Warning: Do Not Drive Around Cars Waiting at a Grade Crossing for the Train to Go By

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Last edited Tue Jun 2, 2015, 12:56 PM - Edit history (1)

Hat tip, Trainorders: Man Killed in Crash With Amtrak

Police ID man killed in Amtrak collision

Tina MacIntyre-Yee, Public safety reporter 5:34 p.m. EDT June 1, 2015

A town of Chili employee died after being thrown from his car when it was struck by an Amtrak passenger train early Monday.

Brandon M. Sauer, 20, of North Chili was heading east on King Road in Chili, passed the vehicle in front of him and went around the crossing gates, said Capt. David Inzana, Monroe County Sheriff's Office. The crossing gates were working with the arms down and cautionary lights activated, deputies said.

The train hit the back side of the car, spun it around, and the car did at least one somersault, Sgt. Robert Murphy said. The crash took out the back seats of the car and a part of the undercarriage as well as one of the gates and crossing signal, he said.

Sauer was known by several Chili firefighters, deputies said. ... "Unfortunately this is a tragedy that shouldn't have occurred. You have to respect the crossing gates," Inzana said.

Man killed in vehicle-train accident south of Moorhead

By Josh Francis on May 30, 2015 at 1:53 p.m.

KURTZ TOWNSHIP, MINN. -- A car collided with a BNSF Railway train Saturday morning and burst into flames, killing the occupant inside.

Clay County Sheriff Bill Bergquist said the car hit the train just before 9 a.m. at a crossing south of Moorhead. The car was dragged about one-third of a mile down the track before it could come to a stop.

Bergquist said the crossing arms at the stop were down and there appeared to be damage to one of the arms.

He said there were two witnesses to the crash and he's hoping their accounts will determine how the car ended up in front of the train.

[pinto]

1. And be aware! The train simply can't stop in time to avoid a collision.

~ Frequent rail rider here.

[TexasProgresive]

2. If you accidently get stalled on the tracks and a train is coming

get out and run down the right away in the direction of the train as fast as you can. This will help move you out of the debris field. If there is a road parallel to the tracks get on it but still run in the direction of the train.

[exboyfil]

3. Same level of intelligence as the woman

that kept her window open going through a Lion encounter.

[SheilaT]

4. It happened here in New Mexico a few months ago.

Lady dropped her kid off at day care, was headed to work, and drove past cars already stopped for the train and around the gate.

How anyone can ever be so dumb as to go around those arms is beyond me.

But here in Santa Fe, we had two, yes two bicyclists killed by trains when they blithely ignored the red lights and bells at grade crossings and rode their bikes into the oncoming trains. The bike paths don't get their own gate or arm that lowers, but still, if you're riding a bike, while you might be deaf (although neither of these two were) you wouldn't be blind, and so surely you'd see the red lights. And you ought to notice that the cars are stopped.

[MANative]

5. I commute daily on the Metro-North railroad into Manhattan...

and saw something at my origin station two weeks ago that stunned me. The warning bells were ringing, the lights were flashing, and the gates were dropping. There was a train approaching from the north AND another one from the south, and both were sounding their horns urgently. I saw not one, not two, but THREE cars driving around the gates and toward a short driveway that featured a red light, so there was nowhere for the cars to go. The final car cleared the tracks (barely) with about three seconds to spare. There couldn't have been more than five feet between the back of that car, the trunk of which was still under the crossing gate, and the train. I was certain that I was about to witness a full-blown disaster only a few weeks after the fatal accident on the same line only four stops south.

I simply can't imagine what would be so urgent as to challenge a train for space on the tracks.

[Mopar151]

6. A Misplaced Sense of Urgency

Is the real cause of many "accidents". Bosses who flip out for a minute's "tardiness", "attendance policies" which have little basis in the real world.