2 Children Died in Hospital after CSX Car/Train Wreck

[SantaFebuff]

Terre Haute, Illinois. The wife apparently didn't see the train and was struck by it. (likely story) It's the CSX line my local Kankakee Branchline comes off of.

CSX Railroad officials were at the scene of the incident Wednesday and assisted emergency responders. Calls placed and messages left with CSX officials Thursday and Friday were not returned.

*CSX bashing removed*

http://tribstar.com/news/x1875166603/Car-train-toll-rises-to-four-deaths

This is the original article about the crash (includes video of aftermath)
http://mywabashvalley.com/fulltext?nxd_id=233582

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Not the first accident in Terre Haute:
http://www.wthitv.com/dpp/news/local/Car-hit-by-train

Sorry to bring bad news.

Cheers,
Joshua

 

[backyard]

Not a nice way to start a thread...

O.K. you made your point about CSXT.

This is not about you, or CSXT, this is about two children in recovery.

God bless the injured and lead to a speedy recovery!

God Bless America!:wave:

 

[nikos1]

I don't like CSX either but it is typical for a company not to talk to the news media regarding a situation that will possibly lead to litigation, uncalled for bashing I think.

 

[SantaFebuff]

I know. I was teasing CSX.

The crossing was fine. So, yep.

Cheers,
Joshua

 

[Kris94]

​Well that's what happens when idiots try to outrun trains.

 

[Truemac]

So the mother makes a stupid move and now her children have to pay the price...It's a terrible world we live in...

 

[Euphod]

So the mother makes a stupid move and now her children have to pay the price...It's a terrible world we live in...

It is unfortunate that the little ones often have to depend on parents that are undependable. I suppose it's unavoidable though. No greater responsibility was ever granted than that of a parent for their children's safety.

 

[oknotsen]

The one way to prevent this from happening is to remove all the equal level crossings, which probably would result in each and every railway going bankrupt as I doubt the goverment can affort sponsering this.
The 2nd best sollution is to have none distracted drivers who pay attention when crossing the tracks. As humans will never be perfect, I fear tragic accidents like this will every now and then happen

 

[Kris94]

I know this may sound harsh but somethings got to be done. HOW STUPID DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO BE ON THE TRACKS WHEN A TRAIN IS COMING??!!

 

[SantaFebuff]

Hmm, I think I smell a rant.

The one way to prevent this from happening is to remove all the equal level crossings, which probably would result in each and every railway going bankrupt as I doubt the goverment can affort sponsering this.
The 2nd best sollution is to have none distracted drivers who pay attention when crossing the tracks. As humans will never be perfect, I fear tragic accidents like this will every now and then happen

They're doing that in California. It's more of a waste of money than you'd think. They just put those signals up in the 1990s and some even in the 2000s! Now they're just ripping them down. It's not for safety, it's for congestion though (and acclaimed for safety). It would cost waaay too much; simple fact US doesn't have any nice things:

Our infrastructure is too outdated and embedded to work.

By "embedded", I mean that we already have grade crossings and things. If we had built overpasses when we built the railroad, that would have been much much easier. However, to convert it all, ooh boy! That's why we aren't running TGV's. France did that in the 1960s and 1970s. They ripped everything up and relayed it purpose-built for high speed rail. Something we're struggling to do now with concrete tie upgrades and Amtrak timetable speed increases. I do believe, the closest we ever got to a electrified system, was back in the 1930s and 1940s when N&W, New Haven, Great Northern, and countless more railroads had electrified mainlines. Most of them are gone now, but that's my view. It's a great idea though. Not for me, personally. I love crossing signals, I would hate to see them all go.

If you really want to find the cause, look at the Driver's Education system. Seriously. We watched a 1995 film, and for the 10 seconds they showed a Conrail C30-7R hitting a van, everyone's mouth dropped. Seriously? No one has seen a car hit by a train? I wonder what they think will happen. I was almost ready to say something about showing a REAL crossing accident video. Though, they rather educate then scare the kids... which is alright (seeing as the teacher drives with them afterwards :hehe, but I think it's kind of not getting the point across. The only really focused video about RXR safety was based as a "funny" (by funny, I mean for a 4 year old, it was a joke and super-cheesy) game show. Categories were based off of stereotypes of Trains, and it was just silly. I say, show them stories like THIS. Show them the family that almost was completely wiped off the face of the earth by a bad choice. SHOW THEM THE TRUTH! That's how you educate them, you tell them what will happen, and yes. Scare them, because it is that serious.

