There should be a federal law against this type of railroading on American soil.

steviez said:
I just love it when someone still young comes along and says the train is the problem not the road driver. The railway and railways in general have been around a lot longer than the motor car. and had and still have rights of way (permanent way) It is calld that for a reason. Please learn your history before commenting on what happens now which has become a problem for car traffic. Over here in the UK we call them NIMBY's Not In My Back Yard.
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We have plenty of NIMBYs over here as well. They don't like noise, smell, or big things but want all the comforts that go with the modern world. It's because of the NIMBYs that we don't have extended commuter service where I live. The plan was to extend the service over the New Hampshire border 6 miles into Plaistow, but the residents of Atkinson located 3 miles south didn't like the idea because the "trains might make noise and might smell". I kid you not!

The NIMBYs not only complained, the got lawyers to stop the plan right in its tracks no pun intended. The residents up in Plaistow and Atkinson too would rather drive 6 miles south to where I live to take the train or drive 50 miles to Boston and sit in 3 hours of traffic daily.
 
And here's another example of street running in the same town as Disneyland!

Here's some street-running down in Anaheim, known for being home to Disneyland. This is the Union Pacific's Costa Local (LOA32), running its weekly route between the yard in Anaheim, thru street running in Anaheim, to Santa Ana. I suggest going to this website and entering "street running" (without quotations) where the website says "Enter Keywords": https://www.railpictures.net/

 
Fun fact, Switzerland has street running as well:
090623.21.jpg
 
I don't know every part of California. My mother was born in Oakland in 1937 but I don't know every street of Oakland. I took an Amtrak out of Oakland to Denver in 1986 and I have absolutely no memory of that train ever running along a street.
 
JonMyrlennBailey said:
It's not only a convenience issue, but it's obviously a serious public safety issue as well!! It's a train, not a streetcar!

(19) Street Running Train Causes Road Rage, Huge CSX Freight Trains On Main Street, LaGrange Kentucky - YouTube



EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it!

(19) Freight Trains in the US Are a Disaster Waiting to Happen - YouTube

Freight trains in the US are crashing more often, and people in the industry are worried about what comes next. VICE News' Motherboard looks into how the industry got here.
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Sure, run all those containers through town as individual truck loads, stopping at every sign and signal. Talk about road rage! What's needed is state and federal investment in rail traffic to match the "National Defense Highway System." But unlike civilized countries the U.S. is stuck in the "Free Enterprise" system of enriching the rich and impovrishing the poor.

:B~|
 
JonMyrlennBailey said:
Kentucky is not known for smart people. Except Colonel Harland David Sanders, Abraham Lincoln and the dude that got rich off Churchill Downs.
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Ahem Mohammad Ali, the greatest athlete of all time; Dainiel Boone, legendary explorer; our very own Casey Jones; actors George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp (Who doesn't love Captain Jack Sparrow?); Tony Moore and Robert Kirkman, creators of the comic book series The Walking Dead; Country Music singers Billy Ray Cyrus and Loretta Lynn; G. Scott Hubbard, a NASA Scientist who is also the associate director of NASA's Ames Research Center; Garrett A. Morgan, inventor of the traffic light and gas mask; stage magician Lance Burton; and finally "Papa" John Schnatter. Here's a whole article of people connected to Kentucky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Kentucky
 
jordon412 said:
Ahem Mohammad Ali, the greatest athlete of all time; Dainiel Boone, legendary explorer; our very own Casey Jones; actors George Clooney, Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp (Who doesn't love Captain Jack Sparrow?); Tony Moore and Robert Kirkman, creators of the comic book series The Walking Dead; Country Music singers Billy Ray Cyrus and Loretta Lynn; G. Scott Hubbard, a NASA Scientist who is also the associate director of NASA's Ames Research Center; Garrett A. Morgan, inventor of the traffic light and gas mask; stage magician Lance Burton; and finally "Papa" John Schnatter. Here's a whole article of people connected to Kentucky: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_Kentucky
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But the person who decided to build LaGrange with a train running down the middle of the street. I wonder what his grades were in school. This question of wits goes for all the planners of other cities with street-running trains as well. Some cities have complicated intersections like 5 points. Not logical also. I believe firmly in good smartly designed infrastructures. Large cities with skyscrapers are a testament to human stupidity. Remember the 9/11 attacks.
 
