TWO TEENS KILLED BY ACELA TRAIN IN PENNSYLVANIA:

[Guest ___]

An Acela train traveling from Boston to Washington hit two teenage girls about 10:30 a.m. Febr.25 in Norwood, Pa., about 10 miles southwest of Philadelphia. Norwood Police say an examination of the girls' e-mail and text messages showed they spoke of their desire to end their lives. [united Transportation Union, 2-27-10, from Associated Press report]

[Bernard]

The one thing that gets lost in a report like this is the Engineer of the train. It has to be emotionally hard to get over something like this when you are a first hand witness to what is about to happen and in most cases, too late to stop it.

[Guest ___]

I was shooting a deadhead MARC train two years ago and was at Gaithersburg. The engineer just waved to me from the cab car. Eight minutes later he struck two trespassers walking down the middle of the tracks, a pair of teens wearing headphones, never heard the train.

[marknewton]

It has to be emotionally hard to get over something like this when you are a first hand witness to what is about to happen and in most cases, too late to stop it.

 

Bernard, I know this will sound callous, and I'm only speaking for myself, but I've found that after being involved in a number of fatalities I'm fairly inured to being upset now. My thinking is this - if you take responsibility for something that in fact you aren't in any way responsible for, you'll lose the plot. I've known a few blokes who came off the road after a fatality and never returned. They blamed themselves for something they had no control over. I refuse to do that.

 

My regular mate when I was on the freight had been involved in about a dozen level crossing collisions when I first met him, and I asked him how he felt about that. He replied that at a crossing he had right of way, and if people were stupid enough to get in his way, that was their bad luck. I tend to take the same view.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[Bernard]

Mark - I don't think it sounds callous at all. I fell sorry for the Engineer who is put into this position on purpose.

I take the LIRR everyday and there is one Engineer who as he approaches a crossing starts blasting the horn a mile away. I finally asked the Conductor about this and he told me of an accident the Engineer was in.

About a year ago there was a fatality of a car being hit by a train not to far from where I live. There was a big investigation as to why it happen, did the crossing gate come up to soon or close to late? Was the Engineer by passing the signals? The last thing they looked into was the driver. She was 3rd in line at the crossing gate and decided that this was taking too long, pulled out of line and drove her car with her child around the gate. They didn't make it.

[marknewton]

Mark - I don't think it sounds callous at all. I fell sorry for the Engineer who is put into this position on purpose.

 

Thanks, it's not something you ever want to experience.

 

As for level crossings, I hate the bloody things. You cannot trust motorists to do the right thing on them. Where I run trains now we don't have any, but I've had some nasty incidents on them in the past that involved injuries and/or fatalities.

 

And my wife was involved in a high-speed collision and derailment a few years back when she was working the Moree Xplorer. A woman drove onto the crossing at Baan Baa and stopped foul of the track. The train hit her at 130kmh, the leading car derailed and travelled about 500 metres before coming to rest on its side. My missus and the rest of the crew and passengers were lucky, there were only minor injuries to four pasengers. The woman in the car was killed instantly.

 

So you can see why I don't like level crossings.

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[Guest ___]

I had an experience about twelve years ago flagging a grade-crossing during a reversing monuever at my little tourist railroad. Guy ran my flag and almost got clipped by the caboose running north on point. we ended up dumping the air. I got the plate and he was cited for failing to obey a flagman.

[marknewton]

So all in all you had a good result, considering. I hope he was heavily punished?

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[Guest ___]

i almost didn't make it, I had to jump-dodge the beemer and my stop paddle went in to the sheet metal of the car gashing it a good three feet nearly taking my arm off in the process.