Walking On The Tracks - A New Fad, Or Potential Disaster?

[qassaquyangli]

The only time I've ever walked on the tracks was here in Anchorage at the crossing at the main. There ain't many trains in the summer, so I touched the track and man, it was really grimy! I tell my family about how trains don't stop on a dime and they understand. Lucky here in Alaska many people I know know how much danger it is to be by the tracks.

 

[mp202]

So literally just today, I saw a guy walking down the tracks on my way home from school. I looked for any MOW equipment, Hi-Rails, or locomotives only to find none. So that guy had no business being on those tracks.

 

[nicky9499]

All trains, no matter how quiet (cab cars in example above) give themselves away at least 10 to 15 seconds away with the "singing" rails. Just thought I'd bring that up as nobody has thus far into the discussion.
Walking the tracks listening to music is as stupid as driving with a blindfold.

 

[cascaderailroad]

sometimes stupid is as stupid does

 

[traincrazy0918]

In my opinion, it's also partly due to the ignorance and the attitude paid towards railroads nowadays. People just don't get the dangers involved anymore because they are grossly uninformed about things like the effects wind has on sound and commuter cab cars and the likes. They have no real way of gaining this knowledge either unless they specifically choose to learn about it, like many of us here do. The other point is the attitude the general public carries regardless of it's nature towards trains. Even with operation lifesaver around, most still don't know that trains take miles to stop, or they think that they would be an exception; when they're not, the railroad still gets blamed. It's the attitude that "Oh, because I'm me, I get a free pass if anything happens and I'll be all right..." that causes these incidents. Unfortunately, this attitude is 80% of the youth population in North America.

My personal thoughts on the issue,
Traincrazy

 

[norfolksouthern37]

on the other hand it is one of a the few remaining ways that people are not protected from natural selection...

 

[JCitron]

All trains, no matter how quiet (cab cars in example above) give themselves away at least 10 to 15 seconds away with the "singing" rails. Just thought I'd bring that up as nobody has thus far into the discussion.
Walking the tracks listening to music is as stupid as driving with a blindfold.

Very good point and given the fact that we now use welded rails things are even quieter.

John

 

[nicky9499]

I spent alot of time by the tracks with my friends in high school. There was a train in each direction every two hours. This line used continuous welded rail on concrete sleepers and pandrol clips; still the rails start singing a good 20 seconds before a train doing 45 barrels round the corner.

Here's something of even greater stupid.
http://on.aol.com/video/bizarre-therapy-involves-lying-on-train-tracks-517732401

 

[Bluewater]

Couple years ago I was at my sister's friends house (with my sis and parents and her team) for a party. Her house was literally right next to the CN South Bend Sub near Pavillion, MI. I was at a nearby crossing when I saw these high schoolers fooling around on the tracks. I confronted them, told them that they were trespassing and that the line was still active. They responded (clearly drunk) that "it aint active no more, (censored). There aint no trains since 3 this mornin. Stop ya lyin, (censored)." So I was walking along the road back to the house to call CN police when I happened to turn around for a scream. That CN SD70M-2 made a really nice backdrop. Luckily for them, they were approaching a red signal, so they weren't doing any more than somewhere between 5-10 MPH on that curve. Boy did they get lucky though. I heard later that one assaulted the engineer and they had to pin him against the locomotive. Those Vicksburg kids (that's where they go to school) really need to learn something!

 

[jlp1551]

No matter how many times people are told, they do become complacent. Then when they get hurt, blame the railroad. Remember, ya can't fix stupid! But, you can put stupid in jail!!!

 

[drchoi21]

Almost nobody walks on the NJT Morris and Esssex branch especially Morristown branch, and I noticed that a lot of these accidents happen in midwest and far west, perhaps it has to do with existence of electric catenary (ruins the whole pic:hehe or people are smart enough to figure that they will get electrocuted by Catenary lines? anyways on east seaboard, the catenary makes high screeching sound before train arrives in 5 minutes.

