ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Deer on Power Pole?

(Submitted by Joe Tedesco for Stuart Parks)

OK, I read the story w/ the pics...
"The deer got hit by a train and wound up on the pole"???
Based on the pics, I see no "carnage" to the deer carcass. All the road kill I see here in NJ is pretty beat-up, and only landed on the road shoulder.

Pole is probably 30'-40', train tracks are not visable, but may be in the foreground. Now that has to be one hell of a trajectory and aim!!

Could this be a joke??????

John

John,

I agree it certainly looks like the deer was placed on the pole. Look at the position the deer is in. Also if it had been hit by a train and traveled that distance there would be a lot of momentum and it might have taken out that pole.

The question is how? It appears that there might be a tire track in the bottom left of the picture. My guess it that one guy had a stinger crane and another guy climbed up the pole to position the deer.

I am sure alcohol was involved.

Scott

High speed train with a rounded, sloping front?

The photographer may have been standing on the tracks when he took the picture...so the tracks would probably not appear in the frame.

But you're right...that deer doesn't look all splattered and mangled...which is what it would probably look like if a train had hit it.

Then again...if this was around Christmas time....maybe one of Santa Claus's reindeer died on the job and he untied it in mid-flight?

George Noory (Coast-to-Coast AM) will probably have a field day with it....should send it to his show to post on his website...

[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 02-21-2003).]

I may be way off base here, but the wires in the pix don't look like any kind of POCO utility lines I have ever seen. They look more like wiring that might be used for some kind of signaling system for railroad use.

I agree with Scotts...looks like alcohol played a part in this .

Mike (mamills)

I am the one who submitted the deer on the power pole to Joe Tedesco and I am assured that it is real and did really happen as noted in the write up. I didn't see it so I can't say yea or nay, but I do believe the person who submitted it to me.

Stuart

Additional Notes to the deer and to Mike. If the conductors were signal circuits, Then why the transformer on the pole. Lets call it railrod kill instead of road kill
Stuart

Why a transformer in what appears to be the middle of nowhere?

The transformer might be used for a step-down for irrigation equipment. Notice the deer has no rear hoofs. Also notice what appears to be tire tracks on the left hand side of the photo in the grass.

This photo was on the "Coast-to-Coast" with George Noory website a few weeks ago.

The coast-to-coast show has the deer on:
http://www.coasttocoastam.com/gen/page25.html

{Edited to remove non-working image}


[This message has been edited by C-H (edited 02-27-2003).]

It's interesting how the story and pictures of this deer gets around in the internet.

The very same deer made the local (Winnipeg MB Canada) 6pm news with the reporter on the scene just before the Railway took it off.

It was hit on the CN mainline just west of Winnipeg.

First call came into Manitoba Hydro of a deer on the lines just west of the Headingly Station.

A hydro trouble crew attended and found it was on the railway signal line and notified the Railway police to have them get a railway workcrew out to take it down.

The CBC reporter said the railway figured the deer may have been hit thinking that the line was clear to cross but instead there were some empty flatcars on the line followed by loaded ones with containers. The train crews that night did not report hitting anything with the lead engine.

I heard that Santa's test this year to renew his pilot's license involved an "engine out"

TW

First-off a big welcome to the new members above.

Now, not to start an argument but, Winnipeg Canada isn't to Close to Baltimore, Maryland the last time I looked at a North America map! OK, Looking close, you can see the primaries, and the transformer, and the missing hoofs.

I still find it hard to swallow, but I am not inferring that anyone is making this up.

John

It could happen....Remember the picture of the kid that wrecked his jeep,hanging from the power lines.
I went to the old post to try to find a pic of this but they are no longer there.

What does our resident train experts think. Trainwire and Scott35 speak up. What do you think, train or booze?

Scott

I apologize if I left off any other train experts, they are the only two that I know.

Some good work with adobe photoshop! No way is this for real. No friggin way.

There is a closer picture:

Hotline1 Thanks for the welcome.

I think that somebody got this from Manitoba and changed it to Balitimore to make it sound local.

If you look at Mapquest or Mapblast for Winnipeg using the intersection given in the first posting (Wilkes at the perimiter), it is where the CN mainline runs west out of Winnipeg.

I too thought that somebody had too much time on their hands and made up the picture, until I saw it on the local news at dinner time. I can't share it with you as the link to that clip has expired off the stations web page.

Everybody in the local media including the railway spokesperson assumed it was hit up there.

Hotline1 could be right in saying that the deer came from some place else and somebody decided to throw it up in the railway signal lines to cause some excitement. I don't know how much time the railway police or RCMP would spend checking to see where it came from.

No news of where the deer ended up, I wonder if somebody has a freezer full of deer roasts?

i wonder if they're rare or well done?

This was discussed at http://www.powerlineman.com/pictures/2003/january/sand/sand.htm last month …with a couple of related links.

Bill A — your blowup looks great. If it’s a forgery, it's a good one.

About the nowhere transformer...they are used to power small battery chargers for rail signaling. One pair of spans on those crossarm is a 60Hz circuit—not absolutely sure of the voltage, but it’s probably less than 2.4kV.

BJ,

The last picture was sent with the first two (not my Blowup).
I hesitated to post it at first because I thought that a close-up was not necessary and that it might offend some.

More proof of extraterrestrial hijinks.

Those guys can be such pranksters.

The physics of several thousand tons moving at speed can make some pretty wonky things happen. My personal opinion is that the deer did not get hit by the front of the train, more likely panicked and ran into the side of the train, or tried to jump over a flat car or something and got clipped with enough force to send it spinning, sans hind legs into the wires. Just barely visible in the pictures on the side of the deer that "is on top" looks like it is mangled. The fur looks like it is having a "bad fur day". I have heard that severe trauma can result in almost no blood being scattered. Is that true resqcap?

