bad parking job

[Train Guy 3]

QUOTE: Originally posted by RudyRockvilleMD

That car doesn't look like a Slaab to me. The rails on those tracks don't look that great either. Nevertheless parking so close to the tracks qualifies that car's owner for the Darwin Award.

I'm glad someone used the correct name, Slaab. And anyway i enjoy hearing about the Darwin Award every year....... ooohhh the stupid people.

[RudyRockvilleMD]

That car doesn't look like a Slaab to me. The rails on those tracks don't look that great either. Nevertheless parking so close to the tracks qualifies that car's owner for the Darwin Award.

[jeaton]

Saw a report that an Amtrak train in Fresno clipped the back of an 18 wheeler that wasn't able to clear the tracks because of vehicles in front of him. Fortunately only very minor injuries to a few passengers-my guess from the emergency stop.

Back when it was MILW, the Golf Road crossing in Morton Grove (Ill.) had a sign:

FAST TRAINS
DO NOT STOP ON TRACKS

I suppose that some drivers thought that meant that fast trains stop in the parking lot behind the station.

Jay

[Mookie]

I know - I felt bad about that, too!

[rrnut282]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Mookie

I would say that the guy had the IQ of a rock, but don't want to elevate him to that height!

Mookie

You're insulting rocks when you say that[}:)]

[enr2099]

Speaking of bad parking jobs, I was up in Nanaimo a couple months ago and a Chevy Sprint was parked on the tracks across from the passenger depot. The freight crew came along with a pair of GP38's, and were able to stop before totalling the Sprint. They called in the RCMP who broke the window to release the emergency(parking) brake, and left the owner of the Sprint a rather hefty fine on top of the bill to replace the window.

[TH&B]

You're not supposed to enter a crossing (or intersection for that matter) unless there is enough room to exit on the other side.

In some countries the block signals are connected to the gates with survalance cameras. The signals don't clear (green) until crossing is protected. This creates a very long wait because the gates have to be protected miles ahead of time so the train would have time to stop or if the train has slowed or stopped to wait it now has to slowly start up again while keeping the gates down the whole extra time. It holds up traffic longer and possibly the train too but it's safer and more expensive and we might have less Darwin Awards for the extra cost (at least until the darwins find some other way to recieve their awards)

[jchnhtfd]

QUOTE: Originally posted by andyjay

That Canadian guy did sound pretty out of the loop, but to be fair, in a case where a car's rear end is protruding onto the tracks at a crossing while waiting for a traffic light, that sounds to me like a failure on the part of the transit planners. For instance, remember some years back when a train hit a school bus in the Chicago suburbs that was waiting for a red light and didn't have enough room to get fully off the tracks? Since I was young, one situation which always scared me was the idea of being caught on the tracks at a crossing due to an adjacent red light. I've been driving for almost 5 years now and fortunately that's never come up.

It is partly the fault of the transit (read: HIGHWAY DEPARTMENT[:D] planners, and that was one of the conclusions of the NTSB report on the accident in Chicago, as well as a somewhat similar accident in near Melbourne (Australia, not Florida) not too long ago. However[xx(], even if the highwaymen it right (LOL), there is always -- always! -- some idiot who is going to ignore the barricades and lights and all... and get creamed.[:(]

The theory for intersections (highway) with traffic lights where the queue can back up onto a railroad crossing is that, if a train is coming, the traffic lights are supposed to change in such a way that the queue can move off the the tracks. But...[:p]... that presumes that when the light (traffic) turns green there is somewhere to go. Ever notice how many folks block an intersection so that you can't go on the green light? Then what... wham![V] To misquote an old showman, it is utterly impossible to underestimate the intelligence of the average driver.

Some of us Yankee railroaders may remember the old line which connected North Station and South Station, running mostly down Atlantic Ave. in Boston. Never went very fast, which was a good thing. A friend of mine (passed away now) was an engineer for that outfit; can't tell you how many times he had to go into a bar to find the idiot who'd parked on the tracks...[:D]

[jeaton]

Metro

Was the guy wearing one of the hats shaped like a wedge of cheese?

Jay

[eolafan]

At that point the Saab developes a Scaab!

