At 21:43 I treated a “possible hazmat odor, car 3” near MP 127.6 by the book — stopped traffic, confirmed repeat-backs on Ch. 12, notified hazmat — only for the crew to uncover a durian in the brakeman’s cooler. Anyone else ever run the emergency checklist for somebody’s lunch?
Been there; after a ‘possible hazmat odor’ that turned out to be kimchi, we added a knee-board checkbox: ask if anyone’s packing durian/seafood before spinning up the full playbook… Durian’s the skunk of fruit, and I’d log it as ‘odor investigated’ so the stats don’t make you look trigger-happy.
Before you spin up hazmat, give the conductor a 60-second “cooler sweep” in “car 3” — open coolers/bags and include “no food odors” in the Ch. 12 read-back. @lee39 your checkbox is solid; add this line so the 21:43 drill doesn’t launch over durian. Worst case you lose a minute; if it’s real, you’re already staged.