea to climb onto the tree next to his house and throw bits of bread soaked in petrolium or alcohol into his yard where all his chicken were. Just an hour or so later the chickens would have escaped his yard onto the street and into the village while bumping into everything near them.

[@jamiesuejeffery]

I have brewed beer, mead, cider for over 30 years now. Commercial and home brewers (like me) add a specific yeast to the batch to get the desired results. However, there are several Abby breweries (for instance, in Germany) that have had natural fermentation for centuries now. I have not seen this personally, but if the conditions are correct (and wild yeast is omnipresent (sourdough bread)) then the fallen, unharvested fruit ferments with the natural yeast. Humans don’t generally eat, “rotting” fruit, but animals do, and well, the answer is obvious… they have had one too many at the local pub (or apple tree). (FWIW: I lived in Leadville, Colorado for several years, and have taken both my kids to the Colorado Railroad Museum there in Golden, near the Coors Brewery (I took them there as well.).)

[@johnbeck3270]

Your sense of humor narrating this story was choice! I’m surprised these super grain trains haven’t had problems with other wildlife. The hopper doors on some of these cars don’t seal as well as they should and the grain will fallout on the roadbed. I’m sure it also would ferment over time.

[@RexAnger.]

The smaller spillages tend to get eaten by birds first. Unless you get a lot of moisture on the spill shortly afterwards. In which case it all rots together (with that brief period of fermentation in the middle) and can form a nice bed of organic material. Some of which then sprouts, and you get surprisingly thick green shoots attempting to pop up in the gauge, around the loadouts or even on the wagons themselves from time to time.

[@johnknippenberg-LandmarkYards]

That is a crazy misfortune. At least they didn't shoot up a town.

[@daviddryden8088]

Sort of reminds me of a movie I saw a couple a weeks ago called Cocaine Bear. Another true story, although for the movie, it was embellished quite a bit. Still, I'm thinking a chance meeting of a drunk bear could be most unfortunate...especially if the bear is an angry drunk. 😊

[@TheOneTrueDragonKing]

Was about to bring this up - was wondering if this story was an inspiration behind Cocaine Bear. Question, answered.

[@ThatGuyAt2FPS]

It is great to know that this finally got its own video. I think I first heard this story when it came up in the RO collabs with KAAAAAN!!! *birbs*

[@LoPhatKao]

think i'd rather have a drunk bear than a drunk moose at least an aggressive bear isn't out of the ordinary

[@anthonyj7989]

Drunk animals are not new, and they like fermented flowers and fruits. I have heard of drunk elephants, monkeys and in Australia it happens a lot with birds and possums. However, a drunk bear is one thing - but a herd of drunk elephants is on another level.

[@hueyiroquois3839]

At least the bears died happy, and they have to worry about hangovers.

[@4nonym0u5]

drunk bears is **not** on my 2024 bingo

[@ShadowDragon8685]

Oh, you should pencil it back in! All those pesky environmental and occupational regulations are going away, which means the railways are gonna spill stuff more often, and nobody will make them clean it up.

[@NoahDutkewycz]

Don’t you hate it when the bears steal the old alcohol out of a recked Rio grand southern caboose?🥃

[@jimsutter2748]

About 24 years ago, I was in Ontario riding the Sudbury-White River Budd Car. We used to go fishing up at Lake Esnagi, so the train would dump us off at a mile marker (88). On the way in, we saw tons of apples and grain that had dumped into the water on the side of the tracks a week or so before our trip from a freight train that had some cars derail. The conductors told us that things were going to get weird by the time we were picked up for our return trip. Well, they were. All of the apples and grain fermented and the animals that were gorging themselves on it were stumbling around drunk. Coming around one bend, there was a moose on the tracks that was so drunk that it just stared at us while we tried to stop while blaring the horn. We hit it at about 35km/h. The conductors stopped the train and we all got out, they brought a kit with them. The train was fine (they said that we were lucky, because if it jumped a little it right before we hit it it would have likely come through the windshield). We walked back to the now very dead moose and they looked it over, then pulled out their kit; inside were butchering tools. We gutted and butchered the moose right on the side of the tracks. They gave my group about 25 pounds of meat for helping them butcher it, but most of it was given out to the people at the remote communities who were waiting at stops for mail and things that were being delivered by the train. When we arrived at White River, a Conservation Officer was there to meet us and fill out some paperwork so that we could legally possess the meat. I was in my late teens, but had been fishing up there since I was a little kid and the same handful of conductors ran that route, so they let me ride up in the cab with them. I had a front row seat to the whole event (and then helped the butchering). It is one of those never forget memories. Most people look at me like I am crazy when I tell them about it.

[@AllenTheLocoLiner]

Paddington 3: Overdose on Grain

[@patricksheary2219]

Hi Mark, a very bizarre story for sure. Like you say, a great example of new rules being written as the result of some accident. To echo your sentiment Mark poor unknowing bears but also funny as well. Many thanks Professor for sharing this unusual story with us. You’re an awesome storyteller, and as always, Mark, cheers to you!

