[xx(] How many of us were at or went to the scene of a car-train collision? I hope you will hear me out regarding my experience as best I remember.
It was late summer 1967 on a sweltering hot day in the hills of Southwestern Virginia. A well known family – true “butter and egg” people – were headed to Meadowview Methodist Church. Were they in a hurry? They didn’t survive to answer the question.
Shortly before church service was to begin the family Chrysler with windows rolled up and a//c running, hit the crossbuck-only crossing between village and church at the exact same time as did a Norfolk & Western train going 55 mph (full speed back then). In the aftermath, everyone remembered that the engineer had laid on the horn good and proper.
It’s one thing to make comparisons – say, a good-sized hurricane has the force of an H-bomb – but something else to realize the aftermath in person. The four family members, representing three generations, were killed instantly. Dad heard about it an hour or two after the incident. Although we lived several miles away and attended a different church, everyone knew this high-visibility family. Like many others, we went to the scene of the tragedy.
When we got there, the mangled car was still there evident but the bodies weren’t. Just as well, as death was instantaneously and the bodies – or so we were told – were more mangled than the car… Most astonishing to my father and me was finding the “rubble” of PPG glass from the car windshield fifty feet or more from the crossing. The impact with the train was more devastating than a Baghdad suicide bomb. Did they even know what hit them? There was a lot of discussion by friends and neighbors after the incident. They probably didn’t even have the radio on, but were just chatting and focused (but not rushed) on getting to church.
Between 1965 and 1980 I can think of at least four other people who were killed within my high school’s catchment are
When I was a boy there was a terrible crash at a protected crossing in my hometown of South Milwaukee. I assume the man went around the gates which makes it his own fault of course.
I did not go to see it but everyone who did remarked on one odd thing. The man who died had gone to get Christmas decorations and lights for his kids, and those Christmsa items were scattered everywhere around the crossing and for many yards beyond it.
The Operation Lifesaver program has a rather dramatic video that I have seen at train shows – and even that does not show a train hitting a car at 55. I still do not understand why the New York Times has this seeming vendetta about Operation Lifesaver.
When you actually get a chance to see and touch a locomotive the sheer thickness of the steel that is used is impressive. And if you have ever backed your car into a solid object at about 5 miles per hour the flimsiness of the automobile’s construction becomes obvious. When one thinks of all those tons of weight moving at 55 miles an hour and hitting a car, it is like a baseball bat hitting a water balloon.
Dave Nelson
When I was in high scholl in 1991 we had a nasty one in the Streator area. Some one tried to beat the train across the tracks and a tofc hit it at track speed of 70 mph. all the occupants died the biggest intact piece of the Ecsort was the engine the rest just exploded . The only damage to the engine was a bent plow.
I know the subject is car vs. train, so I hope that I’m not getting to far off of the subject with a person / train incident. I might have posted this, or part of this, a couple of years ago. It happened in early August 2001 (might have been '02). If you just ate… don’t keep reading. Trust me, I’m gonna be very graphic.
It was a hot, lazy, early August summer day. I was traveling east through the town of Lombard, Illinois next to the UP Geneva Subdivison at @1735 hours. I had just spent the day at Rochelle and other locations along the Geneva Sub, so I had my scanner with me and I still had it on as I was driving. Metra scoot #58 was crossing Addison Road (just east of Lombard) at a restricted speed waiting for westbound Metra Express scoot #47 to clear the Villa Park depot before making it’s stop. Metra #47 was a express train that did not stop at Villa Park and it was doing track speed - @60 mph. The engineer of #58 called the engineer of #47 to warn of a pedestrian waiting to cross the tracks at Addison Road from the north side. The engineer from #47 west politely thanked #58 and you could already hear the horn blaring in the background. The radio went silent for a couple of seconds. Then, all hell broke loose. The engineer of #47 screamed that METRA #47 WEST WAS IN EMERGENCY AT ADDISON RD, MP 18, PEDESTRIAN STRUCK!! You could barely hear the engineer at times with all of the background noise - the horn and the screaming brakes were very audible. UP Omaha dispatcher 11 replied immediately and read back the inforamtion to #47 and then asked how bad. I remember the reply from the engineer of #47 more for the tone in the voice, and not exactly word for word. The engineer of #47 sounded sad and mad at the same time. Also, it sounded like the horn was still blaring in the background. He let the dispatcher know that it was a big mess. The pedestrian had run around the back of #58, never saw #47 comming. He was hit at track speed (@60mph). The enginer of #47 also told the dispatcher that part of the
I’m sorry,
But dont you guys have something better to do that discuss death in this manner?
Trust me, every railroader here can tell you gross out stories that will ruin the next week for you…
But they wont, because they live with the aftermath for the rest of their lives.
Enough…give it a rest.
Well, i have never seen anyone get hit. But, stupid people at CP’s Humboldt yard in Minneapolis, 2 people went in front of the train. One guy actually got out and looked to see where it was then got into his car and sped across the tracks. I wish he would have been hit, no repect for anything these days.
There was a particularly nasty crash on the then Illinois Central main through my town. A car, with a single male occupant, dashed across the tracks in front of a train. My father was fire chief at the time, and the car was hit by the Amtrak that came through the area at the time. According to my dad, the car literally exploded, as far as the victim, he spared me the details.
Another incident occured during dismissal from the high school that is the on the south side of those same tracks. A 14 year old girl was walking backwards talking shouting to some friends, meanwhile, behind her, the afternoon local was making it’s rounds through the area industries, when this girl walked backwards into the side of the locomotive. The crossing lights were activated, but she simply didn’t hear the train, or the horn. My brother was on the ambulance that took the girl to the hospital, where she died a short time later.
Another incident occurred on the BNSF main through Western Springs, I was a firefighter in town at the time, we were “paid on call”. I woke up about 2 am to the sound of BNSF locomotives outside my townhouse (the tracks were right across the street), along with the squealing of brakes. I looked out my bedroom window, and noticed a crumpled mass in front of the locomotive, knowing what it was, I was out the door before the alert pager went off. Apparently an eastbound manifest struck a car at the Wolf Rd crossing, about 1/2 a mile to the west. Well, as I was on the first in engine, we walked up to the train, a visibly shaken engine crew sat in the cab, and the remains of a 4 door car was all over the front of the locomotive. My lieutenant was talking to the engine crew trying to get details, while myself and a fellow firefighter went to check the mess in the car… After peering into the twisted metal, we found nothing. So, we commenced a search of the neighborhood from Wolf Rd east, looking for bodies, or body parts. This went on for nearly 35 minutes, all the while,
I do agree, because some of the engeeniers here probably don’t want to be reminded if something happend to them.
But, I think Operation lifesaver should track down a video of a deadly car v.s. train accident and show it on TV. I think alot of people would decide its better to be late then risk attempting to beating a train.
Good to show on TV? No. Will it get the point across? Heck yea.