Well a curve could hide the train like you say but also buildings and trees. There’s a crossing near where I live that has bushes on both sides and a few buildings and you can’t see until you get right up to the track and stop.(No problem if you do it correctly.) Actually fairly recently I stopped at the crossing(no lights were flashing but safety first I always say) and the nitwit behind me actually passed me because I stopped for a few seconds.(Of course it was illegal to pass but come on, if you’re willing to pass when someone is making sure there’s no train what’s another stupid act?)
<minor hijack>
Do you think you might have heard it faintly, though? Last week I got out of work an hour early, so I decided to wander down town. In order to get to where I wanted to go, I’d have to take a path that crossed the railroad tracks. I wasn’t looking forward to it, since the sides of the path were deep in snow. I don’t remember hearing anything, but something made me hesitate crossing. Which turned out to be a good thing, since the gate came down and the bells and lights started going off just then. I think I had to have heard something, or it was a damn lucky conicidence, since the train was passing me by long before I would have made it across the tracks.
</minor hijack>
elfkin477,
I don’t think I heard anything. Either of us certainly might have seen it if we looked. When the flashers and bells started, we looked down the tracks, and there it was clear as day.
My personal driving habits include NEVER stopping on railroad tracks. And when I’m not driving I’m issuing warnings. I’m probably a really lousy person to travel with.
I live in Ohio, the mother of train tracks and crossings. I witnessed a VW Beetle loaded with five teens get wiped out by a train when I was five-years-old. All of them died and it lead to that crossing getting lights, gates and bells. The crossing was in a city and originally crossed two main and one side rail (to a defunct factory on the left side of the road).
The grade to cross was fairly stiff, rising about 8 feet in two to three car lengths and the undergrowth and debris from the old factory made it impossible to see down the track until you started up the grade. The train had failed to sound on another crossing a few blocks over and didn’t sound until the VW came in sight. The driver must have paniced and accelerated to his death.
Another fun situation in northern Ohio is when trains are routinely parked on sidings near the crossing. The only way to see is to literally pull onto the track. Trains aren’t suposed to, but regularly did hit 60+mph going through small towns. They didn’t sound regularly and the railroad didn’t want to pay for lights or gates. They said the crossings weren’t used enough. There were car-train hits every two years, almost like clockwork. Most of them were fatal. It took 20 years of trying before the cities in the area got the railroad to put in lights and gates.
Most of the time it IS the auto or predestrian’s fault, but the railroads are by no means blameless. They argue over lighting crossings or installing gates. At night, if they don’t sound, you can miss a train if it is right on top of you as you come to a crossing in a car. Those idiots who go around gates or ignore lights deserve what they get, but it is very possible to miss a train while in a car.
I know I take the time to left-right-left when I come to a track. I still sometimes hear the scream from the VW when I’m drifting between awake and sleep. It keeps me honest when I drive.
What really gets me are the communities who want to keep train horns from sounding in their neighborhoods. I remember reading about it a bit when I would take the Amtrak from St. Louis to Chicago, apparently a few of the communities along the route were complaining about noise (sorry, don’t have a cite, it was a few years ago).
My sister moved a year or so ago to a house that is near tracks and an intersection. And the train horns sound nightly, usually around midnight and I think again at 5 a.m., then various times through the day. A few weeks after she moved in she got flyers from neighbors who were petitioning to get the horns stopped. The flyers played on the sympathy of people trying to get to sleep at night. My sister’s thoughts were that the tracks were there before she was and it was just a basic safety issue.
In Madison, they passed such a local noise law. There were 3 car train accidents in the next 3 months. AFAIK the law is still on the books, but a couple of railroads have told the city to shove it, the horns will sound and the city can take them to court.
A real shitty law.
Well, it can be very difficult to judge the distance of a train and its speed when you view it (almost) head on, as is the case when you (a moron) is creeping around the barrriers and inching onto the tracks …
<hijack> Two summers ago, maybe three, there was a high-speed collision between two speed boats on the St. Croix river (the border between Wisconsin and Minnesota, for those who don’t know). Made the national news.
Two souped-up powerboats with gazillion horsepower engines, collided at very high speed. They were racing each other, or playing ‘tag’ or somesuch reckless horseplay. Each boat had 4-5 passengers and a pilot – all of whom were drunk out of their minds. All drowned.
The media played it as a great tragedy – young dead kids, grieving families, etc. Although the media played up the alcohol aspect, it was still a tragedy.
Bullshit. I and almost every one of my circle of friends expressed relief that these drunk morons were no longer able to terrorize innocent bystanders by piloting mega-horsepower boats at reckless speeds. Good ridance, we all said.
In fact, we all voiced something similar to what the OP said: I am sorry for the families of the dead stupid people, but frankly, their demise is ultimately beneficial to the gene pool. I can only hope the individuals who threw away their lives and risked many other people’s lives haven’t already reproduced.
</hijack>
quote:
Originally posted by featherlou
… how hard is it to see a train coming down the tracks? …
I can’t answer your question, as the accident vehicle approached the crossing with good visibility. The engineer sounded his horn when it appeared to him that the vehicle was not stopping at the grade crossing.
The NTSB found probable cause in that the flashing lights, crossarms and vehicle arrest barrier were inadvertently disabled.
Sadly, two young fellows likely engaged in conversation, relied on a warning system that failed to operate.
Speed is also a factor. The car struck was traveling at an estimated speed of 27 MPH in a 35 MPH zone, and the Amtrak train was found to be traveling at 74 MPH, below the limit of 79 MPH. I can visualise how a speed differential factor such as that would allow them to be overtaken quickly.
Just my thoughts.
Several of you have mentioned incidents in which cars were hit because they were unaware of a train until it was too late. Your points are well taken. I also came close to getting wiped out by a train at a place with no gates or lights. I was in Seattle, a town which was unfamiliar to me, and driving, perhaps, somewhere near a railroad yard. There was a crossing between buildings that had five or six tracks in a kind of industrial area. I don’t think it was much traveled. There were no other cars, buildings all around, and I was lost. I was trying to get across all the tracks, looking both ways (I swear) and being confused by how many tracks there were. I was going slowly across when a passenger train appeared seemingly out of nowhere and nearly creamed me. My memory of the event is a little foggy, as it was in 1980. Anyway, I wasn’t trying to beat a train. There just was no warning.
My OP was about people who jog around the gates that are down, ignore the lights, or even, as in the most recent case, crash through the gate. I can be sympathetic with those who were not warned, but people who try to beat a train are just asking for it.
I was doing some contract work of a Rail Road Company in the late 70’s and they did not have much sympathy for people who were hit by trains. They also did not like top put up crossing barriers because people ignored them they did not protect the Company from lawsuits.
Case in point as to why I was working for them was that a car full of 20 year olds came to a crossing that had a train already across the road. They turned and in front of witness raced a block down the ally beside the track trying to beat the train to the next crossing and lost. Three died and two lived.
The Rail Road Company was sued for many millions and they lost and had to pay. They told me that they had to pay EVERY time there was a suit that went to trial no matter the circumstances because of the juries in last two years. Yepper, they were not happy campers. I’m sure that is not always the case and it was a long time ago but from my jury service and from what I see in the news, well we are greedy and do not really care about anything but getting ours and punishing the BIG companies, they can afford it.
How far does the Rail Roads have to go before we the people say enough to people’s stupidity and just bury them?
Fix the bad crossings, but anyone who races the train and losses, gets nothing and their insurance pays for the clean up, not the rail road.
People suck.
I love my pet rock.