I can attest that The Authorities do not look kindly upon this activity. I’d collected many a squashed penny in my day (60’s), but one time I was nabbed by a plainclothes person who identified himself as a “railroad inspector”, who gave me a ride home and gave my father a stern lecture on the dangers of this wanton destructive activity.
After he left, my father (whom I always suspected of being a former penny squasher) gave me a half-hearted “don’t be so dumb as to get caught”.
Every time I try to place a coin on the tracks, they disappear. But, I’m usually dealing with fully loaded coal cars.
In Mount Pleasant, Iowa, someone welded a piece of aluminum to one track that was just short of reaching the other. As the metals expanded, they maid contact, triggered a crossing and stopped trains.
A West Burlington volunteer firefighter was commenting on the dangers of responding to an accident at a rail crossing that didn’t involve a train. All the firefighters were worried a train would come along and make it worse. None of them knew that they just had to use a pair of jumper cables to short the system and bring any trains to a halt.
The train of common sense is coming down the track. You could swing on behind and catch a clue.
your humble TubaDiva
But if you prefer to be left a mule to ride, that’s your business.
So if my car stalls on the railroad tracks, and I can’t push it off, should I short the rails together to warn any oncoming train?