ABC News posted this story on Facebook
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I recall the time the Detroit fire department parked apparatus right on the old Michigan Central main line â with equally poor results!
From what Iâve read it seems that Brightline has been plagued with unfortunate crossing accidents.
Cheers, Ed
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Donât enter the crossing if a train has just passed and the gates are still down in multiple track territory,
First rule in every rule book I have seen during my 51+ year railroad career has always been âExpect movement on any track at any time in any directionâ.
The Firemen left their intellegence back at the Firehouse.
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Some reports Iâve seen said the fire apparatus was waiting for a freight to clear on one track and as the last car passed it drove onto the crossing as the passenger train was approaching on the âblindâ track. The gates were still down.
This cab view seems to support that:
Itâs a good thing the old tradition of firefighters hanging on the rear deck of the equipment seems to have been phased out!
Subject to âofficialâ reports, of course.
Regards, Ed
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Actually, that video shows the Brightline train on the near track and not hidden by the freight train. In other words, the driver of the fire truck, who should have seen the train, was only focusing on getting across the tracks after the first train went through. Similar to the video caught in Centralia, IL four years ago.
Kevin
Agreed. I wrote the text of my reply before I found the video confirming what you are saying. And I âthoughtâ this was the case here, which would somewhat explain jumping into the crossing before the passenger train was visible but this makes the driver all the more liable as he âshouldâ have had clear sight of the oncoming passenger train. I recall the New York Central working on a circuit that would illuminate a sign saying âWAIT! SECOND TRAINâ if there was another track occupied. Of course, these days, who has time to look up from their twitter-box to see a sign?
Cheers, Ed
Ed
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I donât know I have come to believe that firefighters are not very professional as far as training is concerned in the United States. Started to form that conclusion when I watched firefighters storm up the World Trade Center then watching the towers collapse, then later reading about the radios not working properly, the confusion around the command of firefighters, etc. Just seemed to me like complete chaos and lack of organization professionalism and I am still not convinced NYFD has really learned all the lessons from 9-11 yet.
I would think any fire truck getting struck by a train would result in training throughout the United States on railroad crossing safety. Which has not happened yet because this is not the first fire truck to be struck in recent memory by a train on a perfectly clear day. I mean Câmon here.
I understand the zeal to save lives but it has to be balanced against the safety of the person doing the life saving so they are not endangering others in the process. Imagine if our mlitary was trained to unload clip after clip of ammo without regard to anything else in order to just win a war. Everyone being their own version of Rambo.
I mentioned this before but my personal feeling is Fire and Police should be primarily funded and trained at the Federal Level. It would eliminate the local âBoss Hoggâ factor (Dukes of Hazzard reference). I know that in a lot of cases local fire and police departments are not all that well managed or supervised or funded. It is a flip of the coin in some locations.
So lets get a baseline standard here that is cross country for all Fire and Police departments. We need to move away from every locality does it their own way.
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First Responder jobs appeal to the âHeroâ personality type. In way too many occasions the desire to be a hero in whatever the situation over rules a full and complete assessment of the situation and how to overcome the situation with a successful outcome.
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Firefighters are like soldiers. They go where their commanding officer, the station captain, or their general, the battalion chief send them. The sprinklers didnât work in either tower because the remains of two airplanes hurtling through the buildings at 400 miles per hour destroyed all the plumbing in both central cores. Communication was extremely difficult that day and the first responders did what most Christians would do: try to help people who are suffering.
I wasnât there. I doubt any of you were there either.
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My first thought when reading about this incident was recalling a safety note in a circa 1970 Southern Pacific magazine about drivers wrongly assuming that a grade crossing is safe to cross when one train clears the crossing.
My advice to the driver involved in the Brightline incident would be that waiting 30 seconds for a fast train to clear the tracks would have been more of a benefit than getting the truck clobbered. I do remember hearing a comment from ~35 years about a train versus firetruck collision - the person wondering if firecrews assumed that they had right of way over trains.
One upside was no one was killed, as such an accident could have resulted in fatalities on the train as well as on the truck.
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Iâm sure tree68 would know, but arenât new 100â ladder fire trucks going for about $2 million each? How does FD management deal with those fire fighters responsible for a loss of this size?
That would be a reasonable assessment, pricewise. Never mind the 2-3 year lead time. This is a pretty clear case of tunnel vision on the part of the fire crew. My first impression was that the Brightline train was blocked from view. As we see in the video, however, that was not the case. Totally on the driver and officer in this case.
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Hey, Larry! Glad to see you made it to the new forums.
I second Paulâs âGlad to see you made it to the new forums.â
It was getting pretty lonely on the old forums.
Welcome back! Little by little, I hope we see many of the former forum members back.
Yeah - still feeling out the new forum.