Train related deaths

Re: Hmmmm.

Originally posted by Lighthorseman


On a related note - Just watch folks in traffic in general. If one is readily willing to risk their life (not to mention the lives of those in the vehicle as well) by running lights, speeding, and all sorts of generally nutty behaviour, all in the name of saving 15 seconds of time...just to get to the next red light earlier...why shouldn't they do something as completely looney as trying to beat a train?


I surely hope that I haven't gone and started a bad-driver spin to this thread, because those ones NEVER seem to come to an end! :rolleyes:

Very good point
 
There is something about physically being in a car, van, pickup, suv, etc... that makes some people feel both invulnerable. And invincible and heaven help anyone who gets in their way. Personally I think that it has something to do with the physiologically impossable, but all too common position of the drivers head. :rolleyes:
 
Drivers, DON'T TRY TO BEAT THE TRAIN! LET THE TRAIN PASS, NO MATTER HOW LONG IT TAKES! Proven research shows that it takes a fully loaded freight train going 55mph a MILE AND A HALF to come to a complete stop. Besides, would I risk my life just to try to get to work on time! This is NOT directed to railroaders or any of you. I feel very saddened for the engineer, they shouldv'e known. :( :( :(
 
We are train lovers but the general public aren't . "How dare that silly train delay me from where I want to go. If I could get around the train somehow I would". Just listen to your neighbors to find out how much the don't like train noise and especially the horn.
 
As warped as this may...

...seem-

It's a fact of life. People do stupid things. Having been calused sufficiently through my life I can pretty much say that I'd rather not be in the driver's seat when a tragedy like that happens. But, when it's happening before you, what do you do?

I know a gal who readily created "News Live" by driving 'round a crossing gate, got her car clobbered by a commuter train on the Lansdale Line. She's more impressed with the video tape of her after the accident, since she survived- no mention of what drove her to drive through. I love stupid people.

I saw a deer explode across the nose of a KWhopper on I-287 (stupid deer), I heard the screams of a guy in a "vette" (broken in half after taking on a bridge abutment) after he peeled out and impressed a soon afterwards dead girlfriend with his kewl car. I wrecked a car totally "faced". Some people learn, some don't.

I love stupid people. Makes for good jokes, reading and intersting posts on the Gauge.

Next!
 
Originally posted by zeeglen

We're all train lovers; isn't it a lot more fun to wait and watch the train go by even if it does make us a bit late?
yup. Ppl around here don't know why trains stop at the 2nd or 3rd car often. It seems as though I'm the only one to know that knows there's a signal that makes even the trains stop.
 
Re: As warped as this may...

Originally posted by MCL_RDG

I know a gal who readily created "News Live" by driving 'round a crossing gate, got her car clobbered by a commuter train on the Lansdale Line.

Did you see that TV clip a year or so back where a woman who was waiting for a train at a crossing got rear ended and pushed in front of the locomotive? She was lucky enough to survive, and called 911 on her cellphone, but couldn't tell the emergency people exactly where she was as the train couldn't stop and kept pushing her car along the tracks.
 
I have had a few close calls. Unfortunately it's not a case of if but when. One guy who had about five accidents in his career gave me one piece of advise.......he said "never look at them in the eyes.
If you know it's too late.....just look away."
 
Originally posted by Clerk
I agree Robin. I feel for the Engrs more than the victims. The Engrs had no recoarse but the others did. [/QUOTE

This is very true. It was not a train but a cement mixer my grandfather was driving. A boy came out from between two parked cars in front of the mixer my grandfather was driving. The boy was killed and my grandfather was so upset that he could no longer drive heavy equipment.

An engr told me one about an accident he had. He was outside of Buffalo on a spring morning,Sunday, and he had all the cab windows open. AT an up coming crossing a woman,African-American, pulled out on the tracks. She then came to a full stop and started to back of the tracks. He threw on his emergency brake and started falling off the chair as he knew drebis would fly in. The last thing he saw of hwe he said she has turned white. His grab iron caught her bumper and the car slammed driver side againdst the loco. It the peeled the car like the old sardine or Spam cans. The woman,before seat belt laws, was thrown across the front seat of the car when it hit the loco and escaped serious injury.
 
More Ironic...

Friend of mine is a young conductor. He is on a train that hits and kills a young kid, that he went to school with! More ironic, the conductor's dad runs the funeral home where the services took place.

Very sad.
 
Another from long ago..

A fellow I used to work with told me about witnessing a friend get killed when he was a kid. They had put some pennies on the tracks, when the train was not quite finished going by one of them rushed up to the tracks to be first to get the pennies. The caboose steps hit him in the head.