# Omnibus Stupid MFers in the news thread (Part 2) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 5, 2024, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657 "2024-01-05T16:15:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 245
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2025, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4881 "2025-06-30T15:48:16Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > But the railroad could care less. Well, they actually do generally care, though primarily because a train that isn’t moving isn’t making money. What’s probably happening is one or more of three things: - The crew “timed out” (i.e., could no longer operate the train due to Federal regulations about maximum allowable number of hours working) before they were able to reach a station or facility where they could swap out with a fresh crew - A mechanical breakdown has stopped the train (failed locomotive, failed brakes, etc.) - They’re waiting to enter a yard, which is congested with other traffic (possibly in part due to either of the first two issues) I have no doubt that the railroad realizes that a train that’s blocking streets and sidewalks for an extended period is also a hazard, as it causes frustrated local residents to break the law, and endanger themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4882 "2025-07-01T01:45:28Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > - The crew “timed out” (i.e., could no longer operate the train due to Federal regulations about maximum allowable number of hours working) before they were able to reach a station or facility where they could swap out with a fresh crew > - A mechanical breakdown has stopped the train (failed locomotive, failed brakes, etc.) > - They’re waiting to enter a yard, which is congested with other traffic (possibly in part due to either of the first two issues) All three of these are things that could be avoided with better planning. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4883 "2025-07-01T03:21:13Z")
Certainly 1 and 3 could be avoided, or at least reduced, with better planning. Not sure how better planning eliminated mechanical breakdowns (better maintenance might work, though). The thing is, there aren’t any real penalties for rail roads blocking crossings. Can’t get to work? Your kids can’t get to school? Ambulance with a critical case can’t get to the hospital? Too bad, so sad _the railroads don’t care._ ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4884 "2025-07-01T04:32:57Z")
It’d be a LOT easier if there was a place to park a 1/2 to 1 mile long train that didn’t block e.g. 4 road crossings. Maybe prevent towns from growing up around railroad hubs? Kinda Iike preventing towns from growing around airports? Good luck w that. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4885 "2025-07-01T07:57:59Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > Maybe prevent towns from growing up around railroad hubs? Or if they do grow, build bridges. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4886 "2025-07-01T11:01:00Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#): > > It’d be a LOT easier if there was a place to park a 1/2 to 1 mile long train that didn’t block e.g. 4 road crossings. Believe it or not, but such places do exist around here. Not every stopped train blocks a mile of roads. But since rail roads have no penalty they park wherever they want and screw the people who live in the area. ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4887 "2025-07-01T13:26:42Z")
My old town had three level crossings for the railroad that they had run through it. Two of them had a siding that often had a train parked at it. That was annoying. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4888 "2025-07-01T13:52:32Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Or if they do grow, build bridges. For the trains or for the cars? The vehicle overcrossings our city has installed start at half a million and go up from there. There’s a tendency to put that kind of thing off. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4889 "2025-07-01T14:05:09Z")
And of course, these things are a lot easier if they were designed that way right from the start. If you’ve got a place that was a level-grade crossing for fifty years, but now urban development has grown up around it, and changes in railroad routing now mean that there’s very frequently trains on it, and so now you want to build a bridge, that means that you need hundreds of feet for that bridge to ramp up and down on both sides, and you probably need a different right-of-way so you can keep the level-grade crossing open while it’s being constructed, and so now you’re looking at eminent-domaining a dozen houses. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4890 "2025-07-01T14:28:36Z")
Sometimes they get it. And find the money. The UP main line runs through Maricopa, AZ. When I first moved here, and Maricopa was a sleepy little nothing town, the line was single track, and Maricopa Rd had a grade crossing (right next to the tattoo shop). You’d get stopped there _all the damn time_. Time moves on, Maricopa grew up into a bedroom suburb of Phoenix, and the train got another track. Traffic has skyrocketed. So they found the money and made this nice overpass. It really helped! > **[19427 N John Wayne Pkwy · 19427 N John Wayne Pkwy, Maricopa, AZ 85138](https://maps.app.goo.gl/2FwBLLdvULuYMZLBA)** > > Building ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4891 "2025-07-01T15:05:07Z")
Great cite. You can also see the amount of land that consumed. Everything from W Honeycutt Ave on the southwest end to Honeycutt Rd on the northeast end had to be cleared out. There is some bare desert east of JW boulevard north of the bridge, where JW is curving back to the original right of way across from Maricopa Auto Parts. If you zoom in Google will drop some address pins in that desert for businesses that used to be in buildings that used to be on what’s now bare desert. Around me in dense suburbia we have two roughly parallel 2-track rail lines about 2 miles apart. One is about 95% **[Tri Rail | South Florida Regional Transportation Authority](https://www.tri-rail.com/)** commuter rail running every ~30 minutes from well pre-dawn to midnight, plus the occasional 5- to 10-car local CSX freight. The other has **[Florida East Coast Railway](https://fecrwy.com/)** long heavy freight trains ~10x / day and **[High-Speed Passenger Train: Brightline](https://www.gobrightline.com/)** every 30 minutes from predawn to midnight. These lines run for ~80 miles through continuous fully built up urban and suburban areas with grade crossings every half mile-ish all the way along. The only possible solution to separate trains and cars would be to elevate both railroads on four 75-mile long trestle structures. Needless to say, that doesn’t pass the affordability test. So instead Brightline kills somebody literally once a month. South Floridiots simply cannot learn that getting stopped in traffic on the tracks _will_ result in getting you killed and your car destroyed. It also seems like about half the deaths are pedestrians either committing suicide or too drunk / drugged / phone-addled to know or care there’s a train coming. Somehow they respect the FEC freights coming at 50mph a lot more than the Brightlines coming at 80mph. Down the very same tracks with the very same signals and gates and anti-sneakthrough barriers and all the rest. