[:(] I guess I can can keep saying this until I’m blue in the face and people will still not listen and still not heed the warning, but STAY OFF THE RAILROAD TRACKS, ALWAYS!
HERE’S WHAT HAPPENED:
Why do I bring this up when it’s been talked about before? I know I’m preaching to the choir, everyone here knows better, but somthing happened last night. Somewhere in America a kid sat right between the rails of the main line as a train was headed for him, no more than a 1/2 mile away, traveling at 50 miles per hour, like it was some kind of joke. I know becasue I was there.
I rode my bicycle to the tracks last night about 8:15PM. The tracks are about a 1/4 mile away from my house. I heard a train coming so I sped up and made it to the place in the cemetary where the tracks go by when to my horror I saw a boy and a girl on a culvert RR bridge and another boy sitting, not in the siding, but right on the main line. My heart almost stopped. I dropped my bike and started over to them but when they saw me they ran away. Am I more scary than a highballing train?
HERE’S WHAT I TOLD HIM:
I waited until the train passed to confront them. It would make no sense trying to talk to them while a noisy train roared passed. I caught up with them just a little ways away. I told that kid that I’m only gonna tell him once don’t ever sit on or walk on or be on those tracks. You could be killed. BAM and it’s all over. A bloody corpse scattered all over the tracks. It won’t be pretty. It’ll be gruesome It’s no place to be. I didn’t ask him why he was there and I didn’t humiliate him either.
I don’t think he heard me. All he said was “alright, alright, alright.” No, it’s not alright. What would have happened had he been hit? How would his family feel? How would that engineer feel? What’s the engineer going to tell his family? That he killed a kid today? Suppose he threw the train into emergency? All those freight cars could derail
Jeff Your comments are “right on the money”. I hope someone, somewhere, will read this and think twice about playing on the tracks. Hopefully, it will save a live, hopefully more.
Now is a bad time to be on or near the tracks. Many railroaders are scared with reference to 9-11. I don’t blame them. If I had to cross a long bridge the fear of part of that bridge missing or damaged would really be on my mind. (Especially at night with the ability to see almost at its worst.)
We as a failfan community need to be an extra “set of eyes” for the railroads and the railroaders. Moving the nation’s good safely is everyone responsibility, not just the railroads and their employees. We can help by doing just exactly what Jeff said and informing people about the dangers of being on the tracks. Also about the danger of crossing the tracks (in an auto) when a train is coming.
I am sure other people can offer additional helpful ideas on this subject.
Jeff , if you have the website for the video footage you mentioned you might want to put the link in this forum for others to see. You know what they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. It might do more good than either of us can imagine.
As always STAY SAFE, and LOOK, LISTEN, AND L I V E
sorry, i don’t have the link for the video. that was 3 or more years ago when i saw it and have not been able to find it since. the program the video was on came from either TLC or Discovery Channel or another similer channel.
I saw the same video on Fox Channel, the show was called “worlds scariest train crashes” or something like that and yes it is a frightening thing to see. In the film (from the 50’s or 60’s) here is a stopped passenger train on the near side of a double track. People are crossing at the street directly in front of the engine and you can hear the horn of the on coming train. The woman is looking in the opposite direction as she crosses in front of the stopped train, probably thinking the oncoming trains is going to pass in the oppsosite direction. As she steps out past the stopped engine, she’s still lokking the other way when the second trains comes flying past the stopped train, it was PASSING the 1st train and WHAM the girl doesnt even see it. Thats all I saw. but its chilling.
As for the kids, they obviusly are morons, “alright, alright.” is code for “whatever”, but what can you do other than fence off 1000’s of miles of right of way?
Every year or so out here in L.A. we get some dope whose jogging-walking-standing on the rail tracks here usually with a walkman on his ears and gets splatted like a fly on the windshield by the enormously-horn blaring-three very bright high beam headlights locomotive that he never saw coming. I’m sure when that the families all claim that it was the RR fault and that their dear departed was completely free from blame since he was only walking-jogging-standing on someone elses posted “No Trespassing-Private Property of the _____ Railroad Company” and we all know its everyones God given right to have your walkway turned up so loud that you cant hear anything else that might disturb your tunes…
As someone who occassionally watches trains, Only from the comfort of my own car I might add, and having been almost arrested as a child for “trespassing” on RR ROW and throwing rocks at the nice shiny Buicks going by on a freight train ( I was 8 and the experience taught me a great deal of respect for trains) I have NO SYMPATHY for these Idiots who
My father was a railroader, and taught me to never walk down the middle or next to tracks. I’ve always had respect for safety distance away from trackside. Some people don’t realize that the effort a train takes to destroy your car on the tracks is about the same as you running over a pop can with your car on the street.
I have seen the video on the internet that the above posts have mentioned. It isn’t pretty at all.
I see and hear from TV news of people here in Kansas City being hit at crossings, or just sitting on the tracks, because they “claim” they didn’t see or hear the train. Just recently, a railroader found a dead body next to some yard tracks in North Kansas City. There were no indications of the body being run over or hit by a train, but just finding the body probably would haunt the railroader for the rest of his life. Nothing yet is known how the body got there or what happened.