I also don't see any signs in the pictures of "modification", usually you can tell if the pictures have been fiddled with.

So personal opinion, is that the deer did indeed get whacked by a train.

I am not familiar with Canadian signal control practice, but the lines and poles have that "railroad" look.

As for the deer roast, I would bet a tv dinner or two on there being enough internal damage that it wasn't worth the bother. Even the vultures probably needed ketchup to get through that one.

Trainwire

edited my gramma

[This message has been edited by Trainwire (edited 02-22-2003).]

I think its a Kangaroo. look at how short the legs are. Ears a bit big for a dear, and very close together. Either way that is one high jumpin roo. OK nevermind. The tail is kinda short and fluffy... I dont know... thats a funny lookin deer.

[This message has been edited by Joule E (edited 02-22-2003).]

anyone for deer steaks? get'em while there hot.

Was the deer in season? Where's the tag? Will the RR be cited for poaching?

Maybe the deer fell asleep last winter.

http://www.snopes.com/photos/poledeer.asp

The above website is a list of possible urban legends. It looks like this is true, except for the baltimore part. I guess could only happen in canada.

Guys,
Here is my theory.
I reckon that, that deer was being airlifted(by helicopter, along with a few others)
and mid-flight, that one fell off of the lift-hook.
This may also explain why the hind hooves(hoofs?) are missing, as this normally done by hunters.
The deer, would have been attached to the lift-hook by a hole cut between the bone and the Hamstring tendon in each hind leg, to form a "eye", through which fits, the lift-hook off the chopper.
We have deer fall off choppers quite regularly over here(my mate had his car roof caved in by one) .
I bet the c/services rep at the PoCo, got a shock and a half, when they saw the photos!.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 04-11-2003).]

If those are railway signal wires, why was a PoCo Faultsman dispatched to fix an outage near this?.
Also, that ain't a Roo, they have MUCH longer tails than that!.

A lot of the General Public don't know the difference between hydro lines and the lines that the railways have running besides their tracks. This series of pictures are an example of what Canadian National Railway uses in Manitoba.

Canadian Pacific railway (the other major Canadian railway) uses instead of open lines multi pair communication cable that resembles telephone trunk cable, so Manitoba Telecom often gets the first call when sombody sees a line down over a crossing.


[This message has been edited by mbhydro (edited 04-12-2003).]

mbhydro,
What is a Hydro Line?.
I've heard this term before somewhere,
just cannot remember what it means!.
BTW Welcome to ECN,mate!!.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 04-18-2003).]

Trumpy

In Manitoba we say hydro line to refer to any of the lines that Manitoba Hydro uses to get power to us. I guess that other areas may call them utility lines or electric lines.

Doesn't matter if its a transmission line from the dams or the drop to the house we use the same term.

For example there was an underground hyrdo fault Friday night in the city center and the newspaper headlines were "Downtown hydro lines cause fire"

[This message has been edited by mbhydro (edited 04-19-2003).]

[This message has been edited by mbhydro (edited 04-19-2003).]

i just don't know how these things keep happening....

sparky,
I reckon that, that cow, leapt up into that tree when the cow was having a swim, to avoid a croc in the water.
Dunno how it's going to get down, looks like it's firmly wedged there.
Somehow, this sounds as far-fetched as my Deer falls from chopper theory.

Moo?

The cow thought he jump over the moon. Where the cat with the fiddle.

Looks like a lot of water around. I suspect this is the result of a flood.

[This message has been edited by jdevlin (edited 07-07-2003).]

Wow , I thought Cows were afraid of heights....Flossy the amazing tree climbing cow.....

More theories:

1. Maybe there was 15' of snow on the ground when the deer was walking along and he thought he'd jump over what he thought was low fence wires. ZAP!

2. The deer was riding along on top of the train...put there perhaps by drunken pranksters, or chased there by hunters. Regardless, the deer got tired of his precarious perch, what with slippery hooves on sheet metal and all. He wanted to jump to the cold, hard ground, but he had enough horse sense to chill on that idea. When he saw the double T-bar on top of that pole, it looked like the answer. After all, he had been watching T-bars roll by all day, and he was starting to get his courage up. He launched, almost landing all 4 hooves on the double T-bar, but the rear hooves slipped off, he was electrocuted and his hooves blew off like champagne corks at a wedding.

3. Some of those country boys up there got one of those big catapults, and, well...when you run out of cars and other inanimate objects, you've got to search for decent payload somewhere.

4. It wasn't deer season. It was shot in the foot. The hunters had to ditch the body somewhere, and they needed a decent alibi. "Hey! How about the power lines?" "Let's cut the feet off so nobody finds the bullet hole! We'll say the train hit the deer!"

Speaking of deer, check this one out -

Deer Droppings Safety Center Photo of the Week

Well, then, that helps to explain the deer-on-a-pole photo.

Obviously, the deer was scared by an airplane and was jumping out of the way when it fell onto the...oh, never mind.

Spark Master Flash,
Very interesting theories, mate!.
LOL

I'm new to the discussion, but I couldn't pass up adding some insight to the deer in the power pole saga.

First of all it is in Canada, not Baltimore. It is indeed a comm system, not high Voltage and the photo is legit.

All else is speculation. I cannot believe a train hitting anything would throw it up into the air (reality vs. cartoon). My personal opinion is it was killed (probably by a vehicle), then was placed there for a prank.

For the facts go to:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/poledeer.asp

(OOPS! I just discovered that NJCowboy listed this information in March. Sorry for the duplication).

[This message has been edited by ezsteven (edited 09-10-2003).]

Being decades late to the discussion . . . But isn’t that a “buck boost” transformer? Might explain a few things . . .

Ha!