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4892 "2025-07-01T15:17:39Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > But since rail roads have no penalty they park wherever they want and screw the people who live in the area. “Railroads have no penalty” varies by state and local jurisdiction, but the penalties for blocking roads for more than a short period of time are typically small (i.e., small monetary fines), which the railroads likely view as a cost of doing business. So, do those effectively act as “no penalty?” Probably. FWIW, @Broomstick , it appears that your state (Indiana) used to have such a law (which imposed fines), but [your state’s Supreme Court ruled that it violated two federal laws, and struck it down](https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/indianapolis/indiana-supreme-court-rules-rail-companies-cannot-be-fined-for-blocking-roads). ---
**Author:** ![Railer13](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/railer13/32/9742_2.png) [@Railer13](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Railer13)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4893 "2025-07-01T15:27:16Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#): > > the penalties for blocking roads for more than a short period of time Exactly right. Where I live, the fine is, I believe, $500.00 for blocking a roadway for more than 20 minutes. And that’s only if the train is stopped. IOW, an extremely slow-moving, long train could block an intersection for a lot longer period of time without any penalty. Which happens occasionally as trains move back and forth in and out of the railyards where they are pieced together. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4894 "2025-07-01T15:42:58Z")
How long does the road have to _stay_ unblocked? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4895 "2025-07-01T15:44:17Z")
Varies by however the state or local law is written. In Illinois, where I live, I believe it’s a violation to block a road for “more than ten minutes in a 30-minute period.” ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4896 "2025-07-01T15:46:09Z")
So, they can move the train a bit, stop it, and reset the clock? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4897 "2025-07-01T15:47:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > And of course, these things are a lot easier if they were designed that way right from the start. If you’ve got a place that was a level-grade crossing for fifty years, but now urban development has grown up around it, and changes in railroad routing now mean that there’s very frequently trains on it, and so now you want to build a bridge, that means that you need hundreds of feet for that bridge to ramp up and down on both sides, and you probably need a different right-of-way so you can keep the level-grade crossing open while it’s being constructed, and so now you’re looking at eminent-domaining a dozen houses. My area recently solved a problem like that by keeping the tracks at the same level and building an _underpass_ for the cars, which took up a lot less room and was probably significantly cheaper (although still taking substantial money) > [@kenobi\_65](#): > > FWIW, @Broomstick , it appears that your state (Indiana) used to have such a law (which imposed fines), but [your state’s Supreme Court ruled that it violated two federal laws, and struck it down](https://www.wrtv.com/news/local-news/indianapolis/indiana-supreme-court-rules-rail-companies-cannot-be-fined-for-blocking-roads). Yes, I am aware. My entire county is aware. We are not happy, but seem unable to do anything about it. I was a significant issue in that the crossing kept blocking one of the two roads that fed into one of the major hospitals around here. Think about ambulances stuck on the wrong side of a train, just a couple hundred yards from the ER. Sure, they could turn around and try to find an alternate way around… if none of those were blocked by a train… and if you don’t mind adding 15-20 minutes to the ambulance ride… I have no idea if the rumor about the helicopter being dispatched to bring a patient the last 500 yards to the hospital due to a stopped train preventing an ambulance from crossing the road triggering the successful push to fund the underpass is true or not, but it’s had a lot of legs in the neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4898 "2025-07-01T15:51:06Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > So, they can move the train a bit, stop it, and reset the clock? AIUI, no, they can’t, if “moving the train a bit” didn’t unblock the street. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4899 "2025-07-01T15:52:46Z")
Interesting. Who is supposed to enforce this law, and has it ever actually been enforced to the point where the fine has been paid? ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2025, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657/4900 "2025-07-01T15:55:42Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Who is supposed to enforce this law, and has it ever actually been enforced to the point where the fine has been paid? 1. Typically local police, AIUI, if they get called by local residents (or if the police, themselves, notice that a street is being blocked by a train). 2. No fucking clue. Though, the article I posted above, about the Indiana law, noted that Norfolk Southern sought a repeal of it after it received 23 citations. So, yeah, _sometimes_, a railroad apparently does get cited. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657.md?page=244) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/omnibus-stupid-mfers-in-the-news-thread-part-2/995657.md?page=246)