Train safety program stays on track
Operation Lifesaver's mission continues after downtown train death.
In the Roanoake Times article By Jorge Valencia.
A man was killed when he was struck by the Operation Lifesaver train late Tuesday night near the Williamson Road overpass in downtown Roanoke. Read the full article here....
Ryan BoudreauxThe Piedmont Division Modeling The Southern Railway, Norfolk & Western & Norfolk Southern in HO during the merger eraCajun Chef Ryan
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. You can hand a human information, but you can't make it think.
The one key is the distance it takes a train to stop, compared to anything with rubber tires. The guy under the train, if he was aware of it at all, was probably thinking, Why is the engineer blowing his horn? He has plenty of room to stop...
Splat.
My sympathy to the train crew and the innocent bystanders who had to pick up the pieces.
Chuck
What is next in being obvious?
Signs saying 'The Train has the Right of Way'.
Andrew
Watch my videos on-line at https://www.youtube.com/user/AndrewNeilFalconer
Ted M.
got trains?™
See my photos at: http://tedmarshall.rrpicturearchives.net/
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It would be even more interiesting if they hit a car...a human is halfway there, since it does control the car.
Phil
BigJim wrote:The untold story is that the man jumped off of the bridge right in front of the train.
Is that true? If it is, it sounds like a suicide. If it is a suicide, it seems to negate the point that all the news coverage is making about the incident. I mean the point that the death is an example of the ignorance of train safety, coupled with the irony that the train that hit the victim has the mission of dispelling the ignorance of train safety. Suicide by train is a perfect example of someone who definitely does not need to be educated about the dangers of trains.
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Yeah okay, but what color was the locomotive???
( )
jwhitten wrote: Yeah okay, but what color was the locomotive??? ( )
John Deere Green With lavandar stripes and Pink Lettering
Pasadena Sub wrote:I see these posts almost daily on numerous railroad message boards and I know all the statistics and I know we live in a big, heavily populated country, but I am still flabbergasted when I read something like, "Seven people have been killed in Virginia and 105 injured in railroad-related accidents this year." Just tragic and I can not imagine a more avoidable risk to injury or loss of life. Jamie
The statistics for the Chicago area alone are grimmer. At last count, I believe we are up to 14 fatalities now, and that is only since the Memorial Day weekend. The number for the entire state I am sure is higher.
TimChgo9 wrote: Pasadena Sub wrote:I see these posts almost daily on numerous railroad message boards and I know all the statistics and I know we live in a big, heavily populated country, but I am still flabbergasted when I read something like, "Seven people have been killed in Virginia and 105 injured in railroad-related accidents this year." Just tragic and I can not imagine a more avoidable risk to injury or loss of life. JamieThe statistics for the Chicago area alone are grimmer. At last count, I believe we are up to 14 fatalities now, and that is only since the Memorial Day weekend. The number for the entire state I am sure is higher.
These situations are always tragic. I'm sure the statistics are grim for Chicago, just for the sheer number of trains and the size of the city. Something similar happened in San Antonio/Austin this week. Evidently someone saw a body on top of a train in Austin. They assume the guy tried to jump off an overpass in San Antonio to ride the train, it was a little farther to the top of the train than he thought and he was killed. No one saw the body until the train was going through Austin. The reason I bring this up is to address Pasadena Sub's statement "I see these posts on numerous railroad message boards". And then Tim says they are up to 14 fatalities in Chicago. So I was wondering. How many guys die every day trying to jump on a train or run into a train in some small town somewhere, and we never hear about it? I live about 120 miles from the border. How many illegal alien guys try to get somewhere on the train and die, no one knows who they are, and we never hear about it. They fall off the train in the middle of nowhere out around Laredo and no one ever finds them, or, it happens, gets thirty seconds on the ten o'clock news and that's all we hear about it! Our "local" news is out of San Antonio, and it happens over there all the time. Except in this case, because it was Operation Lifesaver, it's almost becoming not newsworthy of a thread. Just my 2 cents.
m
jwhitten wrote: Yeah okay, but what color was the locomotive??? ( " border="0" /> ) John Deere Green With lavandar stripes and Pink Lettering
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Thank you. I mean really, what kind of new reporting is this anyway that doesn't nclude the important stuff?