[@michealfeeney8920]

@ 5:00 I would expect this to be even more of a problem as fall turns into winter and the Grizzlies are looking to finish fattening up before hibernating for the winter?

[@Xxdirtslinger07]

Great northern and Milwaukee road has a historic road house in Sioux City Iowa and bnsf runs all the historic routes around here. You need to come down sometime and check it out for yourself. Please come check it out and learn about our old railroad town. We even had an elevated railway back in the day. We still got a great northern steam engine. A Milwaukee shunter and two local railway engines also we got a little steam engine getting restored in the roundhouse

[@Xxdirtslinger07]

0:52 you talked about great northern and bnsf

[@MatecaCorp]

So THAT is what bears do in the woods! You could say it was a 'Grizzly' scene.

[@OfficialUSKRprogram]

They had one heckin party though

[@157RANDOM]

We've had a similar problem in northern Ontario, Canada. When the grain trains travel from the praries to ports in the east, they inevitably leak small amounts of grain from the doors in the bottom of the cars. So you'll end up with long stretches where there is a bunch of grain in between the rails for miles. The Moose are quite fond of this for obvious reasons, and when a train comes sometimes they have no choice but to run down the tracks, since the forest is so dense and sometimes the rock cuts and banks are so steep they can't escape. We hit a fair amount of moose every year, and the number one killer of elk in Ontario is trains. I have a friend who used to work for the ministry of natural resources who's job it was to reintroduce elk to areas in northern Ontario where they had all been killed by trains.

[@milkseparator3485]

The thumbnail... dude... this was the first thing I saw when I turned my phone on this morning... Also; good story! Marias Pass immediatly rang a bell... I went over it many times in Microsoft Train Simulator.

[@spencerdodd3400]

This reminds me of the story on my great grandmother’s farm a friend gave them a bunch of apples that had gone bad. So they gave the apples to the cows and they got drunk. The noises that they made were very weird for what I have heard. I could be wrong on details but it is true cows got drunk on the farm.

[@mafarnz]

The Canadian roads have to deal with this same exact situation, especially in Banff and Jasper areas.

[@JamesKubajak-c1i]

Interesting story! I do like wildlife as we as railroading, so this is something we can all learn from.

[@dethfan06]

Grandpa used to work at grain elevators. One of the things he talked about was when they were told government owned grain was to be inspected the day before they'd they would do what the inspector would by shining a light in the top of the silo. If anything moved they'd get written up so when they checked they'd shotgun down the silo until nothing moved anymore. MMM dead rodents and lead bb's.

[@mikeyallen-yk4ol]

Sounds like a story from the Californian Gold Rush in Hangtown, California when some store owner dump couple of barrels of brandied peaches that spoiled on to the street, and pigs running around that town eat the brandied peaches and the pigs got drunk from eating the brandied peaches. So few days of dealing with drunken pigs for Hangtown, California for the locals.

[@bacare1971]

I heard this story from from my dad while we were throwing marshmallows to the black bears at some dump when I was a kid.

[@Godzilla20191]

Yes finally more stories

[@jordonfreeman166]

You told this on a livestream after I superchatted you about it after you mentioned it in your podcast with kAN the same day .

[@robertbalazslorincz8218]

It was fun to drive the whole Marias Pass route in Trainz 2009 that one time

[@teamrose2134]

I wonder what the engineer was thinking when he saw the drunk bear in the middle of the tracks Engineer : ah shit it Drunk' Yogi Bear

[@stanleymcfadden6407]

That nothing like when winter comes to Alaska the Elks and mouse would use the clear track to get around and end up falling through bridges and get hit by a train you can imagine the bloody mess the train crews had to clean up.

[@bear470]

Ok, who had drunk grizzly slurry on their bingo card?

[@davidgrisez]

I have heard about squirrels getting drunk by eating fermented fruit. This is the first time I have heard of Grizzly Bears getting drunk by eating fermented grain. It is not just human beings that get drunk on alcohol, some animals get drunk on alcohol.

[@macmedic892]

So now we know what else bears do in the woods.

[@shimesu443]

Bears drunk off spilled grain from a train derailment was not on my bingo card this week...

[@TheDJ3520]

This is getting out of hand! Now even the bears are drunk!

[@JETZcorp]

There is an economist called David Friedman (yes, related to Milton) who says there are 2 ways to make cars in America. Build them in Detroit or grow them in Iowa. The way the latter works is, you grow a bunch of grain, load it up on a big ship headed for Japan, and in a couple weeks, the ship comes back with Toyotas on it. The point being that there's usually a reasonable bakance of trade unless one side can find a use for all the foreign currency they got from the exports. When US grain comes out, JP¥ comes in, and through the banking and exchange system, that eventually finds it's way to someone who wants it, such as Toyota or JVC or whatever. Point being, that's why Portland and Seattle get so many grain trains coming in and autoracks coming out. In a roundabout way, they really are getting bartered.

