I been looking at you tube i saw some videos One i loved one frightened the life out of me watching The one I loved was Horseshoe curve at pa Brilliant Three pulling two loco’s pushing What a freight train.
The one that Frightens me was the Video shot in India Called Careless Train driver. More like careless people crossing the line. The fatalities there must be every day.
The big question is i was reading that every 90 minutes they say in the USA a car is hit by a Train at a level crossing. How do they get these figures. Anyone shine a light on this
There are literally tens of thousands of crossings in the US - one car/train accident every 90 minutes is probably fortunate. People don’t pay attention, and/or don’t realize what they are up against.
People do like to blame the big bad train for these incidents, but the truth is that it’s usually their own danged fault.
I live in Pennsylvania and have been to Horseshoe Curve many times. It is the old Pennsylvania Railaroad east/west mainline from Philadelphia to Chicago.
The curve has 3 tracks and as you saw from the video is a VERY busy line. The grade is as steep as 1.87%. Pusher engines on the rear of trains are added at both sides of the mountain to help the freight trains get up over.
The Federal Railway Admininstation (FRA), a part of the US Department of Transportation must know about every railroad accident, so they have the statistics to say that every 90 minutes there is a railroad crossing accident. This is an unfortunate truth in this country. I have been in the engine of trains twice when we hit people on the tracks. One was a guy on a motocycle and the other was a woman in a car. Both were killed.
Crossing signals or barriers are not at every crossing in North America, in fact most crossings in rural areas(and there are 100’s of thousands) all that is there is a sign.
You English enjoy pretty tight crossing security, here in the USA, people are too important and in a hurry, they think nothing of zipping across a 6000 ton oncoming train at 60 mph to save a few minutes as not to be late for work.
Sometimes the Almighty is the one holding thier time slip. Oh well.
If I am running the stats properly, then about twenty percent of U.S. automobile fatalities are due to a train striking a motor vehicle.
Stop, Look and Listen?? It’s all some people can do to keep their children pacified. Not that that absolves them of their duty to look out. I promise drivers that the only time then have to worry about a train is when THEY are on the tracks, with the possible exception of derailments, coming FROM the tracks. - a. s.
…That was a nice catch on video…3 trains negotiating Horseshoe Curve. The reason for engines up front and pushers would be the “hill”, it is a 1.8% grade roughly, and the loaded coal train needs the dynamic brake capacity descending the grade…{eastbound}, towards Altoona. The grade coming from the west, assending to the summit is steady but not quite as steep as the east side of Horseshoe. That coal train had lots of tonnage to keep in check descending that grade…