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by METRO

In Elm Grove Wisconsin (a suburb of Milwaukee) the CP's main from Min to Chicago cuts right though the commercial district and the main road crosses at grade. I remember last summer, I watched as a local smacked this guy's big Hummer H2 SUV and crunched it against the signal. The SUV's driver climbs out of his car and starts yelling at the train crew for making him late and totaling his expensive new Hummer. The crew explained to the irate man that GP38-2s don't exactly stop on a dime, that he should have obeyed the crossing gates and that he was very lucky that the train was not going very fast. The man then threatened to sue the railroad for not making this information public, and proceded to call his lawer.
I said hi to the waiting train crew, and remarked that the man was just lucky that he didn't get hit by the intermodal hotshots or the Amtrak trains that tear through the crossing on a regular basis.

I would say that the guy had the IQ of a rock, but don't want to elevate him to that height!

Mookie

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith

RAMMING SPEED !!!!!!!

Vic [:D]

L M A O [:D] [:D] [:D]

[METRO]

In Elm Grove Wisconsin (a suburb of Milwaukee) the CP's main from Min to Chicago cuts right though the commercial district and the main road crosses at grade. I remember last summer, I watched as a local smacked this guy's big Hummer H2 SUV and crunched it against the signal. The SUV's driver climbs out of his car and starts yelling at the train crew for making him late and totaling his expensive new Hummer. The crew explained to the irate man that GP38-2s don't exactly stop on a dime, that he should have obeyed the crossing gates and that he was very lucky that the train was not going very fast. The man then threatened to sue the railroad for not making this information public, and proceded to call his lawer.
I said hi to the waiting train crew, and remarked that the man was just lucky that he didn't get hit by the intermodal hotshots or the Amtrak trains that tear through the crossing on a regular basis.

[Anonymous]

That Canadian guy did sound pretty out of the loop, but to be fair, in a case where a car's rear end is protruding onto the tracks at a crossing while waiting for a traffic light, that sounds to me like a failure on the part of the transit planners. For instance, remember some years back when a train hit a school bus in the Chicago suburbs that was waiting for a red light and didn't have enough room to get fully off the tracks? Since I was young, one situation which always scared me was the idea of being caught on the tracks at a crossing due to an adjacent red light. I've been driving for almost 5 years now and fortunately that's never come up.

[Anonymous]

Imagine this. Somewhere in the parking lot of a local feed mill in a rural small town a truck with a utility box and a ladder rack has an extension ladder extending from the rack over the inside rail of the main track...

In the distance, a headlight, two oncoming Dash 9s and a 40 car manifest freight. Impact at 40 mph is a terrible thing when you own the truck and the ladder...

LC

[Anonymous]

[D)]

Some people are just totaly out of it....

Reminds me of a story.....

Out on BC Rail they run through ambleside for a couple of miles.

This one guy was sitting on the rails (in his car) behind a line of cars that were stopped waiting for a traffic light to change. A train started coming down the tracks blowing it's horn like crazy telling this guy to get off the damn rails!

Well, he just sat there and his car got totaled.... After the accident he was being questioned by the police and they asked him why he didn't move, he simply said "I thought the train would stop for me."

Yikes.

[jeaton]

Hey, I always thought those steel thingies were there to keep the car tires off the wooden thingies!

[Anonymous]

Well, it was in Massachusetts. Have you ever had the misfortune of driving there? Not exactly for the faint-hearted.

[Train Guy 3]

Great way to test the new snow plow..... BAM.....ahhhh works like a charm.

[mudchicken]

Does everybody now understand the the concept of "fouling"?

Hope Guilford had a cinderdick around to make life miserable for a motorist who should have his license revoked....

[JoeKoh]

The new way we recycle automobiles.
stay safe
Joe

[vsmith]

RAMMING SPEED !!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

Check out this photo:
http://massroads.com/image.php?subject=grs_la1_509_lowell_hill_blocked_20040421&zoom=yes

See how that Saab's front bumper is hanging out slightly over the tracks? The engineer of that loco must not have been too pleased, but I thought viewers here might find this pic somewhat amusing.

It would have been REALLY funny if this had been on a more frequently used track, and the engineer didn't notice that car while going a bit faster. That would have almost qualified that dope's expensive Saab for an honorary Darwin Award.