There have been several posts recently about train vs. car or train vs. pedestrian accidents. I just did some simple math (the kind I do best) and found this interesting. If you have a young (or careless) driver in your home, this might be interesting to share.
My car weighs about 9,300 times more than a Quarter Pounder (w/ cheese…in the bun.)
So, if a train hit me in my car, it would be capable of imparting similar damage as me hitting a Quarter Pounder with my car. If I hit a Quarter Pounder, I’d hardly even notice, if at all.
It would never cause me to stop and it would be obliterated. The only difference is, if a train crew hits me, they go through a lot of pain and guilt over the matter.
Take your kid out, buy a Quarter Pounder, have them watch you run it over, show them the mess that results and then explain the math.
If you take a 200 LB person ( I wish I was only a 200 # person) … then the weight ratio is about 140,000 lbs of train per 1 lb of human being.
To compare, take that quarter pounder from my first example, but keep only one pickle. Slice that pickle into 13 equal parts and then stomp on that 1/13th of a pickle. Same weight ratio… 140,000 to 1.
The example I was taught by Operation Lifesaver is that the typical freight train hitting a car is roughly the equivalent of a car running over a beer can. I would NEVER condone drinking and driving, but a beer can is probably more representative of the actual protection an automobile would provide against a freight train. I have seen what a freight will do to a mid sized American car… the young lady involved got ejected from the car, flew through the air, (no seat belts) and as the Highway Patrol gently put it, “impacted the ground with such force as to cause massive head trauma.” Six months later, she has had her heart stop three times in the hospital… came out of her coma and I understand she is actually learning to talk again. Her college student days are over.
The show “Real TV” did a bit with Operation Lifesaver where they mounted cameras inside a school bus and ran two locomotives through it. Pretty scary pictures.
The Army in Europe back in the 70’s used to do an annual picture of M60A1 tanks rolling over a Volkswagon bug. The point was to try and get tank drivers to pay a little attention to where they were going and how they were getting there. A side effect of that picture was a reminder to the rest of us to stay the hell out of the way of tanks moving at 30 miles an hour. Perhaps Lifesaver should persuade local newspapers to run similar photos… though I haven’t heard of a sane locomotive engineer who would willingly run his train through a car…
There have been quite a few set-up incidents of a train plowing through a car stopped on a crossing, and filmed for that reason. Something about these staged incidents may lead someone to believe that they aren’t what would really happen. I think the pictures Ed posted of the UP employee going in front of the light rail vehicle were more convincing.
But, as I said on a post a while back, there is nothing as scary as a real incident captured on film, such as the lady struck by a Metra train in Downers Grove (very similar circumstances to what happened in River Grove this week). A railfan happened to have his video camera in the right place at the right time (or wrong time). I can remember that scene more vividly than footage from any movie I’ve seen.
OK - let me ask this. In this enlightened day and age of video games with all the violence, does this take some of the fear factor out of what a train can do?
But of course!!! You can get right up and keep going!!! Add to that the bit of invincibility that is especially present in teenagers, but that many people carry through their lives, and you’ve got something.
It’s probably too bad that the clip I’ve seen of the Downers Grove incident stops just BEFORE the impact. Gory as it would be, some people just need to see the aftermath, too. Otherwise you’ve left to hope that she stopped at just the last moment and nothing bad happened after all.
I saw the Downer’s Grove clip on the internet, maybe 3-4 years ago now? The first time I saw was on TV where it stops the last fram before impact. I wasn’t looking for it on the internet but just happened across it when I was at a school computer so didn’t save the link, but it was shown in it’s entirety. The little girl’s body is tossed like a rag doll and hits the camera. Wasn’t the engine a BN F-unit? And the same website had other goof-balls trying to beat the train. One guy on a bicycle goes through after the gates are down and he smiles and waves at the camera.
And speaking of beer cans and hamburger why not combine both analogies? Hamburger INSIDE a beer can. The meat is the person, the can is the car. The results are the same. And go ahead and use beer can because arn’t more automobile wrecks caused by someone under the influence?
I’m afraid there are still stupid people out there, though their numbers get smaller every day.
Just last night, less than 10 miles from my house, along the old route of the 400’s, another “Quarter Pounder” became cheese. Appearently he was on foot until the train caught up to him.
I guess some people just don’t get it, until THEY GET IT!!!
Unfortunately it is, but the crew still has to live with the consequences even though they were not at fault. And suicide by train seems to be on the rise.
I must say that the content of that topic is frighteningly graphic, but not totally inappropriate for this forum. However, we should keep in mind that some of the members here are not adults.
On the other hand messages that strong, may save lives.
Perhaps if the young man, who I refered to earlier in this topic, had read this topic or that one he would still be alive today.