Please wait until the train stops.....

Trains Magazine General Discussion
1

Had to pass this one along for your entertainment. My emphasis…

Metra riders leap off moving train

Next station was 2 minutes away, say baffled cops

February 10, 2008 By Shamus Toomey

Staff Reporter/stoomey@suntimes.com

In an act that left investigators shaking their heads in disbelief, two men who missed their stop opened the doors of a moving Metra train and jumped into the gravel and snow in west suburban Clarendon Hills on Saturday.

And they weren’t exactly youngsters. Police said the jumpers were ages 68 and 56.

The next stop was only about two minutes away.

“It goes without saying that’s a pretty ridiculous thing to do,” said Clarendon Hills police Cmdr. Ted Jenkins. "These people are lucky to be alive. . . . It’s just one of those things where you say, ‘What was going through their heads?’ "

The westbound train was traveling an estimated 20 to 25 mph when the two made the leap about a quarter mile past the Clarendon Hills stop just after 11 a.m. Saturday.

No one on the train saw how they opened the doors, Jenkins said, adding that video cameras did not capture their jumps.

One man was found facedown in the snowbank about four feet from the railroad tracks. The other was walking around near the other man, police said.

The men, both from Clarendon Hills, were hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Their names were not released. Police said they were looking into possible charges.

When questioned by investigators, the men offered a range of stories. They first said they had been hit by the train. Then they said the doors closed and dragged them for four blocks. Then they said they intended to get off at Clarendon Hills, but the train didn’t stop, Jenkins

2

I’m surprised that the incident made the news; that sort of thing used to happen on occasion back in my day, although it usually happened late at night when the persons involved were sufficiently intoxicated.

The worst ones are the ones who pull the air because they missed their stop. Better yet were the ones that, rather than walk thru the train to the coach that stops on the platform, they instead just open the doors themselves, no matter where in the bushes they happen to be.

3

Oh yes folks, yet again…STUPID DOES AS STUPID IS! Was there a full moon out Friday night?

4

Don’t these trains have a sort of central air lock for just these kinds of dumb people? All our passenger equipment is equiped with a locking mechanism that is operated centrally by the engineer and will only override in case of an emergency. Individual doors can be kept open by the conductor by means of a special key that is put into a lock at the door itself. Only that door stays open untill the key is removed. If you don’t have this key or pull the emergency brake cord, once the engineer pushes a button the doors close and stay shut. In case he forgets, the door locks are automatically triggered at a pre-defined speed. As far as I know all countries I have travelled by train in in the EU have a similar mechanism for just these situations.

Anyway, these guys were indeed lucky.

PS: If this had happened in India this would have been extremely normal. [:D]

5

Forgetting to deploy their 'chutes. Tragic.

6

[banghead]

This is probably one of the bigger acts of idiocy i have heard of. i mean…WHY?

7

Why??? Because they had been hit by the train! What? Oh… sorry. That’s not it. Oh wait! The doors closed and dragged them for four blocks. No, that’s not it either… hmmm. Ah, here it is: they intended to get off at Clarendon Hills, but the train didn’t stop.

It’s hard to remember what happened if you jump out of a moving train and fall on your teefers.[B)]

8

They were getting off at “Willoughby” …

Pay no attention to the smoking man saying “Submitted for your approval…”[:-^]

9

I daresay that these guys were on an older coach. On the older CNW cars, push-buttons for door controls were pretty much out in the open, and could be used to open either only the door in question or the doors down the length of the train in either direction. BN/CB&Q cars weren’t the same as CNW’s, but might have had similar door controls.

BNSF tends to maintain a longer lookout than other railroads, with one employee staring the length of the train from an open door until the train is either moving pretty fast or is off the platform. But for the train to have gotten up to 20 or so, it was probably a pretty fair distance away from the station (they’re lucky they didn’t land in that pond!).

But don’t the engineers have an alarm to indicate that the doors are not properly closed? Jim (Zardoz), perhaps you remember. I’m surprised that the engineer didn’t react to this (or perhaps he did, and that’s how they discovered it).

10

Carl, et.al.,

There is an indicator light in the cab that illuminates when all doors are closed. If ANY ingress/egress door is opened, the light goes out. The ‘door light’ is also the engineer’s signal to proceed to the next station.

When I would see the ‘door light’ go out, I would look in the mirror to see if anything or anyone was exiting the train; if not, I just proceeded to the next station. Frequently, it was the trainmen smoking in a vestibule between stations tossing out their ciggy and venting the area. (If it was anything else going on, I didn’t want to know about it).

11

Whatever their motivation, I would gladly have paid a nickel to see it happen. [(-D]

12

Hey Clarendon Hills thats where I live! [:D]

From the distance they say they must have jumped around where the track curves before going into Westmont, I take my sisters kid to a park along the tracks right around there when its nice out to watch the trains

13

why they jump off some body must have [#welcome] waved!!!

14

When exiting a moving train, 2 miles before the next station stop, does one traditionally shout “Geronino”! or “Talley-Ho”! ?

15

Methinks “Oh, ****” would be the more likely choice, probably as soon as one realized that it’s too late to rethink the process…

16

LOL![(-D]

17

From somebody on the inside: “the “victims” were familiar to the police as druggies and petty offenders. One was involved in an on-train hassle just recently. They muscled open the door and bailed out, so the crew had no idea that anything happened. Older BNSF equipment has no door light in the loco, so the engineer wouldn’t see that a door was open.”

18

Apparently, these two dolts didn’t want their grasp on the Darwin Award to slip through their fingers. They live to try again …

19

Why am I, somehow, not surprised at that development?