[@FSTM4003]

Guess the crews had to bear with the grizzlies

[@n2nitro444]

CN will double up container trains from Edmonton to Prince Rupert and back. They get up to 18-20k ft. A normal train is 10-12k ft. Must be nice to be a Coast to coast monopoly

[@SuperOwensTrainsYT]

seems like I got another gifted membership

[@JacobHofeldt-fq6ii]

I just learned about this in a class at the University of Montana

[@FelrinKirla]

Tales from the High Iron

[@garysprandel1817]

Have to imagine a grizzly would be a mean drunk so I'm envisioning a grizzly facing down an oncoming train going wadda you lookin atKATHUMP. Had a story that was a bit happier that got bounced around at the friend's memorial earlier this year but this guy was my ride or die for the last almost 40 years so he was my best man 26 years ago. One of the beverages at my batchelor party was this high test 14% alcohol plum wine with plums soaking in the bottle and after the party friend finished off the wine and not wanting to waste the plums tossed them over the railing of his balcony for the local squirrels. After a bit he noticed the squirrels around his condo complex were acting very odd and then put two and two together oh wait those plums were soaking in wine and I just tossed them to the squirrels. Yes my friend unleashed the alcohol fueled squirrelpocalypse on a northwest Chicago suburb.

[@TeimonKauppa739TeimoJake]

Hahaha drunk grizzly bears LOL

[@NORTH_WESTERN]

Smokey got drunk

[@colestrains1]

Unrelated but can you please make an O scale or O27 ES&D boxcar?🙏

[@tomstech4390]

"I found my bear-ies"

[@Spudstered]

When i saw "Drunk Grizzly Bears" and "railroad havoc" i tried (and failed) to figure out what the HELL got bears DRUNK near a railroad that was very entertaining

[@ApartmentRR]

I’ve always wanted to model a bear saloon…

[@johnblair8146]

First there was Cocaine Bear, Now we hwve BOOZE BEARS. RuleG rizzly.

[@ThatwillleaveaMark]

This would have make a great 3/4 of an idiot episode.

[@matt_the_wildman_2112]

Hey there's a sand tower climbing the roundhouse

[@trainspotter454]

This ought to be interesting

[@akaBoG]

I'm pretty sure I have heard this one previously.....lol

[@Idaho-Cowboy]

Not Grizzly Bears, Grizzly Beers.

[@t-12productions15]

New Playlist title "Choo Choo Storytime"

[@joeman1437]

Heh, drunk bears

[@afastree9756]

He still fails to mention Idaho.

[@QuorkQTar]

What a neat, though also sad story. Actually watched it with my gf and she enjoyed it, too - which has something to say given she generally says I'm more than enough railway in her life 😄😄😄

[@RexAnger.]

Now, I've heard of epidemics of drunken lorikeets falling out of trees in Northern Australia when the nectar has gotten a little too... 'Mature,' so to speak. But grain alcohol-intoxicated Grizzly Bears getting hit by trains is something else entirely. I've exploded a sheep in the dark at 70MPH, and tumbled kangaroos often enough. But I hate to imagine the mess and damage involved in striking a bear...

[@Voucher765]

Sounds like a real life episode of Cocaine bear, We have BNSF power here in the east on lease to CSX and NS

[@97letsplayer]

Just rename the series "Stories from Somewhere (or someone)" Same acronym! Fits more stuff! Great series regardless!

[@HighballMachineWorks]

Is this another one you explained when you were still playing RO with Kan? I feel like I remember you talking about this before

[@ulrich610tevd]

im 3 min in, and i have a very sneaking suspicion that ive heard a similar story or this same story before. lord know where i heard it

[@thetoontrain473]

the thumbnail is so goofy lmao

[@Hyce777]

KZbin auto-thumbs be like

[@mariahluze262]

I definitely hard this story before

[@ostsan8598]

I get it; I'd probably say yes to free booze as well.

[@bluescrew3124]

Yay

[@jacobdubielak]

Do you still work at bnsf railway

[@Hyce777]

I haven't for almost five years now. Crazy how time flies!

[@nerfspartanEBF25]

Completely unrelated to the subject: That big wooden floorstander speaker in the background, do you know what make and model that thing is?

[@Hyce777]

If you're looking at the big box on the right; it's an acoustic panel, not a speaker. 2'x4' with 4" of Owens Corning 703 wrapped in acoustic cloth. :)

[@Hybris51129]

I wonder if hitting a full grown bear could derail a train?

[@davidty2006]

Yes it can, There have been quite alot of cases of trains hitting relatively large animals (cows n stuff) and those getting under the wheels causing the train to derail...