China solves the problem.
I recall a image of a Soldier every 50 yards 24/7 (Or they say) along a domestic transmission line. They breed enough people fast enough to serve the state this way. Not like the USA.
We do that here. That will stop the trouble.
Two very old sayings that I learned while growing up apply here:
1. You sew the seeds and you reap the harvest.
2. Don't believe everything you read in the newspaper.
Good synopsis of the situation!
Along those same lines - but nowhere near as serious - is the folks that buy housing near existing airports (or chemical plants or refineries or feedlots......) and complain about the noise, etc.
ENJOY your day!!!!
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
What the story fails to present is the fact that all of the streets in that neighborhood dead end at the tracks...they built the Fourth Ward after the tracks were laid, and the tracks are part of the old T&NO, one of the first rail lines in to Houston.
The area under discussion is within a mile of Allan's Landing, the bend in Buffalo Bayou where the city of Houston was started.
If you type 1800 Brewster, Houston Texas into Google maps and go to the satellite view, you can see Englewood yard on the right side, and you realize that the tracks in question are both the main line of the Sunset Route through Houston, and a yard lead.
This has been an ongoing problem here for years...the 4th Ward is a "poor" neighborhood, the City and HISD, (Houston Independent School District) have ignored the area for decades.
If you scraped the asphalt off the streets, you will find brick and cobblestone roads underneath; it's that old a neighborhood.
The SP approached HISD years ago, asking them to rezone the elementary school districts so kids wouldn't have to cross the tracks...which is how it was years ago before the forced bussing nonsense began.
The SP even tried chain link fencing is some areas...only to have the fencing stolen almost as fast as it was installed.
There is signage all over the place warning about trains moving suddenly, both in English and Spanish, and warning people not to cross the trains.
The pedestrian overpass idea has been around for decades...the rub is the kids don't use them because it requires climbing two flights of stairs up and two flights back down...same for the older folks, they can't go up the stairs...and when one was installed over IH 10...the kids from the area simply used it as a staging area for tossing bricks over the edge and onto cars traveling the interstate...we have had three deaths from cinderblocks going through windshields and killing drivers, all in the few years.
And of course, HISD and the city expect UP to bear the majority of the cost for building the overpasses...UP proposed tunnels a few years ago, but the city and HISD refused to pony up their part of the money, and the neighborhood associations said the tunnels would be taken over by the criminal element to prey on the neighborhood.
HISD refuses to re-zone the area, and even that would not remove the casual trespassing that happens...and its not like there are no cross streets, there are, but it is just "easier" to crawl across the trains...crews hate stopping here...and by the way, the tracks through there are all "within yard limits" and everything moves at restricted speed...UP tries to stage trains out at Eureka when they can, because a stopped train in the area under discussion will be vandalized...we get boxcars of bagged grain from there all the time, with the doors open and about half the contents gone...bagged rice, flour and corn tend to vanish completely.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=1800+Brewster,+Houston+Texas&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.50801,78.925781&ie=UTF8&ll=29.778631,-95.337338&spn=0.001634,0.002409&t=k&z=18&om=1
Look at the area...
23 17 46 11
Ulrich wrote:No mention of the parents' responsibility in all this.
News item in our local paper lately (not verbatim - just as best as I can recall):
The high school has installed cameras in the hallways, which has reduced the number of fights and other such incidents. In one case, a youth picked up a chair in the cafeteria and was about to throw it when faculty intervened.
Several days later, the parents are sitting in the principals office. (If he didn't, the principal should have said "Let's go to the video tape!") On the tape, it's obvious that the parents' little angel was the one with the chair, and he was definitely going to throw it.
The principal stated in the article that it was then possible to get down to discussing the problem - the kid.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Nov. 22, 2007, 12:56AMTrain accident prompts call for pedestrian overpasses
By MIKE TOLSONCopyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Houston City Councilman Jarvis Johnson has called for his colleagues to find emergency funds to pay for pedestrian railway overpasses in the neighborhood where a teenage boy was injured this week by a train.
"Trains in Houston play a very vital and important role ... but by no stretch of the imagination shall we ever put jobs, commerce and goods and services above the safety of human lives, especially children," Johnson said Wednesday at a news conference near the spot where 14-year-old Alfredo Gutierrez's foot was crushed.
Doctors have said the foot will need to be amputated.
"I believe we can find money in an emergency, and I believe this is an emergency," Johnson said.
Reports differed on whether Gutierrez was attempting to ride on one of the flatbed cars or was trying to cross to the other side of the tracks.