I know this is going to be repetitive, but at trackside please keep an eye out on your surroundings.
I wish more people would get the message Stop Look Listen and Live.I see cars go around gates and through crossings all the time.It scares me for their families.
stay safe
Joe
You said it, and you said it “like it is.” There is no accounting for some idiots who think the railroad tracks are a playground. Tell everybody you see fooling around there that it’s not their playground – and Stay Off!
jhickam
i was a road brakeman with 31yrs and i was very fortunate that on many freight trains i have ridden none have ever hit a pedestrian.or tresspassers, the american public has gotten the idea that people are first and trains last ,they have this idea that they expect a train to stopo on a dime like cars but it does’nt work that way. it takes a train traveling at 55mph with a heavy train about 2to3 miles to stop by then it would be to late and messy.so the state or our congressman should pass a law that when you go for your drivers test.they should take a course on rail safety, if you do not take the test you will not be ablt to get your drivers license,thank you
One more thing I forgot to add. This kid was, more or less, challenging the train. That’s even worse because he wasn’t ignorant of the train, he knew it was coming yet remained on the track. I was on Amtrak a couple years ago when, just as we started to move from a station, a kid wanted to play chicken with the train. The engineer slammed on the brakes and even at 5mph that was hard stop that seemed to take forever. The kid went over to a park bench picnic table or whatever and sat down and waited until the police arrived. He didn’t try to run but denied he was even on the tracks. We were stopped for 26 minutes.
I’m wondering if the rise of trespassing rises with the end of summer?
Whenever I see someone go around gates it really scares me. I think, what would have happened if he would have gone around the gates 10 seconds later? It sends a shiver up my spine!
AS A KID (aged 17) it’s really embarrassing to see, well, other kids doing what they do around trains. I have nothing but respect for the railroad and its property and it just burns me up to see anyone screwing with trains like they do - walking in the four-foot, throwing stones at the cars, dodging trains at crossings, and all that. Not only are they endangering themselves, but sometimes the lives of railroad workers and people near the tracks as well. And through all of that, it reflects poorly on us railfans - especially us KID railfans. (A lot of people do understandably have a problem with a 17-year-old near the tracks, even if I’m just there to railfan and try to be as safe as possible.) If they don’t kill or hurt themselves or others, at the very least it makes people wary of even safe railfans such as ourselves.
(Oh, and, yes, I have seen the aforementioned video. I’m genuinely surprised a similar accident has never happened in my town, that I know of.)
So, from a KID to all the other kids out there - DON’T SCREW WITH TRAINS. PERIOD.
Even among people who are familiar with trains, stupid things happen. I used to commute from Marcus Hook to Phila on Septa northbound over the NEC. Usually, shortly after boarding the train from Neward and Wilmington to Phila, the first southbound Metroliner of the day would pass - at track speed - 100+ mph. One day, the Newark DE train was very late, so they announced that they were sending some deadhead equipment down from Phila and it would load on the opposite platform. Most people were accustomed to crossing the 4 track main (myself included) rather than use the 3-flights-of-stairs overpass a couple of hundred feet away. So, they all started to cross the tracks, assuming the headlight they were seeing to the north was the deadhead. WRONG! It was the Metroliner which parted the crossing herd quite neatly with people scurring every which way. (I had known it was the Metroliner, so I stayed put). Meanwhile, the signal at Hook cleared for the Newark train, but by then, nearly everyone had assembled on the opposite platform waiting for the deadhead equipment. They stayed there even as their usual train arrived and departed from the northbound platform. To this day, I’m not sure how that Metroliner missed everybody.
The video you are referring to was shot by a railfan on the BN. The man accompanying the woman was her attorney and they were on their way to a divorce hearing. The attorney later attempted to sue BN and claimed he tried to pull her away from the train. The video, of course, proved otherwise and the suit was tossed out. I know this because I was with BN at the time.
Saw the video on a Bill Kurtis Reports, on the Discovery Channel.
It was part of a report titled “Danger on the Tracks” and dealt with crew fatigue, and the public’s actions around railroad tracks.
The really upsetting part is that, just before the couple appears from the left, a young lady, in a black dress and white sneakers approaches the second set of tracks, looks around the stopped E unit on her left, decides the approaching train is moving too fast, and retreats back to the platform.
Out of the left side of the frame the couple appears, walks past the retreating lady, and straight into the path of the BN train, the man notices at the last moment, and stops a foot of two away from the train, the lady killed never even raises her head untill its to late, trys to pivot and step back at the same time, and catches the leading edge of the front skirt of the E unit, slams her into the legs of the camera person, about 30 feet away from the point of impact.
In the audio protion of the tape, you can hear the approaching train, the bells on the warning gate, the horn and the locomotive itself, and even tell which way it is approaching from, yet these two never even looked to either side, just like herd animals, walking across the platform with their heads down.
Now, to get to where they were on the platform, they had to walk around a downed pesdetrian gate, and against the flow of people, including the lady in black, who was directly ahead of them when she turned back.
How could they not know a train was coming?