Every once in awhile, more often than one would think, I read news about someone getting killed by by a train while walking/standing around on the tracks. A few years ago, some lady was killed by a train while participating in filming a Gregg Allman biopic… Do these people not hear/see/feel a train coming? Aside from a Stand By Me crossing a skinny bridge circumstance, how does this happen?
edit: actually, i just saw a video of the Greg Allman film crew scrambling to get equipment off the track before the train hit, so I guess that one is answered.
Setting aside the people who intentionally walk in front of a train, in order to commit suicide…
Here in Chicago, where we have a lot of commuter trains, what happens alarmingly often is someone walking around the end of a train that’s stopped at a station, not realizing that there’s another train approaching on another track (and not being able to see the oncoming train because it’s blocked from view by the stationary train).
One also hears about people walking on the tracks while wearing headphones, and no, they apparently don’t hear the oncoming train.
Yeah, a little thought and observation should do it for you in all cases. It’s exactly like getting hit by a car. Some people misjudge the speed of the train. Some get on the tracks and then get stuck there. Some are just foolish and ignore that trains do come. Some don’t realize that trains don’t stop in as short a distance as cars and trucks do. Some are getting hit on purpose. Some are trying to rescue people who are in danger.
We have buses, commuter trains, commercial trains and trams running around the city. People misjudge their speed quite often, and have no comprehension of what it takes to stop one of those things.
From the reports I see, it looks as if people just totally misjudge the speed of trains. In this country, trains are typically travelling at 80 to 100 mph - much faster than the cars people are used to dealing with on urban streets. There must be something in the way their brains process information, that misleads them.
We don’t have a lot of trains around here at all. No commuter trains. Sometimes people are hit because they were sleeping on the train tracks. Makes no sense.
In some neighborhoods (like mine) the residents have made a fuss saying they’re disturbed by the train warning horns and have gotten them stopped. So a train can go through a crossing in a downtown-ish neighborhood at night or before dawn without sounding its horn. This also makes no sense to me.
I was in a safety breifing once and the guy said that one fifth of train/vehicle collisions were the result of the car driving into the side of the train. How anyone could miss a train that is taking up their entire field of view is beyond me.
I live in a neighborhood with tracks two blocks to the south of me and tracks two blocks to the north. There is a crossing guard at every intersection that comes down well before the train arrives. The crossing guard has a loud bell that starts clanging before the arm comes down. The horns are ridiculous overkill, and they are required to sound the horn at every intersection. The end result is that when a train passes the horn can be heard constantly for at least 15 or 20 minutes. I can understand requiring the horns at unguarded intersections, but there are no unguarded intersections within the city limits.
We have a bunch of stations with parking lots on one side, but you have to catch the train in the other direction on the other side. You can take the stairs/tunnel or bridge and get to the other side in a few minutes, or just take quick sprint across the tracks if you ignore the prominent signs saying “Don’t cross the tracks or you could die!” and such. Of course many people still choose to roll the dice and cross.
I recently witnessed an accident where a woman drove into the rear of a semi. She was slowing down, then suddenly sped up. I think maybe her foot came off the pedal, and then she hit the gas instead of the brake. It was bizarre to see.
We have a similar at many suburban train stations in Chicago. Increasingly, either Metra (the agency which runs the trains) or the railroads have been erecting barbed-wire fences between the tracks near the stations, to discourage just this thing.
Passenger trains have soft suspension and don’t make such a clatter. A train with fresh wheels doesn’t make so loud of high pitch squeal.
People standing too close to the tracks can get unstead on their feet, perhaps merely due to the suprise and the disconcerting effect of a large thing in their vision, and blown over or sucked in so to speak, due to the movement of air with the passing train. First the air is pushing out in a sudden puff, and that can unsteady the person who braces aginst further flow outward… But then its going forward at a gale and the person isn’t bracing for THAT.
Most people at a platform are expecting their train to be the next train, and obviously it is slowing to come to a stop as it comes alongside the platform.
But a long distance passenger service coming through without stopping can be doing quite a speed, having heaps of power and hence acceleration, and braking ability, its able to get to a high speed in between low speed zones.
Of course its unsafe to go up real close to the passing train with the intent of being really close to it. The next wagon along might be leaning out or sticking out a little further than you expect, and if it does hit you, even as just a brush , it rotates you and that can cause a fall over in randon direction.
In one case near here, a man was walking back from the shops with his two children and decided to cross the tracks outside of made crossings … at his own location through a gap in a fence, illegally.
He had shopping in his hands, so he sensibly left that on the ground while he got the children across the tracks, so that he could be sure to drag the children across , eg if they trip or get distracted, and then went back for the shoppping. the kids had to stop passing traffic to tell them “dad just got killed by a train”.
Well what can happen is that you can see one train and decide to get across clear of it, and whether it blocks your vision, or makes too much noise so you can’t hear any other train, or it just simply distracts you … a second train comes along at the same gets you. Its happenned time and time again,even to railway workers, people who should know better. Person at track 1 dodges train on track 1… Track 2 also has a train that comes along at that same time… I read a report of a 1910 era incident, they were working inside a tunnel and the only possible way to escape track 1 was to go to track 2 … it was just a matter of probability, and hence time, that some incident occurred. The protocol for workers was ok for the regulat tracks - you hear a train coming and get off the tracks. But in a tunnel??
But that’s setting aside a lot of people who get hit by trains. And there’s no way IMO to accurately count that. Nobody knows what the person was thinking. It can only be inferred on a very rough probability scale according to circumstances, and there’s obviously a tendency to de-emphasize the possibility of suicide in view of family feelings if there’s any real doubt.
Where I live in dense urban area with relatively new ‘light rail’ system I can definitely see people occasionally not paying attention (earphones, texting while walking) and getting hit at the grade crossings this thing has, though also possible they could step out in front on purpose, or being pushed is another possibility at crossings or stations of crowded urban systems. OTOH when people get hit out in rural areas not in their cars and not walking across grade crossings, the police and/or railroads will sometimes announce it that way ‘not at grade crossing or in a vehicle’ as semi-code for probable suicide. Though sure it’s still possible to be walking along tracks and somehow not hear or feel the train coming, especially under the influence of mild altering substances, that it’s possible the person didn’t take with suicide in mind.