The locomotive – which dedicated volunteers spent many years restoring to working order – was substantially damaged.
The railroad ties are wood planks about 8 inches tall by 12 inches wide and “tie” the rails to the trackbed. Without sleepers, the rails would spread and topple under the weight of a train – which is what happened (interesting to me for the breadth of information about the variety of railroad ties:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railroad_tie and for an intriguing photo and information about railroad ties being baked in creosote
http://www.shorpy.com/node/7900?size=_original )
The stolen ties were made from hard Australian yarra wood, and are highly prized for making furniture – and sometimes for firewood – and in recent years, railway lines all over South Africa have been targeted by sleeper thieves. Some lines have lost so many sleepers that they have been closed since the cost of replacement has been deemed uneconomic.
Yesterday’s derailment happened on a line that sees many tourist trains during the year. The thieves don’t really care about the consequences, either for innocent passengers or for tourism as a whole. The cost of repairing the locomotive will be a heavy burden for the club which receives no funding other than what it earns from running tourist trains. The cost of repairing the damaged track will run into many thousands of rand – and Transnet is not keen to spend money looking after lines that are not part of its core network.
http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/wanderer/2010/06/21/thieves-derail-train-and-give-sa-tourism-a-kick-in-the-head/via
http://tukkers.blogspot.com/ which is NSFW (not safe for work)
The drivers ribs were broken when the steering wheel pounded into them, damn good thing steering wheels are designed to bend instead of busting up torsos
See the whole gallery at http://justacargal-s.blogspot.com/2011/03/mrap-incident.html 
San Diego really is this good looking, and our airport is this freaking close to downtown. That is the bay in the background, and Coronado island behind it. The cop car is on interstate 5
from http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=428585&page=561
that I posted a couple years ago http://justacarguy.blogspot.com/2008/12/no-one-will-likely-ever-know-what.html
Wonder how these two happened!
Above photo I took at this springs Beatnik Blowout
I wish the story of what the car was doing on a transporter was with the photo, and what caused it to go over the front end, but the world may never get closure on this mystery. Damn shame it happens and wrecks a cool car and a group of people's day. The owner, the driver, the insurance guy, and the potential new owner if there was one.
Photo from http://5window.tumblr.com/ I think, it might have been http://motomania.tumblr.com/ ... I can't recall.
The locomotive – which dedicated volunteers spent many years restoring to working order – was substantially damaged.
Before and afters rarely make you so happy, just look at the next couple photos to see how awesome this was made after that tree jumped in front of the hot rod
