“And suicide by train seems to be on the rise.”
[xx(] This is true here in the UK. What people forget though is that besides the tragedy for the victims family and train crew who have to live with this, the poor depot staff have to deal with this by cleaning up the mess.
We recently had a locomotive on the depot whereby a woman jumped off the station platform into the front of a speeding 75mph passenger train. The impact severely dented the front of the loco, there was blood and entrails over the front of the loco. Apologies for graphic details but all this has to be cleaned off by someone. The worse case is if they go under the wheels, the destruction of the human torso is so severe.
Its bad enough having to clean cattle etc from underneath and the smell is unbelievable. Its not a pretty site to clean pieces of flesh from beneath locomotives but unfortunately someone has to do it. An incident such as the above one cause much work for many people. The driver was interviewed by the police…not a lot he can do to avoid the impact. The police attend the site of incident and also came to look at the locomotive. The locomotive has to have a brake test to see if it was at fault - I kid you not.
Its unfortunate that this is what railroads across the globe have to deal with. Some are purely accidents but many are suicides. Sad but true.
Cheers
Rory
I remember reading a few years ago about students at Arizona State University playing a new game of chicken with trains. The rail line runs within a few blocks of the University and a half block of Mill Avenue, where all the partying used to go on. (Maybe it still does.) Anyway, the gist of the game was to hang out on the main line with the winner being the one who stayed on the tracks the longest before the train actually got there. I can’t imagine the heart attacks that caused for the crews of the SP freights running through town… but I do know that at least one kid was killed (I guess he won the game). Sometimes you have to think a college education is wasted on some people… but then again, it proves that Darwin’s Theory is alive and well…
I also remember the station agent in my home town in Connecticut back in the 60’s talking about suicide by train a lot.
Erik
After much searching I found the infamous Downers Grove video on the interent yesterday, but I don’t feel that the website is appropriate enough to link to here. It contains other videos of people getting killed and other vulger and obscene conduct.
But I watched it yesterday over and over again. The clip provided is only 6 seconds and I’m about to conclude that the girl that got hit was not entirely at fault (but don’t misunderstand, the train was NOT AT ALL at fault) and here’s my reason why. I remember the scene from TV where they showed about 30-45 seconds of the tape. People rushing across the tracks (on foot) as the bells were ringing, lights flasing, train horn blowing. On the side of the tracks the camera is on is a green Burlington Northern F-unit passenger train stopped just short of the crossing. The train that hits the girl is also the same kind. So the view to the left of the oncoming train is blocked. What appears to be a woman carrying some sort of bag in both arms puts a foot on the rail, looks left, sees the train, then turns back to wait from where she came from. Seconds later what appears to be a man in a gray trench coat starts across (from the side of the tracks the camera is on) and the girl, a foot shorter than him (probably teenager or older) is following on his right just slightly behind him. The man gets the track the speeding train is on, looks left, then stops. The girl never looked both ways, then man on her left was blocking her view. She appeared to be following his lead. But the man never made any attempt to grab this girl’s arm or body to stop her. He looked left and turned around to his left. In the 1 second it took him to move this direction and avoid being hit the girl stepped in front of the train, looked left, and was caught by the wheels of the locomotive between her ankles and shins and was thrown toward the feet of the camera or the legs of the camera tripod, whatever the case, knocking the camera over, the last couple frames are a blur. The is an obvious red
Of course, if you were hit by a train you would look like a Quarter Pounder too. All ground up with lots of ketchup…
LC
Some are accidents, many are suicides. Sad. But the rest are stupidity.
Living in southern California, I have seen a lot of it!!! And even if it is 10:20 PM, here I go:
For many years in the 20th century, many people had a great respect for trains, and many of them enjoyed stopping to see a SOO line local pass with a 4-6-2. But today, all too many people view anything keeping them from where they want to be as an unacceptable imposition, ignoring the fact that the cell phone in their right hand and the coffee in their left both probably traveled by the thing they are trying to race to the crossing. Being a railfan, I don’t have to worry about resisting urges to beat a train to a crossing: I don’t get them–I like to slow down and watch, even if it’s just a light rail car. And I don’t go again until the arms are fully up and the lights have stopped flashing–mostly because I hope another train is just around the corner. But aside from other railfans, most people just rip through the crossing, regarding the bumps from the tracks as an annoyance to their lifes. They drive around in their automobiles which are gigantic in the realm of cars–thinking that the DASH-9 around the corner has the same braking capability as they do, and that it will yield to them, and that if it hits them it will be a small dent which the railroad will pay for; all three of which are incredibly false! I see people race trains through crossings on foot. THESE PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS. I’d like to turn them into one thirteenth of a hamburger pickle! And this gives rise to my ultimate solution to keep people from racing trains to crossings:
Make everyone a railfan. They will be reluctant to start moving again after the train goes by!
But short of that, it really amazes me what stupid things people can do. And then there are the drivers stupid enough to stop on a crossing when they come to a red light. These people are increscently amazing. If only we could have a few doubleheading Big Boys here in
I’ll add my close call story. Evanston IL had 5 tracks on an embankment, 2 for the El and 3 for the C&NW. I was in 7th grade walking home from school on the tracks when a ‘400’ came down the express track. He blew the horn and we got out of the way. But he stayed on the horn, we thought he was being a jerk. A 90 mph passenger train blowing the horn is so loud you can’t hear anything else. As the engine passed our eyes followed and S**T!! An El train was already so close we could see the motorman’s eyes bugging out and we were standing on his track. No time to think, we instinctively dove off the embankment. Somehow I wound up with my face inches from the rail. The motorman slammed on the brakes and the wheels were locked up. Every wheel that passed showered me with hot sparks like they were 700 pound grinding wheels. The overhang of the train was above me and I didn’t dare move so I got showered by the whole train.
That guy never walked home with me after that. I wonder now if this flatted spotted the wheels and cost the El a lot of money to true
The story that I mentioned back near the beginning of this topic turned out to be a suicide. This short recap of the incident was on the website of the local newspaper.
BYLINE:
CREDITLINE: Star Tribune
HEADLINE: Man killed by train in Oakdale
A man was killed in Oakdale early this morning when he lay across the path
of an oncoming train, police said.
An Oakdale officer driving southbound in the 3000 block of Hadley Avenue saw
the man about
1:53 a.m. He was not dressed for the weather and was walking north.
When
the officer returned to check on the man, he began running west along the
railroad
tracks, police said. The officer saw a train approaching and yelled for the
man to stop. The officer didn’t follow the man down the tracks, police said.
As the eastbound train approached, the man stopped, looked at the train and
then lay across the tracks, police said. He was killed on impact.
Police later found an unattended and recently parked vehicle in the area.
The man has not been positively identified, but police said he is white and
appeared to be in his early 20s.
Oakdale Police and the Ramsey County Medical Examiner’s office are handling
the case.