The driver went around the gates, beat the first train and was caught by the second. When will people learn!
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/topstories/news-article.aspx?storyid=77676
Who was it who said bad publicity is better than none? How about "At Least Two Die in Car That Hit Two Trains? versus the inaccurate who hit what?
Two people died in Gary, In last night, pulled out and around the gates and got struck by a South Shore passenger train.
ed
Ed, that’s the one I thought this thread was going to be about at first. Two trains were involved there, too, but they were on the two different lines. Those girls went around gates to beat a NS train, then tried the same thing on the South Shore. Guess you could say they got nowhere fast.
With the Jacksonville accident the local news interviewed a woman who claims that she and a lot of others run the gates because the trains run so slow and she sometimes has to wait 10 minutes. Now she is supposedly organizing a movement to get CSX to make the crossing safer! And of course the reporter didn’t bother to ask her if she could make the crossing more safe by NOT running the gates!
That certainly isn’t going to help the on-time statistics. I know it is incredibly expensive, but man it would be great to have grade separation everywhere. It doesn’t say, so I assume that everyone on the trains are doing fine.
The crews of both trains were ok, the only injury/fatalities were in the 2 in the car.
Simple answer to people who insist on running the gates, yet want them made safer.
Instead of lowering a wooden crossarm across one lane, lower a solid I beam (or length of 133# rail) across BOTH lanes. Then build solid walls to keep drivers on the pavement.
Even simpler answer. Build solid walls across the pavement, both lanes, both sides.
“The problem with designing foolproof systems is that God keeps making bigger fools.”
Chuck
And then you could place a span across the two concrete walls, and ramps that lead from the road surface to the span. For simplicity, we could call the artifact a “bridge” or “overpass”. [4:-)]
They won’t…
Upon which “bridge” or “overpass” the ‘New & Improved Fool’ would have a vehicle accident and go over said “bridge” or “overpass” and end up on the tracks to be hit by a passing train. Nothing is safe from ‘New & Improved Fools’.
How often do people drive off railroad bridges and end up on the ROW, really? Rare to nonexistent. Grade separation works—a lesson that was well applied to the interstate highways as well as other limited-access asphalt garrotes. Of course, the federal government doesn’t mind treating main lines like back roads instead of the interstate thoroughfares they are.
Back to the story: It seems like we have to raise the age for all first-time drivers in all parts of the country to at least 25. Not to mention making driving lessons as learning-intense and training-intense as locomotive engineer training. Also put fear of decertification into their hearts—which is preferable to being reckless and ending up dead on a train’s cowcatcher.