FTA: "… MOORHEAD, Minn. — Burlington Northern Santa Fe rail traffic was stopped briefly late Friday after a motorist drove around barricades and got his car hung up on the tracks at a BNSF worksite.
A second driver did the same thing early Saturday at the site in Moorhead, and police arrested both on charges of driving while intoxicated…"
Most of the time these stories seem to involve trains knocking ewrrant automobile and trucks off of the tracks, this time it seems the motor traffic wone a battle?
I watched one of those in Plymouth, Michigan. Gal drove around the barricades and got stuck on the crossing-less track. Train stopped, cops came and gave her a ticket, then to add insult to injury the tow truck driver put her Jeep in 4WD and drove it off the tracks to his tow truck.
I’ve related here before the story of a young man and his Ford Ranger 4WD pickup. He got tired of waiting for a train blocking a crossing (industrial trackage - not mainline) and decided to drive “cross country” to get around it.
Unfortunately, his not-as-much-ground-clearance-as-he-thought truck wasn’t equal to the profile of the roadbed (somewhat elevated) and the track itself, and he ended up high-centered on the rails.
The old head engineer could be heard on the scanner telling his conductor “he’d never seen anything like it…”
“The motor traffic won the battle”??? So both drivers got arrested & sustained serious damage to their wheels & suspension. If that’s what you call winning, it seems like a Pyrrhic victory to me. This story can only be improved if BNSF sues them both for damages.