Got stopped this afternoon by a westbound NS train at CP 482 (Porter, In). I knew the train was going to pickup a road foreman and trainee from hearing it on the scanner.
Gates went down and the trains slowed to a crawl.
Two boys and two girls were walking home from school (last day of school). They are probably 15 or 16 years old. The train stopped.
The kids started to move towards the train and were obviously going to climb on the steel car and dismount on the other side. I leaned on the horn and the kids turned and looked at me.
Three kids stayed and the fourth crawled on the car. The second boy was ready to go when the BOOM, BOOM, BOOM of the slack running out scared him. Sure enough the train took off.
I got out of hte car and told the kids to be careful and enjoy the summer and dont do that again.
After the train passed I took off and stopped and told the other boy to be careful and enjoy the summer.
BNSF was doing some switching in town. I went up onto the team platform, and stepped onto a flat car to take some pictures of the locomotive on the adjacent track. As soon as I stepped off of the flat car the engine attached to the flat car sounded its horn and pulled the flat car away.
I did not even notice that there was a second locomotive let alone that it was attached to the car that I was standing on.
Crew knew me, well everybody here abouts knows who I am. I generally have no clue who they are.
I was down by the tracks, waiting for the Amtrak (I’d heard it had the phase III heritage unit), when a friend showed up. She was taking a photography class and wanted a looking-down-the-tracks shot. She and I were arguing whether that was a bad idea or not when said Amtrak blasted by around 50 mph. Neither of us got our photos (her artsy one and my railfan one), but I’m glad that was the only thing we lost.
BNSF is even fussier about crews on the tracks. A conductor or an engineer wanting to cross infront or behind a train must do so at least 30’ away from the train.
MOW people are not allowed on or near the track without a track warrant, and this does not matter if they are on duty or off duty. We were at a BNSF training session for EMS, Police and Fire Fighters–The MOW people present did not even go out to the track side. We learned three ways to shut the engine down, to keep three point contact with the locomotive while ascending or descending, and never to enter the engine room lest we slip on any oil that may be in there.
Our objective was to discover how to remove an injured or sick crewman from the cab. We finally decided on a fire ladder and a stokes litter lowering that with a rope from the cab windows.
On my only interaction as EMS with a locomotive and crew was out in the middle of the boonies, they had stopped their train because of fumes in the cab. Ft. Worth called us out on this one. We approached the train from the south on a dirt road and across a farmer’s field. We did not see the crew and ascended into the cab, we encountered no fumes as the engines had be shut down for some time now, but we found the engineer on the ground on the other side of the locomotive. The conductor was not as badly stricken since he had been off and on the train during the past several miles and had been out setting hand brakes. Duty First, I suppose. At least if you can still do it. At least we did not need to figure out how to extricate the crew.
It is far easier to stand on the station platform and chew the fat than it is to go chasing these things through the fields.
I just gave a quick and dirty rail safety class to our county firefighters association. First, last, and many times in between was the message “Always expect a train.”
It was only 20 minutes, and the whole idea was to make folks aware of the need to watch for traffic if working near the tracks for any reason, and to let the railroad know ASAP that they were there.
A few months back I took a train into Short Line yard and a company officer radioed us to stop. The main line runs North/South while the yard is on the old East/West line, both lines being exRI. The switch off the main is dispatcher controlled, but everything else entering the yard is hand thrown and around a sharp curve. It’s hard, especially at night to see how the first switches are lined until you’re just about on top of them. Because of this we were moving slow. Slow enough that some “pedestrians” thought they could climb on and cross between some cars while we were moving, which is why the manager stopped us.
Some times when doubling up long trains in Boone, we end up blocking a couple of crossings down town. Some people try to cross through. It just makes us sit longer until someone (local managers or city police) checks to make sure people are clear. Once in a while in those situations some don’t try to cross through, they show their displeasure by turning anglecocks. That doesn’t get us to move any quicker either.
