Always something going on at the Nevada State Railroad Museum. High speed chase leave Jaguar in the turntable pit. No injuries, minor damage.

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Somebody fire up the big hook...

When I was working for the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum, we had one trip where our Downtown Arrow train got stranded downtown overnight. We were eastbound on last trip of the day and were flagged down by a Chattanooga Police Department officer. We could see a car on the track ahead of us. They had been pursuing the driver and the driver went through a T intersection, jumped the curb and hit the rail. The problem was that about 100 feet of rail had been pulled loose from the ties.

As we had passengers aboard, we called the shop and a relief train was sent to the location. The passengers had to walk past the accident site to board the other train. We then backed our train about a mile to the siding at Polk Street, ran around the train and went back to the Choo Choo for the night. Another employee drove down to the Choo Choo to take us back to the terminal. The crew for the next day had to be driven to the Choo Choo to pick up the train-the tracks were fixed overnight.

I'm surprised there wasn't more damage to the Jag.

Dual gauge turntable? Or just extra rails for stability at the turntable edge?

I thought Clarkson was back under quarantine in Britain?

To the turntable pit maybe, but not to the Jag.
There's no way you can drop a car 2-3 feet at least and not have a great deal of damage to the bottom. Even if you craned it over that spot and dropped it, it's going to damage a lot of the stuff you can't see from there. But going into the pit, I'm sure the Jag caught some stuff going over, not to mention how fast it had to be going to get that far before it stopped (going any reasonable speed, just the front end would be in the pit). Yeah, the put is dish shaped, but he had to go over some stuff to get there and it's not that gentle a slope.
I wouldn't be shocked to find out the thing got totaled. I can't tell for sure but it looks like the airbag might have gone off on the passenger side, that's several thousand to just fix that.
This is almost 20 years of insurance claims work talking.
Minor, heck.

Regarding the dual gauge comment: yes, dual gauge with half draws on the leads.
Regarding the condition of the car: the air bags didn't fire and the car looked pretty straight but the removal of the car wasn't nice. We don't know how fast it was moving when it went in but the slow drag out was rough.
Good times. Everyone is healthy but some are in jail.

Here is a shot from the direction in which the car entered the pit. At speed, in panic mode, and fleeing police, this must have looked like a road. It is a perfect jaguar trap, though this is the first we have caught.

The driver must have turned hard right once he saw there was no way out. There was a tire mark on the ring rail, and displaced gravel from his swerve.There was no real impact, and thus no air bag.

The landing/parking was such that the driver was able to open his door and flee on foot, brandishing a gun. He was subsequently apprehended. There was a passenger who seemed pretty shook up.

At one point the officers turned a K-9 loose. The dog jumped through the passenger window and retrieved what appeared to be a tennis ball.

Fortunately the NSRM employee who had been under the table making adjustments had just gone into the shop for a tool.

When you forget to open the House Valves on your Jaguar.

Isn't this car essentially a slightly cosmetically different re-badged Ford Taurus from when Ford owned Jaguar? I indirectly knew someone who was so proud of one of these cars ten or so years ago and the joke was: Q: What is the difference between this car and a Ford Taurus? A: About $10k.

Must have climbed right over the chocks! Jaguar owners, this could be YOU if you don't take the time to properly store your fancy Ford!

I think that's the XJ8 update to the XJ40 platform (like mine). That is no Taurus SHO or otherwise! The Mondeo (I think it was) based platform from when Ford owned them is a different car (it has the "XJ140" hommage little oval grille and round lights styling) can be interesting if you get the supercharged V8 and multipiston brake version. But it is a bit like supercharging a potato chip...

I don't think this car is the long-wheelbase version built to compete with the Mercedes S class, the BMW 7-iL series, or the Audi A8Ls, but it is the same platform with most of the same amenities.

Problem is that about $400 of damage will 'total' that car, as its resale value is often surprisingly low for the quality involved. The '88 and up XJ40s are a vast improvement in reliability over the previous ... things.

That said, this car would be well worth fixing up and driving, if you don't have to pay dealer or 'fancy import shop' prices to work on it.

Definitely would benefit from a block valve at the dome in addition to the front-end throttle...

I laughed out loud at the idea there's just $400 in damages here.
If you key the side of a car for about the length of your hand, it's way more than that just to fix that type of damage.
When they lifted the Jag out of the pit, I can promise you they found well into 4-figures (if not more) in damages.