[:I][:o)][?] On Sunday evening a woman attempted to drive across the tracks in the “middle” of CN’s former ICRR yard in Mattoon Illinois where she was promtly hit by the Southbound Amtrak “Illini”. Fortunately, the train had just made a station stop & was not yet up to speed. The car was hit at about 10mph. The women was injured, but will recover. The closest RR crossing was about 1/4 mile away. Oh yes, she was ticketed for drunk driving.
As long as the public has some sort of access to the right-of-way, these things will always happen.
We(railfans) wonder why the majority of average Joes and Janes find us strange, ***, eccentric, etc. . . .
Matt
How “out of it” do you have to be to try to drive across a rail yard?
she must have thought of a short cut (that came right in the middle of a CN yard)
kevin
On a local industrial siding, a resident tired of waiting for the switching that was going on and decided to drive his compact 4WD pickup across the track a hundred or so feet from the crossing. He didn’t make it over. No collision with the train (it wasn’t moving). I overheard the engineer say on the radio that it was the darndest thing he’d ever seen…
While realizing that “Railfans” are a different ‘breed’ of people;I am wondering
about your choice of words describing said people.
I’m not sure that ‘certain’ words are appropriate.
a few years back i remember in the news a judge(yes, a judge) driving drunk making a right turn down some railroad tracks…the ex-'Q west of mendota, IL i believe…getting stuck and then refusing to blow when the cop got there. with all her political pull (making a certain gesture with my fist) all she got out of it was that she couldn’t try DUI cases anymore…
a while after that i read in the police reports in the paper that some guy refused to blow when he was pulled over. it was quoted specifically in the paper as the man saying…“if judge so and so doesn’t have to blow, i don’t have to either!”. he was promptly arrested and taken to jail. funny how things work, eh?!