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Some people still will not learn!!!!!!!!!Acela hits car in CT.
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<i>Prior post (Big Boy 4005): <br /> <br />Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming Amtrak for this at all, but that Acela can be a sneaky train, clipping along almost silently at 80 MPH. </i> <br /> <br />Yeah, darn those electric loco's. Strangely, though, if history records no accidents involving GG-1 from the mid-1930s to the late 1960s, it wasn't for lack of opportunity--there were still grade Xings aplenty between DC and Baltimore. That was a space of thirty-plus years. After the Metroliners were phased in, the grade crossing lasted a few more years, but I don't know if people were killed at them or not. <br /> <br />I guess the kindest thing I can say is that the NEC north of New Haven hasn't had much historical awareness of electric locomotives, which are indeed (a) swift and (b) silent. I guess we'll have to go one of two ways (1) seal up the route entirely, as has been done in Germany where the ICE's can run at speeds of 130 mph, or (2) make the xings even more goof-proof--I saw an article in the CHICAGO TRIBUNE about a year ago that posited HUGE chain-link gates--far enough off the ground to let traffic through, but lowering themselves when a train is imminent and--here's the rub--spanning the width of the entire road, on each side. Dang expensive is my guess. <br /> <br />(Slightly off topic) It just amazes me that the weeniest little technical issues are so easily given up on--IF passenger trains are involved. Same thing for politics: is the state of CT trying to play chicken with its citizens' lives? Assuming that the feds would fully pay for grade separation if enough people die?!?, But it only seems to be a technical barrier with trains. After all, Interestate highways never have grade crossings, do they? We can now buy for a few hundred dollars a cell phone that serves as walkie-talkie, GPS, camera, and even tune machine, but it wasn't possible to engineer a crossing gate that would lower twice as early for a 45 mph freight as a 90 mph passenger train? Which is supposedly the reason we don't have high-speed from Chicago to Detroit. It just makes me sick, for political as well as humanitarian reasons. If the DOT, Amtrak, local authorities or the AAR can't get some rationality into the so-called killer trains, maybe we honest railfans should share our awareness. It's still pretty simple, of course: trains come on the tracks.
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