This time railfans were on the scene when out of nowhere a car appears in the frame, right across the tracks as the train swats them into eternity.
A witness, (not on this program), said that it was a “Union Pacific” Train, and surely those were Union Pacific locomotives, but the town is Louisville KY, and I did not think that UP went there. It must be a NS or a CSX train with UP power.
Or does UP actually go there. The LION does not know.
ROAR
Run-through power more than likely, UP doesn’t go to Kentucky.
Two people were nailed by trains in New Jersey this week as well, one on New Jersey Transit’s Pascack Valley Line, and one by a Norfolk-Southern freight in Union.
Suicides by train? More than likely. Sad.
At least the train crew and the bystanders made it through unharmed.
Sadly, without crossing arms, I’m sure folks will be ready to spin this one around as being the fault of everyone except the driver behind the wheel of the car because that protection wasn’t provided here.
Not related to the accident, but the younger fan is standing a little close to the tracks, inside the signals. If the one fan is a former conductor, he should know better.
Let’s be careful out there.
Another almost fatality.
Sometime around 3PM Sunday afternoon a CSX intermodal on the Ga RR subdivision hit a car. Driver seriously injured. This crossing is another where the crossing road intersects a road very closely paralleling CSX. Driver was coming up to parallel road, got stopped by traffic light, she had pulled onto tracks, Crossing arms came down, and she was " trapped " by the arms (quad 4 ).
Am beginning to think that the installation of quad 4 crossings need very careful thinking. Even my wife as rail aware as she is did not know the crossing arms are frangible and / or will swing away if pushed upon. That apppears to be a well kept secret only rail community knows ?
http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/woman-seriously-hurt-after-train-strikes-car/nkXPB/
And another close encounter.
http://www.wgrz.com/story/news/2015/03/15/tonawanda-car-suv-vs-train/24805321/
Quad gates are hardly a new idea, although I will concede that it has been over 40 years since I’ve seen a grade crossing that was equipped with them. In my youth, there were several manned grade crossings nearby that were equipped with quad gates, and one or two of them also had a watchman on the ground.
As discussed in another crossing thread, some sort of notice on the track side of such arms has been done elsewhere. I can’t see that it would be a bad idea to do here, just a matter of logistics (and a certain amount of money) - having suitable reflective decals made, then installed on the appropriate gates.
Then you have to hope that the motorists will read them. Perhaps they need to be printed in large enough type to be read from behind the other gates, so at least the motorist who is stopped there while the gates are down might see them and the knowledge will get tucked away in a corner of their brain for future reference…
Not having been to a “general public” OLI presentation (usually there with the fire service), I don’t know if the topic is discussed there.
It doesn’t do away with cases where the driver can’t move because they are trapped in traffic, but that’s when not going onto the tracks until you can clear them comes into play.
Going forward, I’d opine that several things need to happen: first, the railroads need to embrace installing the warnings at "fou
And we had yet another grade crossing fatality up here in IL this weekend when the Amtrak Texas Eagle northbound to Chicago hit a pickup truck in far southern IL when the driver reportedly drove around the lowered gates…very stupid and senseless action that cost him/her their life.
Just thinking out loud here. I wonder if more drivers knew that the gates had some “give” to them, that some might just drive right through them? Especially at crossings with medians or lane dividers.
Jeff
Take a drive down I55 and you’ll see lots of them on the St.Louis line.
Jeff: That might just work in SOME cases of incursion on an active crossing.
My thought is that many incidents happen because drivers think that THEIR schedule is so important, and their time so valuable; that ‘rushing the crossing’ is a legitimate risk for them.
The other part of thatmight just be a motorist who is afraid to risk damaging their vehicle; they rationalize that action out of their needed reaction to the problem/ incident.
There is a crossing just up the road at Mulvane,Ks (Ks. Hwy 55) where two subs of the BNSF diverge. A short double track segment of the Ark City Sub and the double tracked Southern Transcon, towards Winfield. On occasion you will see two trains on the crossing, most of the traffic is local with traffic going West is towards the Kansas Star Casino. The local PD patrols it prety heavily, so they seem to have less incidents involving that Crossing. Plus train speed there is a bit intimidating for alot motorists.
Maybe more enforcement presence is the key at high activity crossings, where there are multiple incidents of crossing incursions by motorists? Not sure if higher fines would be a sort of carrot and stick approach? [2c]
May be a case for photo enforcement.
Local authorities are so gung ho about ‘Stop Light Cameras’ - Why not Railroad Crossing protection cameras? Especially in locations where cars are KNOWN to stop on tracks for Red Lights ahead.
Just make sure there are hefty fines attached - they’ll love the revenue source. Especially since red light cameras only seem to have an effect on the people they catch. Otherwise they’d be redundant by now…
There are some out there. Ames, IA had at least one crossing in it’s quiet zone (the one that doesn’t have lane dividers) equipped with enforcement cameras. I think it was put in with the automated horn system. I don’t know if they left it when they removed the horn system and went to a regular QZ.
The first car it took a picture of, after it was in service, was of an Ames police car.
Jeff
Ding Ding Ding - we have a winner!
Orlando Sun rail enforcemet got very heavy after crashes and close encounters. Observed 4 police at one crossing that had several almost incidents. They were writing tickets as fast as they could. Now have not heard of any.
Another item – Require all crossing ticketed persons to appear in court. Judge could call all at once and the word will get out.
So how blind do you have to be to miss a train since it’s as big as, well, a train?
Approximately twenty years ago two Michigan State Police troopers were killed when they tried to beat a train to the corssing.