A picture is worth a thousand words…
from Lincoln County News, Damariscotta, ME April 9, 2015
Real rail fans stop and wait for the train, even if it’s 3 miles down the track and barely visible.
Of course, they make sure they’re on the side with the best lighting.
Andre
A couple of years ago we had a young father do almost exactly the same thing at a local GO Train crossing. Unfortunately he had his daughter with him and neither survived. He was talking with his wife at the time. The signals were operating properly.
Still breaks my heart to think about it.
Dave
It has happend as long as roads have crossed tracks and will happen as long as roads cross tracks. About the best thing that can be said is hopefully it increases the quality of the gene pool.
How old is that cartoon? It looks like a GG1 and a 1960 Chevrolet. They didn’t have cell phones back then.
The cartoonist is an old school kind of guy, he likes the retro look.
The engine looks like something from Europe or Asia. Is the Chevy a Bel Aire (2 tail lights)?
Tom
If that looks lke a GG-1 to you…
Worse than that, they go out of their way to get to road Xings and hope that a train will come. [:D]
The artist knows his cars. Trains? Not so much.
I have two sides of this…
1.) I hate when trucks (semi, trash or similar size) derail or completely ruin the locomotive that might get repaired or scrapped.
2.) I like it when automobiles (compact or similar size cars) gets hit by a running train. I don’t care about the stupid people inside if they do get hurt or die. That’s their fault.
Seeing a damaged train or freight car saddens to me to cry. It’s not the other way around.
These things have happened since the horse and buggy days, even before trains (look at old newspapers).
It most likely is the fault of the driver, but to suggest that others who may also be in the vehicle are at fault is a stretch at best, and applying your rationale to them is insensitive, to say the least.
Wayne
Picture is blocked where I am so I cannot see it, but guessing it’s preaching to the choir for this crowd. The people who you really need to reach won’t be reading this forum mostly - they will be trying to beat trains at crossings all the time and occasionally they will lose to the train.
I watched a video recording from a camera which only turned on when a train ran through the crossing - it showed car after car after car after car, just barely beating the train across the tracks. In otherwords, most people are their own worst enemies when it comes to grade crossing safety and some pay for it with their lives. My ex once took Amtrak from Indianapolis to Chicago and back, and on the return trip, her train bumped and she saw some debris, and then quickly came to a stop. They sat there for 2 hours waiting for the local authorities to sort out a car hit by the train, with 4 teenagers in side - dead. Apparently they were playing chicken with the train on a grade crossing and didn’t get out of the way in time. What can you do but shake your head.
It doesn’t matter where I have been in the world, there are those that cherish life and others that to them life holds no value. This just reaffirms that.
Worse than that, they go out of their way to get to road Xings and hope that a train will come.
Best place I know of for that is Ludlow, CA, on the BNSF Transcon. Go about 53 miles east from Barstow on I-40, get off at the Ludlow exit and find a convenient place to park. Lots of traffic. I’ve seen westbounds stacked up as far out as Ludlow waiting to get into the Barstow yard. Best of all, out in the desert, you can see a train for miles.
Andre
I can only shake my head in wonder every time I hear another news story about a grade crossing “accident”.
I say accident because, sadly, there are many instances of people taking their own lives and using the railroad as their method of demise.
There was an incident some years ago in N.E. Ohio where a woman rode her bicycle through the downed crossing gates and paused just a few seconds before the Lakeshore Limited met with her at 79 MPH. A suicide note was found in her apartment. Numerous similar incidents never make it to the media outlets.
Many of my railroad employee friends have related stories to me of individuals choosing to end their lives by hunkering down between the rails. One guy even took his dog with him! It can really shake up the emotions of the crew members involved.
Well, human behavior is certainly a subject that can be examined from every angle yet never understood. When a suicidal airline pilot can take down a passenger craft with 150 souls on board, these things just defy explanation…
Regards, Ed
I do care about other people’s lives. Except when people kill themselves over railroad crossings to admit suicide or plain ignorance.
I think these people need the most care. My best friend in high school committed suicide a few years after we graduated. I alway’s wonder if there was something I could have done.
We will just agree to disagree on how people should be treated.[sigh]
More likely it is a characture of the FL9s that Maine Eastern RR runs on the former MEC Rockland branch which passes behind the newspaper office in Newcastle