Sorry for ranting, now you know more about me!

Kris94,
Your not being harsh. When I told my friend this story, he said: "Oh well, that's their own d**n fault. Shouldn't have been a couple of morons."

Reminder to all: By definition, a crossbuck acts as a yield sign. So you should technically slow down to check for cross traffic (trains). Of course, if you think that's bad, Kris, you should look into how many people hit the train... It's more likely than you think. (most are failed beat-the-train attempts...)

Cheers,
Joshua

 

[JCitron]

And to add to that Josh.

Yield signs to a lot of people mean speed up and cut everyone off instead of slowing down and being careful, and stopping when there's danger. I've been nearly nailed by idiots blowing through yield signs when they're supposed to stop.

Sadly the today the little children paid the price because of the stupidity of their mother. Now to become stereotypical, and probably get flamed. She was probably not paying attention as usual, probably talking on her cell phone and doing everything else but paying attention to safety as she was driving.

John

 

[deadpoolmx55]

all this happens the same day a car in the daytona 500 has csx as a partial sponsor with a big bumper sticker that says I BREAK FOR TRAINS, the driver got to drive a train tho.

 

[maruffijd]

I love crossing signals, I would hate to see them all go.

If you really want to find the cause, look at the Driver's Education system. Seriously. We watched a 1995 film, and for the 10 seconds they showed a Conrail C30-7R hitting a van, everyone's mouth dropped. Seriously? No one has seen a car hit by a train? I wonder what they think will happen. I was almost ready to say something about showing a REAL crossing accident video. Though, they rather educate then scare the kids... which is alright (seeing as the teacher drives with them afterwards :hehe, but I think it's kind of not getting the point across. The only really focused video about RXR safety was based as a "funny" (by funny, I mean for a 4 year old, it was a joke and super-cheesy) game show. Categories were based off of stereotypes of Trains, and it was just silly. I say, show them stories like THIS. Show them the family that almost was completely wiped off the face of the earth by a bad choice. SHOW THEM THE TRUTH! That's how you educate them, you tell them what will happen, and yes. Scare them, because it is that serious.

Reminder to all: By definition, a crossbuck acts as a yield sign. So you should technically slow down to check for cross traffic (trains). Of course, if you think that's bad, Kris, you should look into how many people hit the train... It's more likely than you think. (most are failed beat-the-train attempts...)

Cheers,
Joshua

I seem to remember that film when I did drivers ed. Yup, lots of people there dropped jaw as well. I entirely agree about showing more graphic consequences of running a crossing, just because nowadays, everybody has this I have to be there yesterday mentality. I have yet to see a 5-10 minute delay because of a train kill anyone. Can't say the same for those without patience. I would love it if drivers ed added a railroad crossing segment to the classic film "Red Asphalt."


Crossbucks as yield, they sure are. I actually still have my old drivers ed manual and it's there black and white plain as day. "When aproaching a crossing, slow down, look, listen and yield until it is safe to proceed." and there's this too, "When a crossing is active, STOP!!! it is NOT safe to proceed and is a traffic violation punishable by fines imposed by a court of law.

 

[JCitron]

When I lived in Andover, MA. People would run the crossings all the time. There were only two of them and they were like 4 miles apart, so it wasn't like they tied anything up. There were plenty of roads that went under and over the tracks, so if anyone was in a rush, they could get around the tracks somehow.

During the 1970s, probably in 1972-74, some guy in a Camaro decided that the westbound freight wasn't going to get in his way. He became road mush and his car was completely smushed against the local Pizza shop that was located next to the tracks.

Much later on, after the "horn restrictions went in" there were even more accidents. People felt they could go around the gates and blow past the commuter trains as they were pulling into the stations. Two people were injured, they were lucky, and caused over $5,000 in damages to the gates and to the train. In all these cases, these were the yuppies, who are too busy, to wait a few minutes for the train to pass on its way.

John