The train was an “equipment train” which just means a dead head pax train in transit. It struck a car in Brentwood, and the car burst into flames. These are the older M-3 type passenger cars, it looks like fire damage to the bonnet.
Yeah, I saw LIRR has service suspended due to a “non passenger train striking an auto on the tracks”. But of course, no details…any injuries or worse? did engineer clear out before impact?
Current word is at least 2 dead, both the known dead were in the car:
(Potential good news: if the motorman had been killed or severely injured, that would likely have been mentioned in the casualty numbers… article from LI News that has a copy of the picture Lion posted says ‘crew members not believed to be injured’…)
RME
Lions,
Thanks for the picture. That says it all.
John
The motorman (engineer) was not injured at all. Some have reported it as a “work train” but it was not, it was an “equipment train”, that is moving equipment to a different terminal.
Engineer reports the gates were down, and the car drove around.
Maybe the driver of the car expected the train to stop at the station but instead it came through at 79 miles per hour. (A work train would not move that quickly on anybody’s railroad .) The main line is single track, but there are two tracks in the station. It is not know if they will be able to use this station for the OM rush.
Here is another photo, note the woman on the billboard.
A bit more information for the interested: Collision said to be at Brentwood Rd, which is immediately W of the station, so train would be outbound running light, on ‘wrong’ main of the double-track portion to clear any traffic coming the other way. Perhaps running light to Ronkonkoma for rush-hour service inbound? Vehicle headed SB so the driver massively underestimated the speed of the train… or was expecting any train to be slowing for a station stop.
To get an aerial view of the context, go to
From where the train stopped, and given the amount of warning the crew would have had (for someone driving across the road diagonally to miss the gates), it doesn’t seem to me that the train could have been running “79mph” and brought to a stop where it was. Likewise the transition to single track on the other side of the station appears to be made with the inbound direction ‘straight’ – does this look to anyone like track to be traversed at that speed? On the other hand, the damage to the automobile does indicate a high-speed collision.
ABC now has a number of photos up, mostly showing the damage to the automobile.
Sigh… They simply do not learn.
The best solution seems to be gates that totally close off the roadway. Here in Arizona the Union Pacific is installing crossing gates that come down from both sides of the roadway so people can’t drive around them on the major high-traffic roads.
Nope, they don’t:
The problem with four-gate crossings is that they can trap people on the tracks if they’re stopped there in traffic. Various methods have been used to solve this problem, such as delayed closing of the ‘countergates’.
Much as with those countdown yellow traffic lights, those who cross illegally just adjust their behavior – in the wrong direction. They try to play or beat the delayed closing, slewing out of the traffic lane and then back in… the second slew being across the rubber crossing and slick rail surface (which can start a skid that then persists). Any loss of control here, any dropping off the crossing to the ballast, is essentially lethal. In my opinion, and in many other opinions, this introduces more ‘danger’ for transgressors than it has solved.
Much like denaturation, starting in the Prohibition era, where the Government introduced the risk of blindness, madness and death for drinkers by adding poison to otherwise-potable ethanol.
Getting caught in traffic on a crossing is an idiot move, 4 gates or not. The number one rule is Don’t start across RR tracks unless there is enough room for your car on the other side. Quadrant gates have been chained open by Rebels-Without-A-Clue in Chicago, but they are still the best method.
Tree66:
Illogical. To cite one example of the failure of the 4 quadrant gates to prevent an accident is like saying we shouldn’t have traffic lights because people run red lights. By that line of reasoning, why not have just crossbucks or no warning devices at all?
Four quadrant gates were not that uncommon when the gates were manually operated. Several grade crossings on the CWI near my old neighborhood were set up that way.
No doubt some people will always try to beat the gate. But most people will respect it and the better the gate works ultimately the more compliance will be obtained.