Johnson, whose district includes much of the old Fifth Ward in near northeast Houston, also said it is unacceptable for Union Pacific to park its trains on tracks at times when students are going to or coming home from nearby schools.
"We need to let Union Pacific know we can't allow this to continue," Johnson said.
Gutierrez was injured Tuesday on a line that separates the 1800 and 1900 blocks of Brewster. The street does not cross the tracks. Children often cross the tracks to reach E.O. Smith Education Center on the south side of the tracks or a playground on the north.
U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, a Houston Democrat, said she would ask Union Pacific to put up more signs warning children of the dangers that trains can pose, and agreed that trains should not be parked in the vicinity of the schools.
"We are asking the railroads to be good neighbors," Lee said. "What we need to have is compatible living. We need to have barriers to crossing. I join with you in sending out a red flag to the neighborhood children: Please understand that trains kill and trains maim."
Ray Gatlin, E.O. Smith principal, said it is not uncommon to see trains parked on the tracks for extended periods, including times of the day when students are arriving and leaving.
"They often have to make a decision whether to be late or cross the track," Gatlin said.
Halting switching at the nearby Englewood Yard would be problematic, said Union Pacific spokesman Joe Arbona.
Delays in one part of the train network, whatever the reason, force other delays up and down the line, he said. Also, Union Pacific is not the only railroad using the tracks.
"There are as many as three dozen trains that operate through the area, not just Union Pacific trains," Arbona said.
Union Pacific has worked with the city and Houston Independent School District to develop the Operation Life Saver program to improve safety at the schools near railroad tracks, Arbona said.
mike.tolson@chron.com
Say someone pushes someone infront of a train at a passenger station is the RR at fault?
Or say Snidely Whiplash ties Nell to the train tracks, who's fault is it then? The Railroad or the Roap Company?
mobilman44 wrote: Sorry to darken your day, but I had to speak out to someone!
Sorry to darken your day, but I had to speak out to someone!
It doesn't darken my day, & here's why: First, "the purpose of journalism is to provoke." That is a direct quote; the first thing my journalism prof at the U of MT said on the first day of my first journalism class (also my last day of that class). Journalism really is not a business of truth-telling. But most people are as smart as you are, mobilman44. They won't be swayed by the specious goals of the news media. Typically it's just the families of the victims and their lawyers who are outraged at the railroad. I don't have a problem with the families.
Which brings me to my second point: Often lawyers play the odds. They take whatever cases they can get because many of them have to. They know that some of the cases they accept are unreasonable, but they'll win a predictable percent of the total... usually not these cases against the railroads. However there are lawyers who are quite successful at winning such trials. They also reap most of the award money, and then the railroad goes on to win on appeal anyway. The exception is when the RR finds it advantageous to settle, which, sadly is more often than they'd like to admit.
mobilman44 wrote: Of course the tv media leaned the story to place fault - or partial fault upon the railroad.
Of course the tv media leaned the story to place fault - or partial fault upon the railroad.
Someone (or something) has to be the scapegoat and the railroad (at fault or not) always gets picked.
I hate to say this but a little butchery now and again reminds folks NOT to be around dangerous machinery like trains.
With technology in limbs today the kid probably can get a foot made and installed and then needs to go out and teach others his age not to be around trains.
Here we had a fella check out AMA from a hospital, got tired and slept on the rail. Lost his right arm too. If he had STAYED in that hospital... maybe things be different.
Life is like that sometimes.
Good Evening,
Yesterday, a 13 year old Houston boy got his foot mangled by a local freight train. The initial reports stated the boy was "crossing the tracks" and a train hit him. Of course the tv media leaned the story to place fault - or partial fault upon the railroad.
Today, it comes out that the boy - and friends - were jumping on and off a slow moving train and he slipped. Today his foot was amputated at the hospital. And even with this new information, the media leans the cause of this terrible accident towards the railroad.
Last summer, just east of Houston, a teen stole an SUV and that night he and his young brother and a couple of friends sneaked out of their homes to go on a joy ride. They were going at "a high rate of speed" when they slammed into the side of a slow moving (standing?) freight train. Only the driver - the car thief - survived.
Guess what, the media soon whipped up a frenzy that it was the railroad's fault! Yes, the crossing did not have flashing lights and the freight cars did not have reflectors.
Both of these incidents were terrible tradgedies, and my heart goes out to those involved and their families. BUT, why can't the media just tell the story - the whole story - like it is???
I've seen other postings similar to this one and realize that it is not just a Houston situation, but one that seems to exist all over the Country.
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