This issue came up as a sidebar discussion in a Trackside with Trains.com thread a few month’s back. I though I would provide a link to the latest incident.
AgentKid
The article was interesting, but the comments were informative!
Note that the tree bear huggers expect the railroad to build ??? miles of fence to keep how many ???bears off the tracks. I wonder if they have ever seen a grizzly. To hold them out the fence would have to be built of battleship-grade steel. The bears would either climb over or knock down a chain link fence.
I am rather surprised that no one piped up with a suggestion to hold rail safety seminars for the local bears…
So the local highways are fenced, and that keeps bears off the roads. I’m quite willing to bet that the major incentive (to the bears) is the omnipresent aroma of motor vehicle - exhaust, rubber, hot oil and general crud smell. By comparison, rail right-of-way is a rose garden, and the lack of underbrush makes it an ideal travel corridor for bears on the move.
Sorry, folks. The rails are where they are. If the bears can’t figure out that the loud growling noise, the lights and the bellowing horn all indicate the arrival of something bigger and tougher than they are, well, bears aren’t essential to the survival of human life on earth. As things are set up now, railroads are.
Chuck