To set the scene, in the late ‘60’s CP closed down its’ coach yard in downtown Calgary. The land was paved over to become parking lots on either side of the ROW. In 1989 CP erected chain link fences on either side of their ROW to keep parking lot users from crossing the ROW.
In the early '90’s, both the city police and CP police were arresting trespassers dressed in business suits who were carrying wire cutters in their briefcases to cut the fence!
People must have gotten the message, because I haven’t heard mention of this occurring for a while now.
“The first day you hire out – the first thing you are taught- Expect movement of equipment on any track at any time, your life depends on it.” BaltACD
BaltACD: You are so right!
A few years ago, I was watching and photographing a Steam Excursion Train, on the former Ohio Central now Genesee & Wyoming, turn on the wye at Newark, Ohio. The wye is part of the junction of the former Pennsy Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis and the former Baltimore & Ohio (CSX) main line from Baltimore to Chicago. The Pennsy was the east-west leg and the B&O the north-south leg. The Steam Train, coming from the east, pulled up the east side of the wye (B&O) heading north, stopped and then backed south down the west side of the wye, stopping at a street side fire hydrant to fill the tender.
I and scores of other rail fans standing to the north along and on the tracks, watched the tender filled and then the train slowly begin backing south down the wye. I and probably everyone else were jolted back to reality by the blast of an air horn. Coming from behind us from the north was the local from Mount Vernon. I later wondered who was more scared, the rail fans or the locomotive operator coming around a curve and seeing scores of people standing in his way?
As a footnote: The original route of the B&O from Baltimore to Chicago ran to Wheeling, WV, west across the Ohio River to Bellaire, OH and then west to Cambridge, Zanesville, Newark, Mount Vernon, Mansfield and to Willard where it went west to Chicago. In 1891, the B&O built a new line west from Akron to Willard, opening the heavily populated and industrialized corridor from Pittsburgh to Akron. This became the main line and is now the CSX main line from Pittsburgh to Chicago.
What each railroad can do is make their own brand new, Special-make-up effects, Severe Injury videos showing the simulated, approximate results of a railroad car hitting and rolling over careless people.
They can show the realistic injury videos on-line and at high schools, colleges.
We recently did such a demonstration, live, prior the the local high school’s prom. Two car wreck, two fatalities, numerous injuries, all with moulage.
It’s my understanding we “sobered” a few kids up.
Doesn’t do much for the “it can’t happen to me” bravado crowd, though. They believe they’re indestructable…
They should emphasize that trains aren’t always loud and you may not hear it coming. This is why some people get caught on the tracks and don’t live to tell about it. They ASSUME trains are big and noisy and if one comes along they’ll hear it in plenty of time. Stay off the tracks unless you’re an employee.
Unfortunately, that applies to most teenagers. Because of their youth, they tend to think that they’re immortal. When we were that age, most of us probably did something stupid that we were fortunate enough to survive.
A couple of years ago my EMS squad was called to a bicycle down at Balloch’s Crossing in Cornish NH on NECR’s ex-B&M Conn River Line. The cyclist was clear of the crossing, all EMS folks were clear of the crossing which at the time was protected by warning flashers.
The northbound Vermonter tripped the crossing flashers just before the ambulance crew pulled out onto the tracks to do a three point turn. Fortunately a responding cop had left his blue lights on and the Vermonter’s crew had slowed from their then-customary 50 MPH to around 15, giving the ambulance crew time to back off the tracks . I don’t think they even realized the train was coming.
Since then the line has been upgraded so the crossing now has gates. With the new 79 MPH speed limit is takes about 40 seconds from the time the gates go down for the train to clear the crossing. The TDD next to the crossing regularly announces speeds above 75 even with a 50 MPH speed restriction about a mile north.
The Indy FD forgot that last week. There was a fire between CSX tracks and while fighting the fire, they moved hoses over the other track and forgot to notify CSX. oops