I know that this topic has been brought up before, but what do you think are some good ideas (short of fencing off the entire dang railway) on keeping peds off of the Right of Way? Personally I’ve heard the RR’s get blamed way to many times, and most of the time it isn’t the thier fault. My worst/scariest moment in my days of railfanning came early this year. I was railfanning in Marietta, Ga. when two parents brought three very young children (ages 2, 3, & 5), three large diaper bags, and a camera out onto the very busy double track. Let me give you a quick rundown of where they were standing. 60+ trains come down this line daily at around 40 to 60 MPH. This 50 ft long section of track is in between two crossings, fenced in on both sides, and has 4 no tresspassing signs. Southbound trains routinely come through with VERY little warning. Anyhow, these two dimwits go halfway between the crossings, and plop the bags, youngest child, and camera in the center of track 1. Then they send the other kids (who were carrying bags and dressed as hobo’s) way down track 2. Once the children were real far off, they started following them snapping photo’s, and left the youngest UNATTENDED walking the opposite direction. Well obviously I wasn’t going to stand there and watch these kids get flattened, so I politley pointed out the No Tresspassing signs and told them how fast SB’s sneak up on you. Then the father looked at me and told me to mind my own buisness. This really ticked me off, so I decided to walk into the Welcome Center/Station and inform the attendants what these people were doing. They got on the phone with CSX and informed them about the situation, then told me a RR cop was coming to have a look. When I came back out the oldest kid was crying because he had thought that he heard a train and wanted to leave. The father then told him that
no trespasing sign’s is all that is required, common sense would help but how many families use that old standby.
Fencing in railroad is not required, and would only open up the railroad to lawsuits, cause if you start fencing, you can’t stop, every town and house woould want the fencing and if anything happens they would blame the railroad, cause they probably did not maintain the fencing.
Maybe if we shot 80% of lawyers in this country, common sense would return.
Only 80%? [xx(]
I can think of 3 or 4 that I might expempt.[;)]
Southbound trains routinely come through with VERY little warning. .<<<
But the northbound trains do give adequate warning? [:-,]
Yes, especially when you face north to catch a northbound moose.[:o)]
Without going into some sarcasm laden post about the idiocy of the parents, I think one of the problems is lack of edcuation. By that I mean, a lack of edcuation about railroad tracks, trains, and the dangers.
In the years I have been railfanning, I have had quite a few conversations with people who are curious about what it is I am doing. Invariably, I get the “how long does it take for a train to stop” question, and when I tell them, I have had quite a few people react with utter disbelief. As in, “No way does it take a train a mile or more to stop” and, in the case of one person. “How could the government allow something so unsafe around people”. I shook my head at that one…
Joliet Union station can be an interesting place to be, for one reason. There is a banquet hall in the station, and at least once a weekend, there is an event there, usually a wedding reception…(if me and the ex get remarried, THAT’s where I want my reception… [:-^][:)]) Anyway the partygoers usually wind up outside on the platform when the trains start coming by, because they are curious, and if there are kids at these events, they are very curious. And since I am there quite often with my camera, I get lots of questions. Last weekend, there was this one woman who was thrilled by the trains… she had no idea they were so big. And, as she put it. “I see them from a distance, and look at them as a waste of time.” I can understand that, because most people, in there day to day lives, their exposure to trains and railroading is usually negative. Being the observer of behavior that I am, I watched how everyone that was out there regarded the passing of a train. In one case, a dad was walking up and down the platform with his son and daughter, explaining the dangers of playing on the tracks to them. In another case, this woman and her daughter sat
We had a case here some years ago where mom and dad left the kid in a stroller on the ROW while they picked berries. I forget the exact circumstances, but if there was a collision with the stroller by the train that came through, it was minor and the child lived…
I was on the platform at the Rome, NY station one day, shooting some pictures, when a CWR train came through and scared the living daylights out of me… No crossings for miles, so no warning other than looking…
The Washington, DC, Metro has chain link fence or concrete wall on all its ROW. Plus, there are plastic boxes on the inside of the fence all connected by a cable. These could be motion detectors, but I’m not sure. And they have the “No Trespassing” signs at the appropriate intervals.
Basically, you can’t keep out a determined trespasser, but one would have to cut through or climb over something in order to get on the MetroRail ROW.
The Washington DC Metro is not a railroad, its a transit agency, would you realy like to fence in the Union Pacific or CSX ??? the budget would be staggering and so would the workforce to just maintain such a fencing system
DC Metro operates with a LIVE 3rd rail as do most Subways. Lookout where you step if you go over a fence.
I realize that the OP wrote “short of fencing off the entire dang railway.” Of course, fence costs money, but how does the cost of a fence compare to the cost of installing and maintaining the track and roadbed? Probably a small percentage, I think.
I merely wanted to point out that fence happens. In this case the Metro is always coming under fire for costs, with very strong pushing by the people to reduce the tax subsidy. Yet everyone has accepted the cost of the fence.
The OP asked for ideas.
How about a robot about half the size of a compact car to run about a mile ahead of the train (GPS navigation) to warn trespassers? Bonus - It could have a video camera so the crew could see something in time to stop, which would help with other safety issues.
Cheap little radio receivers mounted on utility poles to announce “Train is coming.” They would receive a signal from a low power transmitter on the train when the train is about two miles away or closer. Maybe they could use the existing Head-of-Train signal as a trigger.
Volunteers to patrol the ROW (from outside the RR property, of course) to shoo trespassers off.
Bring back Mars lights, but with modern quartz-iodide power levels. Those lights were extremely noticable.