Sincerely hope none of you even knew these kids. Seems another case of avoiding crossing protection has taken 5 young lives. My thoughts are with all who knew them, and especially my brothers and sisters on the Amtrak crew. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/0...7200.shtml Though I know none of those involved, it's still a sad day. Bob C.

It is sad.
Our thoughts and prayers to all those involved.

I really hate reading about that kind of stuff.

I really hate these things too. I find it ironic that the same people that will sit at a red stop light in the middle of the night until it turns green, won't hesitate to cross the tracks with red blinking lights. We spend millions a year to prevent these accidents. Perhaps a simple non-blinking traffic light would have better results. After all, a blinking red light means stop and go if you can beat the oncoming traffic.
We have one public crossing that is just protected with crossbucks. We have great visability in all directions, and we take about 30 seconds to clear the crossing at our 10 mph speed. I have vehicles cross when we are within 50 feet of the crossing.
Every Tuesday I see the truck with welding supplies that has the "We stop at all railroad crossings". I'm here to tell you, the sign lies. Sometimes he slows down.
I think that more tickets for crossing violations is the only answer to saving lives.
Charlie

Yes, very sad indeed. At 6 when the local news came on, the car was still lodged underneath the locomotive. The car looks like it pretty much disintegrated.

Charlie - I am not sure what you can do.

On one hand, people should almost have a right to be stupid. But I hate to see the engineers and the railroad have to deal with killing someone. I work next to the light rail here in phoenix, and I see scores of people jaywalk across the tracks every day. These are usually businessmen with phones glued to their ear, and will stop on the tracks and wait for traffic to clear in the other direction. And most of the jaywalking I see occurs within 100 feet of a crosswalk . Someday, someone will get hit and killed because they are paying more attention to the cars and their phone call and will step right in front of the train. And then the operator will have to live with the fact they killed somebody. Sad.

nachoman Wrote:I work next to the light rail here in phoenix, and I see scores of people jaywalk across the tracks every day.

When in college at the U of A in Tucson, I wrote a paper on jaywalkers. At one of my observation points, it was common to see students jaywalk across 6 lanes of traffic with a center median (Speedway blvd.) from their apartments on one side to the businesses and school on the other side instead of using the pedestrian underpass very nearby. Finally, after a lot of near misses and a few that didn't miss, the city finally ran a fence down the median to force the useage of either the crosswalk at the light or the underpass.

You can see the surveillance video of the accident actually happening. It's not graphic or anything but it does make you stop and think "wow".

The black Ford does not even stop... and then it disappears....

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.freep.com/article/20090710/NEWS02/90710019/1202/RSS">http://www.freep.com/article/20090710/N ... 9/1202/RSS</a><!-- m -->

They just showed the video on my local news.
Pretty sad....19 year old driver on a suspeneded liscence?

Sad..........

Whether it is a kid or an adult, I see or hear of people running around crossing gates all the time because they don't want to wait for a slow freight. It never occurs to them that the train coming might not be slow or might be just out of sight at the crossing. I used to cringe when watching the U.P. working a siding near the shop I used to work at. They would often stop and start the trains and reverse moves to switch out industries near a grade crossing on a side street well away from the main road. Kids would ride up on bicycles and if the train wasn't moving they would throw their bike on top of a flat car or lift it between cars and then climb over the couplers. Often the train would move just after they cleared it. Thankfully, I never saw anyone killed while I waited for them to move the train to clear the intersection; but it wasn't because of any evidence of common sense on the part of the pedestrians and bicycle riders climbing through the stopped train!

Mike, thanks for the link. Watched the video a couple times, and WOW. That's all I can really say. I did have fun reading some of the posts of the people leaving comments though

Quote:but it wasn't because of any evidence of common sense on the part of the pedestrians and bicycle riders climbing through the stopped train!

In His infinite wisdom, God created a large, but finite amount of common sense.
In his infinite stupidity, man has overpopulated that amount.
In his infinite greed, man created lawyers, to capitalize on the apparent lack.


Is it possible. . .that God. . created trains. . to give common sense a chance?

Amtrak came out today and said the video from the locomotive shows all gates were down at the time of the accident.

An update from the local station here in Detroit: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/Amtrak-Speaking-Out-on-Crash-Video/mEovGQ16CkqJXsbLb-eW1A.cspx">http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/Am ... -eW1A.cspx</a><!-- m -->

conrailmike Wrote:Amtrak came out today and said the video from the locomotive shows all gates were down at the time of the accident.

An update from the local station here in Detroit: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/Amtrak-Speaking-Out-on-Crash-Video/mEovGQ16CkqJXsbLb-eW1A.cspx">http://www.wxyz.com/news/local/story/Am ... -eW1A.cspx</a><!-- m -->

That doesn't surprise me one bit

There was a news report, last night, about an Amtrak train/auto "incident". There were five in the car, two over 80, who died.
What enraged me, was not the accident, but the way the news broadcaster presented it, as if the evil Amtrak went sneakily off the track, hunted down its victims and brutally murdered them. Then, apparently, was able to sneak back on to the track, all innocent, and victimized by the horrid auto.
I'm really tired of "the train slammed into", "...were killed when a train demolished their vehicle", ".......children were killed when a train crashed into the car they were riding in".
For just once I'd like to hear, "......stupid humans lost the race with a moving train when they put themselves on the rails directly in front of the much larger, and heavier moving object, and were ground into hamburger as a result of their dumb choice".
It's bad enough when a train actually does go "off the tracks", and people die. But it's wrong to "blame the train" when it has stayed in its "own back yard" (on the tracks !!!) and the stupid humans have put themselves in harms way.
Why do we constantly act as if we were immune to consequence!???
"Mothers teach your children, don't do what I have done".......Don't go between the "two bars" of the trainmonster's cage,....... death waits there.
I'll end my rant with a word to the train crews who did every reasonable thing they could, to prevent an accident, and have had to cope with those who put themselves on death's path. You were forgiven, before the fact. In truth, you were the victims. May God bless you, and may fortune favor you.