Indeed. For the the train driver to have such a very long time (relatively speaking) where s/he is aware there’s going to be a catastrophic collision yet is not able to prevent it must be awful.
They can mitigate it by slowing as much as possible but at some point they would know that it’s unavoidable. I wonder what the duration is between knowing it’s a done deal and the actual impact. I could make a uninformed guess that it could be as much as a couple or three seconds? Four or five even? I really don’t know but it’s going to be a pretty loooooong time.
It could be compared to the much shorter “foreknowledge duration” the driver and/or passengers in an automobile accident have. I’ll guess it’s on average about .2 to .8 seconds (and sometimes none at all)??? A lot less than a train for sure.
I wonder if there could be some sort of emergency alarm a train crew could set-off in these circumstances so passengers could brace for impact. Seems there would be plenty of time.
I don’t think you can “mitigate” such an impact - trains have too much momentum. In aerial views it’s clear the train kept going even after impact and that’s the way of such things. It takes a train too long to slow down.
There is no way you can “brace” for that level of violent impact. Short of being strapped in you’re going to be flung around. Even if you did something like got up against a wall in such a way you’re facing backward (basically, to spread the impact on your back rather than your front) you still have the problem of flying luggage, flying other people, and getting flung from side to side or falling from floor to ceiling or wall if the car you’re in falls over on its side. Most likely you’d be tossed around like a sock in a dryer. Human strength won’t be able to hold you in place. Best case you’d collide with something that yields enough you don’t break bones but you’ll still get lots of bruising.
In fact, yesterday a customer showed up at our store black-and-blue all over, lots and lots of bruises. She’d been on that train. As she said “I survived”, but clearly she’s going to be sore for awhile.
@kaylasdad99 I hope your sister continues to improve, as well as the lady she fell on.
If the dump truck really was trying to beat the train, it’s not even clear there’d have been that much time to anticipate the collision (much less prepare for it in any way at all). It’s one thing if a vehicle is broken down or otherwise stopped on the tracks. It’s something else when the tracks are clear, and here there’s a truck approaching a crossing, but of course they’ll stop, because what kind of idiot wou-OH SHIT!
When riding in a roomette I make sure that when I’m lying down I have my feet to the front of the train. Not that it would mitigate any flying objects or lateral motion, but I’d much rather take the initial impact on my feet than on my head.
(I tend to take catnaps rather than sleep all night, so I ask the attendant not to make up the bed; instead, I get a spare sheet to put over the seats after putting them in sleeping mode.)
I read a copy of Railroad magazine from the 1930s where an engineer talked about his experiences. He would take the Twentieth Century Limited from just outside New York where they switched from electric to steam on to Albany. Grade separations were rare in those days and he said on average he’d get someone just beating the train once a trip and not succeeding once a month.
He said you couldn’t let it get to you or you’d never take a train out again. “You’d just sit with a smoke until the cops arrived.”
I’m so relieved your sister is doing better and has no spinal cord injuries, @kaylasdad99. I know she has a long road ahead of her, so I’ll continue sending good vibes to her and to the lady who broke her fall.
I think that “Don’t let it get to you” philosophy was probably widespread and ineffective. What it really meant was “Don’t let anyone see how messed up you are.”
This article is 8 years old, but it’s an eye-opener. Some highlights:
• Every three hours, a person or vehicle is hit by a train.
• 80% of the fatalities are male, most between ages 16 and 34.
• Immediately after impact, the crew records the time and notifies emergency services. Then they run back to the collision point to give first aid, though there’s usually nothing they can do.
•Train companies used to require a crew to keep working after such collisions. Now by law they have to allow time off and counseling.
• PTSD is common, with some crew members having to take time off on the anniversary of the crash. One engineer can’t stop seeing the faces of little kids in the windows of the minivan his train hit. Nightmares are common. The inevitable investigations and court cases make it worse and for longer.
As for why people try to beat the train, I think one line in the article sums it up. A freight conductor commented that “people are always focused on where they’re going, but not where they are.”
One attendant told me of a train that was stopped for three hours after hitting a shopping cart as the crew had to comb the area to look for a possible body.
Growing up, my oldest sister taught me all the reasons to be wary around train tracks. She’s deaf and she was absolutely terrified of trains. I guess she couldn’t feel them until it’s too late. Regardless, I don’t play games with trains. They DEFINITELY win in a fight.
The Virginia Transportation Museum in Roanoke has a whole gallery of public safety posters from the '20s and '30s graphically illustrating the danger of RR crossings, complete with totals of killed and injured in accidents that year.
Spoke with (non-broken) sister this AM. They suspect that the food poisoning came from a Subway meal. They ate a lot of fast food in Missouri, and conventional wisdom about food poisoning symptoms seems to point to that particular meal. She’s better now.
In other news, my broken sister got transferred to a Grand Rapids rehab early today. Unfortunately, the pain spiked to a 10 level despite her drug regimen, and raised her BP alarmingly. They fought successfully to bring it down, but then she began running a high fever.
The docs are trying to rule out a blood clot, and are running a number of tests. My healthier sister and cousin have been kicked out of the room while Dr. Sis is being wheeled down to radiology for X-rays.