 

[JCitron]

Jeff,

Complacency is something that seems to happen no matter what the danger whether it be fast moving automobiles, trains, even severe thunderstorms and tornados. People seem to feel that if it didn't happen to them it's never going to happen and they develop a cavalier attitude, almost an arrogance because nothing is going to happen to them, ever. I saw this out west while storm chasing over the past several years. There would be a very high precipitation (HP) supercell thunderstorm heading their way. The storm will, produce high winds, severely huge hail, dangerous lightning, and even tornados. The storm sirens will be blaring loudly and the people will be out and about like nothing's going to happen. Storm chasers will do this too as they gather around to watch a tornado barreling down at them. They'll even get into harm's way to get that spectacular picture. While out train watching many years ago, I saw a group of fans climb up on a signal mast to take pictures from up there. How dumb is that? There wasn't anything special regarding this particular train other then it being a bit longer than normal. Why risk your life for a lousy photograph?

As I said, people think, or rather don't think when they are in the midst of doing their own thing. I saw the same with my own group while we were up in Nebraska on the South Dakota border this May. We were following some storms up in the Sand Hills area along US 18 which follows the BNSF former CB&Q main line. There were numerous coal trains coming along at about 60 mph in both directions on the double-tracked main line. This is one of the awesome parts of storm chasing! Anyway, the group thought it was nifty to climb up on the tracks and take pictures. I told them not to because the line is active and the trains haul a-- pretty fast here. The tour leader made a snarky comment to me and I stayed off the tracks. I warned them that they'd be caught though by the BNSF police because the line is patrolled.

I no sooner got the words out when a BNSF highrailer pulls up on the highway below and a woman gets out and yells "Get off the tracks! Someone was killed here six months ago! If you don't get off the tracks, I will have you arrested for trespassing!" A fellow storm chaser, and rail fan, and I climbed down the service road and spoke with her. She was quite upset and it was obvious why. She was afraid someone would get wiped along the tracks. The other person killed was found 3 miles away smushed along the ROW! Bill and I explained to her who we were and what we were doing, and we went up and spoke to the tour leader. When he saw us speaking with this lady, he came down and ordered everyone off the tracks.

We can say that it all boils down to common sense or the lack thereof and in many cases being selfish and not thinking.

John

 

[wkwood]

The track walking has been going on ever since steel rails were put across the land. Back then however people could hear and "feel" the trains as they came closer but accidents still happened. Nowadays there are more and more incidents with people who are distracted (headphones or in their own world), walking with somebody else or even sleeping on the tracks and they get hit. What's even more disturbing is coming up on a group of teenagers in the dark and they're playing chicken with your train or even mooning it and they're too close.. All the locomotive feels is a brief "klunk" Then of course there's the odd person who doesn't want to live anymore and a train is a convenient tool, jump out from behind the bushes in the track.. "klunk" A swan dive off of a platform adjacent to a high speed train.. "klunk"

Then there's the usual idiots who go around the gates or people just going home getting hit when the gates fail even though the lights are blaring on the side of the vehicle and the horn blaring "klunk"..
Then there's the little boy chasing after his friends, just trying to keep up. They made it across the tracks, he didn't... "klunk"
Or the boy being called by his mom out in the country, slow moving train, in Winter, his friends walk across and make it, he didn't somehow hear the horn or see it either... "klunk"
There's nothing the engineer can do, hit the horn, lay on the horn hit the ditch lights and hit the emergency.

Don't ask me how I know, but I do and this but it happens much more frequently than we read about.

 

[bernhart_lossiemouth]

Wow I'm going to have nightmares tonight when I keep hearing that "klunk". Imagine that, "klunk" and then two minutes later, a body smeared along the tracks, waiting for the FBI to investigate.

 

[wkwood]

Uh it's not the FBI, it's usually a Sheriff or local police. From a railroad perspective you have to deploy a relief crew, get the local road foreman out to the scene to take all the evidence, measure the wheel etc. get the PCM (Black Box data) in some cases, tons of paperwork and hours of delay. Yeah, it's a mess, always. I had one engineer tell me "All you can do is lay on the horn, hit the emergency and turn around because you don't want to see it."

But to a big 140+ ton locomotive with hundreds of tons of mass behind it and with 1.5 inches of steel plate on the nose, it's just "klunk."

 

[BDP]

Just The Other Day When The GLC Came Thru, There Were 3 People on a Bridge. But it is even Worse Me and My Buddy Told them to Get off the Train Is Coming and they Just Shruged their Shoulders Like I don't Care. Plus it Was On Blind Curve.