Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Dramatic viral video raises public awareness of railroad safety

Comments TRN
1

Join the discussion on the following article:

Trains News Wire EXCLUSIVE: Dramatic viral video raises public awareness of railroad safety

2

Wow, I’m glad they were clear of the traction motors and the end plates, perfect example of how being thin saved their lives. Very very lucky!

3

In the article about the Ellicott City derailment was this;
“The NTSB said it would also hold a public forum next year to educate the public about the dangers of entering a railroad right-of-way. It noted that 476 pedestrians died in 2013 as a result of railway trespass, according to Operation Lifesaver.”

In this article you stated;
"Trespassing resulted in 908 fatalities across the country last year, 38 of those deaths were in Indiana. “
So does the larger number of fatalities include trespassers who were not pedestrian? Perhaps motor vehicle related?

4

Can you provide a URL so we can access the video, and help with the teaching effort?

5

The link worked for me, but I dropped the http://

6

I neglected to thank you for posting the link. Thanks.

7

I have been to both the Shuffle Creek and the Tulip Trestle on the IRR. While I made no attempts to walk across like these women did, many people were freely walking across the Tulip even though I warned them it was a trespass and extremely dangerous. They went anyway.

8

Good for Mr. Powell! It was an inspired bit of public relations, to serve a worthy purpose. Wish other RR presidents would be similarly inspired.

9

Looks like Charles Darwin was off on vacation when this happened otherwise they would be up for an award.

Frederick…here is a link

http://wtkr.com/2014/07/29/watch-two-women-escape-death-after-diving-under-train-on-railroad-bridge/

10

This was a great article except for the conflicting numbers. That being said nice job of covering this almost tragic incident.

11

Crashed.

12

Evidently the lady that walked in front of my train this morning while dragging her kid with her didn’t see the video. Neither did the idiots that walked around the front of my engine tonite at my final destination. You cant fix stupid, but hats off to IRR for putting this out to the media. If nothing else, it gave the public an incredible view of what the train crew sees and goes through in instances like this.

13

So why is this an “EXCLUSIVE”?

14

Trains Magazine,

According to the article, “Trespassing resulted in 908 fatalities across the country last year, 38 of those deaths were in Indiana.”

According to the Federal Railroad Administration, 460 people were killed in 2013 because of trespassing:

http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/publicsite/Query/AccidentByRegionStateCounty.aspx

Additionally, according to Operation Lifesaver, there were only 19 deaths as a result of tresspassing in Indiana:

http://oli.org/about-us/news/statistics/trespassing-fatalities-by-state

Likely, the data in your article came from this link:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/download.oli.org/STTT/STTT-TrespassSTATs-for-web.pdf

The problem is a casualty means death AND injuries. So your article should state "…908 people were killed or injured in the United States by trespassing on railroads in 2013, 38 of those casualties were in Indiana.

Additionally, this data is slightly off compared to the official FRA data. Using the information from the FRA (above) there were 892 casualties, not 908 (Operation Lifesaver used preliminary data that was later adjusted).

You can generate the FRA data reports (which include Indiana data) here:

http://safetydata.fra.dot.gov/OfficeofSafety/publicsite/Query/castally4.aspx

Thanks,

Kris W.

15

I live a mile from the trestle on Lake Lemon. I monitor the INRD dispatch frequency. Thus, I heard the engineer’s frantic call to dispatch. Truly a heart-rendering moment.

16

This was on both CNN and USA Today web sites.

17

I think of the Lone Rangers “Silver Bullet;” he placed value on life, trespassing is illegal and can be dangerous and deadly.
When media outlets cover a story like this or shoot a movie for thrill seekers they sometimes promote this danger as being acceptable, I chose to value life and cross tracks safely and not take the short cuts that I did in the past, would love to see the video my hat goes off to the IRR

18

With a message as important as this is for the public, why are you complaining about the mix up with numbers???

19

With a message as important as this is for the public, why are you complaining about the mix up with numbers???