It’s getting better 'n better. This a.m. westbound Dundee Rd. same crossing - a single U.P. engine pulling a Triple Crown roadrailer train. I’m car #10. Car #16 pulls into the eastbound lanes and drives into a residential cul-de-sac. By the time the driver turns around and pulls out heading east, the train has passed. Elapsed time from warning signals flashing to gates back up - less than 2 minutes.
Another thing which I always found interesting when I was running:
When my train was going relatively fast (+40mph), I would see numerous cars driving around the gates ahead of my train. This I found to be fascinating in and of itself.
But what was really odd, was that when I was going slow (10mph or so), the cars would line up at the gates and just sit and wait.
I know I am not imagining this, because it happened ALL THE TIME; so many times, it stopped being something that I really took note of.
I wonder if this is a northern Illinois/southern Wisconsin phenomenon, or if it occurs elsewhere?
Would it be because when it is going slow, it looks big and threatening and when going faster, you can’t really judge the speed, it looks smaller and less threatening and …oops.
Could be…I never could figure it out.
I saw one guy in such a hurry to turn around, he hit the van behind him!! A couple of weeks later at the same crossing, another driver was trying to turn around when the train cleared the crossing, leaving him blocking the crossing!! Some folks are just too impatient!
Zardoz, this happens all the time, it always makes me laugh when you’re on a short train that probably would be clear of the crossing in one minute or less and yet the public can’t see how long you are. On the other hand, I’ve seen them do it when I was on lite power and I would have thought they could see that we didn’t have cars behind our engines.
In an eight-year period growing up along the old N&W (Washington) Lynchburg-Bristol (Birmingham) line, I can remember at least seven people who died as a result of being hit by speeding trains.
The first four were seniors in a ru***o get to church on a warm summer morning, had the car A/C on, and got careless. That was one of only three grade crossings in the little Virginia village, and they had crossed it thousands of time; despite great visibility on both sides of a single-side track, they were simply broadsided. I found splinters of PPG window glass from the car more than 75 feet from the point of impact.
Another two were high-school kids deliberately trying to race a train (the guy in the back miraculously survived); and the final probably just didn’t notice how quickly even a 50 mph train can barrel around the curve and kill you. He was a great guy and the little brother of a future co-worker of mine.
The last event occurred at a small college, with the ultimate result that, instead of gating the crossing, the college closed what had once been its main gate to anything but pedestrian traffic. (Presumably the old N&W was as intransigent as Norfolk Southern can be.)
In the middle of this period a gasoline-truck driver was immolated at a crossing in Abingdon, VA, which at that time had a no-horn restriction on all train traffice. But I’ve sounded off on that already.
As many have said, those who have no sense and let their impatience overrule their (and others’) safety may not be deterred by a gate. But in all of the cases I brought up above, a gate would have been sufficient warning. Happily, the N&W, on the way to the Norfolk Southern, has gated many crossings and eliminated a few; there are also plain old wigwags at places that just had a crossbuck.
Having witnessed this carnage as an adolescent, it ju