Hit by train

[jay-d]

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They should build a bridge over the train tracks if they can't stop kids crossing it?

I did something REALLY stupid with my friend when we were younger. A huge train had stopped dead in it's tracks and it went on forever. There was no way around it and we were super late.

Since the train wasn't moving, and we couldn't hop over it, we decided to go under it! As soon as we crawled under the train and cleared it on the other side, a few seconds later the train started moving.

We got yelled at by some drivers in some cars as we were going under but that's it.. the stupid stuff kids do.

 

[Lyndsay]

As an ex-railway signalman I can tell you there are lots more hazards than just being hit by the train. One of the biggest is broken strapping hanging off the side. A piece of 20 foot long 1/2 inch wide by 1/32 thick strapping coming at you at 60 mph is hard to see and could take your head off without any trouble. Why you would want to voluntarily go near railroad tracks is beyond me; they are filthy with dirt and grease, not to mention the track rabbits (bits of toilet paper flushed out onto the tracks) and assoicated waste. Rocker: you asked how does it happen? Unfortunately there is a lot of optical illusionary effects when on the tracks and distances can be misleading, especially if there is a curve in the equation and multiple tracks. It's easy to misjudge distance when walking along the tracks; although crossing them shouldn't take long enough for that to come into effect.

 

[Trainman]

First of all my heart goes out to the family of this young girl, she made a bad choice and paid the ultimate price but then again who amongst us hasn't make a bad decision at some point in our lives? Fortunately unlike this young woman most of us walked away from it. All we can do now is pray for her young soul and hope other young ppl may learn from her tragedy.

With that being said trespassing on railroad property is a huge problem, and one that's not easily solved. You speak of putting up walls, well that just creates a canvas for trespassers looking to put up graffiti, pedestrian bridges you say? Well there's one just east of Burlington station and guess what, trespassers still have cut the fence nearby and made a path across the tracks rather than using the bridge, yes the smart law abiding citizens do use the bridge but my point is that it hasn't eliminated the problem entirely, same with the pedestrian bridges along the lakeshore east line. Fact is these trespassers feel invincible and don't realize the danger they're in most of the time. We travel at speeds in excess of 90mph along many stretches of the corridor and as Lyndsay already mentioned many factor play a role in making the train seem further than what it is or appear to be in a different track and it sometimes makes it difficult for even those of us who are trained and deal with it on a daily basis to tell the difference must less for an untrained kid who may or may not even be paying attention. To place the blame on the railroads for not doing enough is simply not fair as a lot is done but until we better educate our children and we as a society develop a proper respect for the dangers associated with trespassing on railroad property no amounts of fences or bridges will ever prevent this from happening again.

A good friend and my greatest mentor has had 11 fatalities in the span of his 30 year career, I know another with 17 fatalities, the fact is most operating crews will at some point in their careers find themselves faced with these tragedies and many will have multiples, lucky are the few that never have to experience something like this. Those that do often find themselves unable to return to work for weeks or months, having recurring nightmares for quite some time and many end up seeing counseling on a regular basis for many months and in some cases years.

When tragedies such as these occur, whether by accident as is this case or by ones own doing, it is those left behind that suffer, the families and friends of the victims and as mentioned before the crew who will forever remember those last few tragic seconds of someone's life.

I truly wish I could offer a solution instead of saying it can't be done but speaking from experience no amount of deterrent has thus far kept tragic events such as this from happening across not only our system but across the country.

I'll get off the sandbox now.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[morningstar]

First of all my heart goes out to the family of this young girl, she made a bad choice and paid the ultimate price but then again who amongst us hasn't make a bad decision at some point in our lives? Fortunately unlike this young woman most of us walked away from it. All we can do now is pray for her young soul and hope other young ppl may learn from her tragedy.

With that being said trespassing on railroad property is a huge problem, and one that's not easily solved. You speak of putting up walls, well that just creates a canvas for trespassers looking to put up graffiti, pedestrian bridges you say? Well there's one just east of Burlington station and guess what, trespassers still have cut the fence nearby and made a path across the tracks rather than using the bridge, yes the smart law abiding citizens do use the bridge but my point is that it hasn't eliminated the problem entirely, same with the pedestrian bridges along the lakeshore east line. Fact is these trespassers feel invincible and don't realize the danger they're in most of the time. We travel at speeds in excess of 90mph along many stretches of the corridor and as Lyndsay already mentioned many factor play a role in making the train seem further than what it is or appear to be in a different track and it sometimes makes it difficult for even those of us who are trained and deal with it on a daily basis to tell the difference must less for an untrained kid who may or may not even be paying attention. To place the blame on the railroads for not doing enough is simply not fair as a lot is done but until we better educate our children and we as a society develop a proper respect for the dangers associated with trespassing on railroad property no amounts of fences or bridges will ever prevent this from happening again.

