Yesterday, (2/3/04) in Bucks County, PA someone opened fire on a CSX freight train.
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/bucks_county/7867999.htm
I saw that on railfan.net
Geez - at first I thought there was a really [|(] discussion going on here on the forum
At least no one was hurt. Must have run out of broad barn sides…[#dots]
At least no one was hurt.
stay safe
joe
Somebody help them get a Darwin Award![:o)]
Are things getting so bad we have to think about arming train crews?
“Nose Gunner to Conductor - Score one plinker!”
“Turret to Conductor - I got one, too”
“…Next time one of you guys gets the ball turret!”
“Engineer to Tail gunner! Did you get that guy who ran the gates???”
Doesn’t this happen on an almost regular basis around East St. Louis,
and Proviso Yard and in LA? I have a friend who was an engineer for
the Rock and the SP and he said you took your life in your hands in
some of those areas.
Hey tree68 very funny! Hey, I guess a troop train would come in handy.
Unfortunately, this sort of thing happens fairly often. I have been shot at twice in the last five years (witness the bullet holes on two locomotives). Luckily they have missed…
Lots of lead flying around out there these days. Tough to even know if the shots were aimed at the train or merely carried into it after being fired at another target…
LC
Man… and i thought Snowballs were bad
Whos the dumbass that fires at Trains?
Kevin-
We never saw either of the shooters and only found the bullet holes later in the trip. Luckily, nothing vital was hit. The second shot went through the engineer’s window on one of our trailing units. Glad it was n’t the leader. Also, we have quite a few run ins with paintballers in the summer months. I often wonder if a paintball could shatter a windshield. So far it hasn’t been an issue…
LC
I’ve had rocks thrown at me and the little bastards have amazing accuracy! I saw him winding up and quickly shut my window and WHACK! If I hadn’t have shut it, it would have pegged me! That’s O.K. that little turd will probably be stamping license plates in El Dorado pretty soon.
Ken
I’m not suggesting anyone actually do this but, what would happen if , having been fired upon, a train crew returned the fire and hit the attacker? Would this be considered a justified use of deadly force? It seems to me that you would have the right to defend your own life or the lives of others on the train if you were shot at. It might also send a messege to the would-be attackers that trains had become a “hardened” target thus slowing down or stopping the attacks.
George
Everyday I become more and more convinced that a lot of people are IDIOTS!
Here in southern California, I feel as though I am being engulfed by idiotic, pretensive jerks! Yesterday I was down by the new Gold Line in South Pasadena, and these people are STUPID!!! Operation Lifesaver has no effect on these people. The Gold Line has crossing arms gaurding the sidewalks in addition to the street (because, once more, southern California is home to a lot of IDIOTS). However, to ensure that no one is trapped inside the sidewalk gates as they come down, there are “emergency exits” on the side of these sidewalk arms. Well yesterday, the arms came down, but some idiots just opened the emergency exits on one side and ran through!!! Brings new meaning to ‘running a crossing.’ But maybe its for the better: one less idiot to worry about, and a person won’t scratch up the train’s paint like a car will.
Sometimes it seems that it is a pitty that diesels had to be invented. I can imagine six 2-10-2’s hauling hard upgrade as the person is running the crossing. Maybe a few hundred thousand pounds of tractive effort will teach these people a little respect for the railway.
Then again, I think we are going about Operation Lifesaver the wrong way. We are teaching these people that running crossings is dangerous. Let’s just attack the problem at the source: make them not want to run grade crossings. How do we do this? We make them into railfans, so they won’t want to run grade crossings–they’ll want to stop and watch the train pass, and savor the beauty of the PS-4 gondola. And as for the rocks, they’ll want to help reposition ballast, not throw it.
There are a lot of IDIOTS out there,
Daniel
No,…since the railroad is a “deep pocket” they’d get sued by even Al Capone’s mother, and since we have this societal belief that money fixes everything, and jury’s tend to be made up of people who themselves are not wealthy, and who have a self righteous antipathy for those who are, the Railroad would most likely settleout of court (and would be wise to do so,…and would have to fire the “gun nut” employee, out of fear if they didn’t, and there was a repeat with that employee EVER again,…the sky would be the limit for the next “victim”
Everyone’s a “victim” don’t you know? And jury’s love an (financial) underdog, because they feel there is something in their grasp that they can “fix” and go home with a warm fuzzy feeling about themselves… (Honey, I made a DIFFERENCE today"…etc)
Plus, in order for “deadly force” to be justified, your attacker must confront you, and be on the assault. If the other party is hiding in a ditch or running away, there is not considered to be an “:imminent threat” to your well being, unless the gun is still aimed at you, and another shot is forthcoming.
It’s GEEKS like them that make the railroad buisness harder. Just imagine people not doing things like that, you’d never have to worry about things like that. And you would never get run off by police for being a rail fan.
Just a thought and I have no clue how practical this would be:
Equip the conductor with a digital camera and a lap-top with a wireless internet
connection. Snap a photo of the little a-hole that’s throwin’ rocks at the crew.
Record the train number, all-by milepost number and the time, and send the
photo into the RR headquarters. Application software could be developed to
run on the lap-top to make this all very automated and easy to perform by the
conductor. Maybe even GPS technology could be employed.
Software could also be developed that could process the images at the HQ in
real-time and route it to a railroad dispatcher’s console or maybe an emergency
operator (if the railroad has such personnel - not sure), and from the train number
and all-by milepost, pull-up the telephone number for the local police department
and initiate an immediate 911 call from the railroad HQ to that local police dept.
and provide them with the information.
If one kid or some wise-a** adult gets nailed PDQ, it would at least send a
message to that whole neighborhood for others to think about and maybe get
the word out that the railroad isn’t foolin’ around.
Sorry - this may be a wild idea, but hey, I’m a software engineer with a soft
spot for railroads.
All this reminfs me of this one black woman at the downtown St. Louis station. We saw amtrak coming in and it was late, she started yelling at saying “Its not amtrak, its late, don’t be going around telling lies, I want you people to leave for making a comotion” I balled her out so bad that she started to cry. That B**** does not know the diffrence between amtrak and a frieght train. I mean, here comes a Silver train with windows and the word “AMTRAK” written all over it, and she mistakes it for a frieght train! I am not usally like this, but for a person who does not know the diffrence between Amtrak and UP, she should not even be ALLOWED on a train. I made a post about this everywere, and wrote to the papers about it to get my revenge on yelling at us for something we didnt do. I call it public Humilation #1. And to tell you this, I was talking amongst my fellow railfans when she started all this comotion. So its not only the railroad crews that get it from the public, but also the railroad buffs who follow them. In this era of Rap/gangs/cars/X-games, us railroad buffs are considered “Wierd” and some people have gone as far as to threaten me that “If you dont start hating trains and liking rap, I will kill you.” I guess the people who try to beat trains accross the tracks are trying to make us start hating trains by making them late all the time. Do I make myself clear?
P.S. That woman wrote in responce to my letter, but everyone was on my side since I didn’t do anything to her, as last word, I herd that her husband left her, and took everything, and that she is know living in the getto of East St. Louis.