Never thought I would notice the difference, and I never thought there would be a difference, but there is. This morning, there was a pedestrian vs train in downtown Western Springs, about 4 blocks or so from my home. Even though the tracks are right across the street, I didn’t notice anything was amiss until the “re-wife” left for work, and called me, wondering why all the trains were stopped. A quick trip upstairs to the scanner at the bedside, revealed nothing, but the news helicopters flying overhead kind of tipped me off to the fact that there might have been an accident. One METRA train was stopped about a block from the house, and another was stopped just beyond that, and in the meantime, the Amtrak “Illinois Zephyr” crept along past the house, stopping about 100 feet or so, right behind the stopped METRA. I turned on the local news to learn that my worst fears were confirmed as WGN reported the accident. No details were given, other than someone was struck by a train.
After dropping off my children at school, (9:00 am) I drove the short distance to downtown to get to the bakery as well as the bank. Downtown traffic was at a standstill as the police, fire department, METRA and BNSF people had one crossing blocked (presumably, where the incident happened). Some rail traffic was moving at this time as the incident happened about 7:45 this morning, but it was moving very slow, as there were still emergency, and railroad crews around. Curious (but not ghoulish) I parked my car at the bakery, and stood along the platform, looking at the scene. At this point there was nothing to see, other than the firefighters, ambulance crew, and cops standing in little knots of conversation, while someone from either METRA or the BNSF took measurements for some reason. Another hard-hatted gentleman stood on the middle track of the crossing, shooting photos, while another made marks on t
(3 years ago)driving down I-530 to Pine Bluff, we came up to a horrible truck accident. it took down a overhead sign, the tractor burned up, the driver was killed, and traffic backed all the way up to Little Rock(10 miles away) today there is still a black spot, the sign has been replaced by a roadside sign, and there is still orange barrels. Since my parent are or were working for the newspaper, they have seen horrrible car wrecks. my dad has seen gruseme stuff that I won’t mention at all what he has seen.
I heard about the incident’s effects on Metra this morning, too. I’m right here with your feelings; hope you’ll have a way to satisfy your curiosity about whom and why sooner rather than later, and that the news isn’t terminal. It had to be someone with a lack of situational awareness, one would assume, but that says next to nothing.
I remember a few months ago when I came home from work and happened across the accident that killed the mother of Astronaut Dan Tani. He is somewhat of a local hero, so there was a definite feeling of “Oh, no!”, even though I didn’t know either of them personally. And we’ll never know what caused the otherwise level-headed woman to go around the stopped school bus and lowered gates into the path of the freight train. The crossing was the one nearest our house.
Hopefully it’s no one personal to you. Regardless, it’s hard not to have a lot of different feelings ranging from anger to remose. Make sure you are in touch with your feelings - repressing something like this can have lasting impact.
I’ve seen too many. We have no tracks in our district, but the highways provide plenty of opportunities nonetheless.
It is different when it happens close to home. I first heard of car-train crashes when I was a kid in 4-H and somebody had a speaker from N&W’s Operation Lifesaver program come to a meeting to do a presentation for us. I was surprised that crashes actually occurred between cars and trains but never thought much of it.
In March 1990, a friend of mine was on his way to school and came up on the Conrail crossing just south of the high school west of Bucyrus, Ohio (full details at http://chatanuga.org/HOL.html). He, like a lot of people, got used to the idea of there never being a train at that crossing and ran the stop signs and crossbucks at the crossing. On that particular Monday morning, he went into the crossing at 50 MPH, not seeing the westbound Capitol Limited entering the crossing doing 70 MPH. He didn’t make it. My bus went through the crossing shortly before the crash. My brother’s shuttle bus had to pull over for the emergency vehicles when it approached the crossing shortly after the crash. Apparently there were two students in the car behind my friend who saw the approaching train and kept thinking he (my friend) would stop. They got out of their car and went over to the wreck but were kept away by the train’s conductor who told them that they didn’t want to see it. An announcement was made at school late that morning about the accident. After school, my bus went through the crossing, and a lot of the debris was still scattered down the tracks, an image that I’ll never be able to forget.
It’s been 18 years since the crash. I still think about it, although the nightmares have thankfully stopped. I still wonder at times how it could have happened. The engineer of the train said in a later newspaper article that he’d seen my friend’s car approaching and not slowing down. That’s when he put the train into eme
There was an Operation Lifesaver video called (I believe) David’s Run where he and his sister are being loaded into ambulances with an NS train in the background. He’s taken to the hospital where he goes unconscious, and when he comes to, he’s in the cab of an NS freight as people are throwing objects at the train, kids are putting brush on the tracks and getting stuck on a bridge, and then some kids tamper with a switch and his train goes onto a siding, striking some boxcars that he and his sister are climbing on.
Indeed, whenever one’s own “back yard” is affected, it’s only natural that one’s own sensitivities are energized. We more easily identify with subjects that are “closer to home”.
Sometimes it’s easy to roll up in front of the TV (or 'puter) and watch tragedy striking others and editorialize with indifference, since we feel that bad things only happen to others.
As Richard Pryor once said “It’s all fun and games until someone’s hair catches on fire” thereafter it becomes personal.
Watching the colapse of the World Trade Centre on tv, I was more rapt up in the individuals that suffered & died, more than the buildings themselves. The WTC is being rebuilt. Lives were lost, Fathers or mothers died leaving families bereft. Children suddenly without a parent. Those that were killed all had hopes and aspirations which were dashed in an instant. I could go on and on, but the point I want to make is that the person who was killed in this story is an individual, with a family, friends, neighbours, acquaintances, co-workers, etc. These people, along with train engineer, and those witnesses to the acident and para-medics, etc. will be affected for a long period of time especially when they are close to this incident. Just one person, one life, one soul was killed, but it will affect so many for so long.
A few weeks ago, while returning on the California Zephyr from San Francisco, we were flying through the small farming towns of Illinois and I suddenly felt us come to a quick stop-not an all out emergency application but what must’ve been close. I don’t think the rest of the passengers immediately noticed anything unusual since we were running a little late they were laying on the brakes pretty hard at each station stop. But since this wasn’t a station, people soon got curious and after a few minutes the conductor came on the intercom to say that the reason for the hard stop was that engine crew thought we had hit a pedestrian (fortunately not). My first thought was, how much time was some fool going to lose waiting for an 8 car Amtrak train to go through a crossing at 80 miles an hour?
Apparently, the victim was a 21 year old woman. She was struck by a westbound METRA train, dead-heading cars back to Aurora. The train was going 70mph and the woman was thrown 75 yards down the tracks from the impact. I guess that would explain the measurements being taken yesterday, as well as the areas that were marked by the authorities on the scene. Seems like this morning, the trains are blowing their horns more often than they have in the past.
From what I understand, it was not a pretty sight yesterday… but then, that kind of thing never is.
Perhaps this will wake up some of the more impatient types in town here, and maybe people will take a closer look at crossing safety, with the idea of returning home safely at the end of the day.