A good friend and my greatest mentor has had 11 fatalities in the span of his 30 year career, I know another with 17 fatalities, the fact is most operating crews will at some point in their careers find themselves faced with these tragedies and many will have multiples, lucky are the few that never have to experience something like this. Those that do often find themselves unable to return to work for weeks or months, having recurring nightmares for quite some time and many end up seeing counseling on a regular basis for many months and in some cases years.

When tragedies such as these occur, whether by accident as is this case or by ones own doing, it is those left behind that suffer, the families and friends of the victims and as mentioned before the crew who will forever remember those last few tragic seconds of someone's life.

I truly wish I could offer a solution instead of saying it can't be done but speaking from experience no amount of deterrent has thus far kept tragic events such as this from happening across not only our system but across the country.

I'll get off the sandbox now.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

Very well said.

 

[RockerGuy]

As an ex-railway signalman I can tell you there are lots more hazards than just being hit by the train. One of the biggest is broken strapping hanging off the side. A piece of 20 foot long 1/2 inch wide by 1/32 thick strapping coming at you at 60 mph is hard to see and could take your head off without any trouble. Why you would want to voluntarily go near railroad tracks is beyond me; they are filthy with dirt and grease, not to mention the track rabbits (bits of toilet paper flushed out onto the tracks) and assoicated waste. Rocker: you asked how does it happen? Unfortunately there is a lot of optical illusionary effects when on the tracks and distances can be misleading, especially if there is a curve in the equation and multiple tracks. It's easy to misjudge distance when walking along the tracks; although crossing them shouldn't take long enough for that to come into effect.

As Kieth pointed out in the video, alot of those instances are just caused by stupidity (I know thats a harsh thing to say). But no amount of safety can really help those ppl.

There is a train track close to my house. I use to take my air rifle there to have some fun because it was big empty space in the middle of the city. Common sense would tell me to get the hell away when that thing comes rumbling by.

With all these deaths, they have since fenced around the area, and I am now deprived of an area to have fun and dog walkers have to use the city streets. Oh well...

 

[Venom01]

First of all my heart goes out to the family of this young girl, she made a bad choice and paid the ultimate price but then again who amongst us hasn't make a bad decision at some point in our lives? Fortunately unlike this young woman most of us walked away from it. All we can do now is pray for her young soul and hope other young ppl may learn from her tragedy.

With that being said trespassing on railroad property is a huge problem, and one that's not easily solved. You speak of putting up walls, well that just creates a canvas for trespassers looking to put up graffiti, pedestrian bridges you say? Well there's one just east of Burlington station and guess what, trespassers still have cut the fence nearby and made a path across the tracks rather than using the bridge, yes the smart law abiding citizens do use the bridge but my point is that it hasn't eliminated the problem entirely, same with the pedestrian bridges along the lakeshore east line. Fact is these trespassers feel invincible and don't realize the danger they're in most of the time. We travel at speeds in excess of 90mph along many stretches of the corridor and as Lyndsay already mentioned many factor play a role in making the train seem further than what it is or appear to be in a different track and it sometimes makes it difficult for even those of us who are trained and deal with it on a daily basis to tell the difference must less for an untrained kid who may or may not even be paying attention. To place the blame on the railroads for not doing enough is simply not fair as a lot is done but until we better educate our children and we as a society develop a proper respect for the dangers associated with trespassing on railroad property no amounts of fences or bridges will ever prevent this from happening again.

A good friend and my greatest mentor has had 11 fatalities in the span of his 30 year career, I know another with 17 fatalities, the fact is most operating crews will at some point in their careers find themselves faced with these tragedies and many will have multiples, lucky are the few that never have to experience something like this. Those that do often find themselves unable to return to work for weeks or months, having recurring nightmares for quite some time and many end up seeing counseling on a regular basis for many months and in some cases years.

When tragedies such as these occur, whether by accident as is this case or by ones own doing, it is those left behind that suffer, the families and friends of the victims and as mentioned before the crew who will forever remember those last few tragic seconds of someone's life.

I truly wish I could offer a solution instead of saying it can't be done but speaking from experience no amount of deterrent has thus far kept tragic events such as this from happening across not only our system but across the country.

I'll get off the sandbox now.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

You can never account for people doing stupid things. If you have seen my post back a page or 2 you will see a link I posted were 99% of the people in the neighborhood cross to get to school much faster. I did say I don't believe its C.N. or Mississauga is responsible for the multiple accidents that have happened along this section of tracks, but when will they realize that fining everyone the possibly can for the past 40 years or more has not worked either. All I'm saying is that a safe crossing here would cut down the deaths big time. If there was a safe cross there chances are this whole incident would have never happened. Would people still wonder out onto the tracks? More then likely, but some people are going to make bad choices a lot more frequently then others. That's life, it always has been. Don't punish everyone else and take aways a safer option for the rest of the people just because a few make the wrong choices.

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