I’m not sure why their residency status has any bearing. Why would someone presumably crafty enough to have entered the US illegally suddenly lose their craftiness and think that a crossing a railroad bridge in southern Indiana would enhance their greencard quest?
If they insist on a jury trial, it will wind up being the railroad’s fault for having the nerve to actually run a train on the track, and a sympathetic jury will award them millions of dollars.
Trains do, indeed, have an emergency brake position on the automatic
train brake controller.
They crawled out from under the train after it stopped and took off. When we start talking railroading and trains, we’ve got to adapt to the nomenclature and forget our other world. Emergency brake on a highway vehicle is the hand brake rather than the foot pedal and is used to hold a truck or car in place but also can be used if foot brake fails to respond. On trains, it is completely different. An emergency brake is an action, a verb, not a noun. A train’s emergency brake is when the engineer sets the brake handle in emergency to release all the air to set the brakes. It also happens when a train becomes uncoupled releasing all the air. The train is said to go into emergency. There are wheels or handles on each car and locomotive, too, which when turned, will physically cause brake shoes to clamp tight to the wheels. Where air applied brakes can be released by pumping the air line, mechanical applications have to be reversed at each location where they are “tied” down. For complete rules, regulations, and workings of train brakes read operating rules and books published by each railroad and the AAR CODE.
Thanks for the statement–which was well written.
Maybe these women will be smart enough to cash in on their fame/notoriety. A spot on Dr. Phil… a Playboy centerfold. This could be their ticket… (after they get out of jail).
How about some comments from trains.com’s countless female contributors?
Well… I’m not a woman, and I don’t play one on TV, and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but I’m not sure how a woman’s comments would vary from a man’s. Is it because the trespassers were women?
Trespassing is trespassing. Illegal is illegal. Stupid is stupid. Gender us gender but neither gender has ownership of the first three. However, I would like to hear this pair’s statements at to what they were doing on he bridge, at that hour of the morning, and what was going through their minds as this whole scene unfolded. Not because they are women but because it may tell a story from which others could learn…
Ok, I will. I have many things going thru my mind, not the least of which is that this used to be the male species doing this type of tresspass. As a mother of a day or two, this just makes me heartsick when I see any of our young people doing this type of almost sure death stunts.
We are a society of looking for a bigger high, a bigger stunt that will thrill and shock and no limits on what we can find on video somewhere to try next. And to paraphrase my favorite poster Kyle - let’s hit them in the head with a plow and teach them not to do that. What can I possibly say? That is an incredibly sad statement to go along with an incredibly sad situation.
Most bridges that I’ve seen have a narrow walkway on one side… maybe that should be mandatory. People might say that a walkway would encourage trespassing, but clearly the lack of a walkway doesn’t seem to discourage it.
We can’t seem to stop people from trespassing, so perhaps we should at least provide a means of escape. The crews might appreciate a walkway also in the event of an emergency on the bridge.
As in so many legal issues like this, ethnicity, race, marital status, sex, hair colour and style, choices of footwear, annual earnings, disability, choice of personal automobile, choices of alimentation, presence of tattoos, education attainment, and many other attributions, preferences or predilections are irrelevant.
When it comes to handcuffs, one size fits all.
-Crandell
Hand cuffs or straight jackets? We’ve a hard time in this country getting this correct.
Thankfully the train didn’t take down the bridge when it derailed. However the fact that it did slightly derail will give the railroad more reason to sue these idiots till their broke and push for maximum jail time. That will send a clear message to people that trespassing is illegal and dangerous. I hope that Operation Lifesaver will use this incident to help educate the public on safety around railroads by using the media.
A piece of chain should be hung from the bottom of locomotives to discourage idiots from laying in between the rail and having a train go over them. I sure one idiot has probably already tried this.
How do you “slightly derail” a train? Isn’t that like being “slightly pregnant?”
Was there only an engineer onboard?
“In this case, not only did two trespassers narrowly escape a horrible death, but had the heavy
train derailed due to the emergency brake application – which isn’t uncommon – it could have taken down the bridge, possibly killing the engineer as well."
If not, they forgot someone…
http://www.inrd.com/documents/news_releases/2014-07-29_Shuffle_Creek.pdf
From all I read, the train did NOT derail (slightly or not). It was mentioned in a public comment that putting a train into emergency braking COULD derail a train, but nowhere have I seen any mention about this train derailing at all.
or slightly dead…
There was apparently no derailment, slight or otherwise.
It seems like Kyle’s chain could have hit them on the head, possibly fatally; or discouraged them from taking the one possible action that saved their lives. Maybe we ought to forget about the chain, OK?
Tom