Please do not throw yourself under a train.

I was at the front of the first passenger car in a train that hit a kid on a bike. A sponge and a bucket was used to clean off the window. The crossing arm, bell and lights were working, but the kid went halfway around them.

Done.

When Terry Pratchett was a young journalist he was sent to report on a suicide by train. He said the woman was spread along about a hundred yards of the line.

Northshore line of the Chicago Metra?

GO train (double decker commuter train) inbound to Toronto at the Lorne Park Road crossing in Mississauga.

Two incidents of kids on bikes going around gates to try to beat a train in one lifetime.

I wonder why I even asked. What answer did I want?

While that does have some benefits, it necessarily requires what would appear to be a total lack of preparation on the financial side, who finds you, etc. And, you always run the risk of it being discovered to not be natural. The immediate guess then would not be that you had committed suicide, but that you had been murdered. That leads to an investigation and there is a good chance that your closest loved ones, the ones you were trying to save the pain thinking you committed suicide, being investigated, and possibly even prosecuted, for your murder.

All actions have consequences, and there is a certain amount of pain you cannot spare your friends and family. Just as in all things, you should look to minimize it. But, just as you are not going to tailor your entire life to sparing your friends and family all problems, you should not extend your life purely to avoid causing them trauma. The best that can be expected is for you to minimize the impact.

I’ll be dead by the time I can afford to kill myself.

About once a fortnight in Sydney. Kam’s in Melbourne. So in Australia, lots.

About two months ago there was one in Adelaide as well. We rarely have jumpers though. Most of ours just seem to be retards who think that level crossings don’t apply to them.

Harrowing read Gleena…and exactly why I posted this thread in the first place.

Yeah, it’s a major PITA for those of us who get our travel-plans out of kilter. At that time of night, connecting buses have long gone, so for many it will entail ringing rellies (if they have any), jumping in a taxi (if they have the money) or doing a 5+km walk home…or waiting two MORE hours for another bus.

But it’s the train drivers who have to wear the most pain. The only dead bodies I have seen have been laid out nicely in coffins at the funeral home…how one can possibly integrate the vision of a splattered person remains beyond my comprehension, and is why I call train-jumpers fucking useless pieces of shit.

YMMV of course. :frowning:

so your family doesn’t have to pay your bills?

I work for the Dutch rail roads, I think there are about 200 attempts a year, two weeks ago there were 6 in two days, here the train conductor has to get out to inspect the victim, see if he needs medical assistance.

recently there is has been a debate about the support the driver and conductor receive after the incident from the railroad company…a lot of them wind up with post traumatic stress syndrome.

A lot of those trains and locomotives are cleaned at the facility where I work, they are brought in late at night and a small group of volunteers remove all human remains from the train, they do it with a lot of respect, more then I would of expected from them…one of them told me once: ”I always treat the remains as if it was from the son of someone I knew”

While I have nothing but raging contempt for those who suicide by train, I would always want the remains treated with respect for the sake of surviving family and friends and their feelings.

They charge the family of the jumpers in Japan, but it still happens too frequently.

It only once really pissed me off because I was late to meet my wife and her friends. I was bitching and the friend mentioned the poor family. Goddamnit. Now what am I supposed to do?

Continuing to bitch makes me look like the asshole I really am, but my wife is there with her friend, and we don’t want my wife to look bad. Fuckit. If you’re going to jump, do it on a day I can bitch about it with people who can understand.

My father committed suicide by train. I didn’t know him, so it didn’t bother me too much when we found out 9ish years later.

As an adult, I’ve been involved in the direct aftermath of a suicide (or more frequently, suicide attempts) a few times, due to my work. It seems that just as I think I’ve gone numb to the horribleness of it, people come up with something even more awful. Enough to tear that emotional wall right back down again.

A friend of mine’s best friend committed suicide in a reasonably considerate manner, shooting himself on the patio of his condo. I helped my friend clean out the condo. One of the things we found was a “To-Do” list, including canceling the cable and phone, clearing out the fridge, etc.

Well, whatever we do, let’s not improve mental health in this country. Bunch of navel gazing whiners. That’s sarcasm for the sarcasm impaired.

While we’re on the subject, please try to avoid defecating between subway cars. When you slip, fall between the cars, and get struck by the trains, it tends to screw up everybody else’s commute.

My stepfather is a train driver in Sydney and he has both experienced this himself and seen colleagues deal with it as well. It really is quite horrible. I’ll often hear about “another suicide” happening here or there.

And yes, I’ve heard how he sees the crew shovelling up the slush left behind.

Or just go out to Aokigahara like normal people :mad:. Though I guess “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down” doesn’t really apply posthumously, does it?

… what?