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‘Coast Starlight’ limps in to Seattle following grade crossing strike in Oregon
The absurd nomenclature “Strike” needs to be banished by all, including this site. It is an inappropriate verbal description of a collision, caused by a vehicle, which is at fault, between said vehicle and a train…which has the right of way.
And also, one must consider the IQ of those driving the trucks. There is a lot of Bud-lite as well floating about.
Went by another downed gate near Tacoma yesterday. Bad day for gates in the PNW.
In the 36 years my Dad worked as a train dispatcher the car-train collisions were too numerous to relate. Sadly, six family members were killed at a crossing just east of Spokane, WA when they ran the gates and were t-boned by a full-speed #26 North Coast Limited. Even though he didn’t dispatch for the NP, he was visibly shaken, knowing what the crew, the dispatcher, and the passengers were in for that day. Sadly, the saying is true… “There is no cure for stupid.” Why? Because “it can’t happen to me.” “My agenda is more a priority than anyone’s.” There is no known cure for the selfishness and total lack of regard for fellow humans that such individuals demonstrate. What can be done? I’m guessing there will be calls for many, many more separated grades, or else a run on concrete barriers to block the crossings where stupidity seems to vortex
Local TV ripped Amtrak over the issue of passengers claiming they were kept on the Starlight "like prisoners’ “for hours without food bathrooms.” A good follow-up for Trains (Mr.Lustig can you read this?) would be to know whether the passengers could have been transferred to buses or a Cascades train, or at least taken to Portland, which was an hour away.
Or could a UP or BNSF loco have hitched onto the train?
Sounds like the need for a four-quadrant gate system?
I am always extra careful at RR crossings because my father, a Great Northern operating crewman told me that if I ever got hit by a train he would come back from the dead to kick my ass.
To say that a train struck a vehicle at a railroad crossing is politically incorrect, when it should have said a vehicle that was obstructing the tracks got in the way of the path of an oncoming train.