Since this Roanoke incident is all over the news, I certainly would like to know what happened. There seems to be a piece missing from the story. I have heard that suicides are rountinely not covered on the news, as a universal policy. Is that true?
Suicide by train is a standard method, just like jumping into a river or shooting oneself. Near where I live, a guy left work one day, walked down the tracks, and stepped in front of an approaching coal train. I heard about it from those who knew the guy and circumstances. The consensus was that it was suicide. There was not a word about it on any local news.
Is that what happened in Roanoke? Is that why the explanation of how the victim got hit is missing?
I think there is such a cultural taboo around the act of suicide that it is not reported. The evidence and those who knew the deceased may be certain. But there is such social, moral, and religious abhorence about the act, and really plain confusion and guilt among ALL of us survivors, that feelings are spared as a matter of course. Lemmings aside, you don't see the less sensate animals killing themselves very often.
As humans we wonder why we didn't see it coming, or what we could have done differently, or why don't we do it ourselves. The subject is a sad and long book I'm afraid.
For myself, I've thought (who hasn't) about the best way to go. Loving railroads since I was about 3 years old, I'd thought about death by train until I witnessed one. A real mess on the ground for the EMT people and a psychological one for them, the train crew, family and friends, and me.
The reputed Eskimo "catch a floe old man" appeals more today. Drugs are fast, alcohol is slow, but AA has shown me how to live and love it!
Let's huddle in sorrow for the mystery of that man's death and move on like the "Safety Express"
RIX
rixflix aka Captain Video. Blessed be Jean Shepherd and all His works!!! Hooray for 1939, the all time movie year!!! I took that ride on the Reading but my Baby caught the Katy and left me a mule to ride.
I think the media does not report suicides because they fear people would be encouraged to do it in some spectacular manner so they'd get their 15 minutes of fame in death.
That's what the sickos who shoot people at random and then committ suicide want, fame.
Unfortunately, they get it.
Reality TV is to reality, what Professional Wrestling is to Professional Brain Surgery.
ButchKnouse wrote: I think the media does not report suicides because they fear people would be encouraged to do it in some spectacular manner so they'd get their 15 minutes of fame in death.That's what the sickos who shoot people at random and then committ suicide want, fame. Unfortunately, they get it.
This kind of sounds like what goes on here in the Louisville Division on CSX, out on the Shortline Sub from Louisville to Cincy. For some reason that I haven't been able to figure out, many suiciders tend to make their way down to the tracks and jump in front of the train. It seems to happen on the streach of tracks from Frankfort Ave to Williams Holdout. Maybe some day I'll figure it out....
I know we're getting a llittle morbid here and I hope this thread ends quickly. But that's why!!!
We are all sick i.e. human to some degree, and when one of us kills him/herself it is a deep, deep mystery and sorrow and tragedy for all concerned.
We are blessed and cursed by our consciousness and (my I dare say it, soul). Most other animals have little memory. Their fears and losses disappear quickly so that they can do the next thing to survive and keep the shebang going. We could learn something from them about grief. I suppose and propose that we (what did John Prine say, "Hello in there?") say G'morning, smile, nod or o'wise recognize a member of this 90 something DNA identical FAMILY.
Keep on it, it's a fast planet.
What I find odd is that the thread about a news report got sidetracked into the the human psyche instead of being set straight for what it was, a poor and sloppy piece of newsmanship.
A man is gone to that farsway land. Was that Nikki Giovanni? Let's grieve a bit and hit the trail.
Just survived a picture/mirror hanging day with my ex. 5 or 6 hours is all we can take until we remember why we split.
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