JonMyrlennBailey said:
But the person who decided to build LaGrange with a train running down the middle of the street. I wonder what his grades were in school. This question of wits goes for all the planners of other cities with street-running trains as well. Some cities have complicated intersections like 5 points. Not logical also. I believe firmly in good smartly designed infrastructures. Large cities with skyscrapers are a testament to human stupidity. Remember the 9/11 attacks.
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The line was there first, and the street grew up around it. The street probably only ran down one side and then the other side was put in with the tracks embedded in the pavement much later. If you want to see something similar but done differently, take a look at the Virtual Railfan camera for Ashland, VA. In this town, there are two separate streets running on either side of the tracks. This is most likely how this was setup initially in LaGrange, KY.

You're being too paranoid at 9/11 type stuff. If an accident occurs, it occurs whether it's in a downtown or not, or whether it's a terrorist attack. It's the way things are and there's no control over it. If you want to get even more spooked, think about brakes letting go and an oil train careening down grade into the town center after moving out of control around a sharp curve, aka Lac Megantic in Quebec.
 
Oh wow, he still exists, and still has an aggressive opinion about everything he doesn't have any knowledge about. Yay.
And yes, must have been the street planners having bad grades, right. You've got to be so much better than them, with all your experience i mean, to make all these sad little insults like that against people. Right?
Lets just ban life altogether, wouldn't that be much safer after all?

JonMyrlennBailey said:
Some things are just done out of human stupidity.
Click to expand...

Your usual tirades and rants against everything may be one of them...
 
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JonMyrlennBailey said:
Some things are just done out of human stupidity.
Click to expand...

Sometimes when I can't understand _why_ some things just don't make sense, I try to learn more about it by reading any articles that will help me understand it. That might not change my opinion, but at least I can start to see why that situation developed.
 
so just watched the video, 3 things came to mind first, all trains going through towns/ cities have to go this slow its in the rules. 2nd, the track was there long before the cities were there so who ever got mad move to another city problem solved, and 3rd, who would put a road through the middle of the tracks and called it a street, a street with tracks in the middle ok that really makes since not really. one thought came to mind why did they not put the road next to the tracks like 25ft from the tracks going in the same direction as the tracks.

switchmen37
 
hey jcitron,

you are right about the speed of the train they have to follow rules heres what i think people thinking who lives the city/ town is this "why is the train going too slow" " why the train so long", hello, train engineer has to follow the rules that governs track in the middle of the street in the town or city. iv seen both phrases. and my answer to the other quote is the engineer cannot dictate how long the consist is, they just hook up and pull out, basically theres more to that than that. but you get the idea.it could be 5 mile long train or a quarter mile. oh by the way the 5mile long train i use that as an example its not for real. i guess in theory. its possible with 2 or 3 sets of dpus, but in reality i dont think so iam just guessing .

switchmen37
 
JonMyrlennBailey said:
Having lived west of the Rockys in America, I have yet to see a freight train run down the middle of a city street. Perhaps, I perceive it to be much more dangerous than it really is. It could be a real hazard if the train holds up emergency vehicles. I suspect that oncoming trains do have to yield to automobiles in the street already. The trains running this particular street in Kentucky are going both ways.

Click to expand...

What would an emergency vehicle do at a normal crossing with gates down? is it any different? What do emergency vehicles do if the road is blocked due to an accident while responding to another call? if they city thought this was a problem, it would be a news story.

I will say tho, LaGrange Kentucky makes for some good viewing on Virtual Railfan on youtube.
 
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