"An afternoon meant to commemorate a life moment turned out to be the last moment in a teen's life, when the 17-year-old Oregon boy was struck and killed by a freight train that barreled through while he was near a train bridge to pose for senior photos, officials said..."
https://www.foxnews.com/us/oregon-teenager-senior-photos-killed-train-freight
Condolences to the family of this Darwinian candidate.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
We've talked about the stupidity of having pictures taken by the track, and blaming the kids themselves. A really smart kid would stay away. But what about the photographer(s) who condoned/encouraged/agreed to this? That's the guy that the criminal justice system should go after.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
I watched a mini van pull up at a rural crossing on a busy mainline. A whole family got out. Two little girls got out dressed up in theatrical dance outfits carrying suit cases. Their parents had a camera.
The parents arranged the little girls by the suit cases. The girls were posed in the middle of the westbound track. The concept appeared to be illustrate a traveling act.
I heard an air horn to the east. I told the parents they better get off and back from the tracks. Sure enough several units pulling an intermodal with all due haste appeared coming around the bend.
The family moved out of harm's way, packed up and left. I hope they learned something from the experience.
CShaveRRBut what about the photographer(s) who condoned/encouraged/agreed to this?
You don't need to be a professional anything to understand that trains only run on the track.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
zardoz But if she was a "professional", then I completely agree; a so-called 'pro' should know better.
Many of them know; they just don't care.
An occassional trespassing fine is just a cost of doing business to many of them.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
Happens all over...
https://dailyvoice.com/new-jersey/ridgewood/police-fire/overnight-rockland-bound-train-strikes-kills-man-on-paterson-tracks/778627/
The thing is, it happens so often on NJ Transit tracks hardly anyone raises an eyebrow over it anymore.
If I felt like posting NJT tresspasser strikes I'd be doing it once or twice a month.
Unfortunately, many perfectly competent photographers, paid or just friends, have no clue with regards to railroads.
In fact, it wouldn't surprise me to find some such photographers actually suggesting the tracks as a shooting location.
I recently called out someone on Facebook when they posted wedding pictures taken on the tracks. Even if there was no train traffic, they were likely trespassing... I was promptly blocked...
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...
"Union Pacific told Fox News the train's crew was not hurt."
I doubt that very, very, very much.
Perhaps 'not physically injured' would make a better self-serving corporate comment. But what a useful opportunity to point up the human cost to the survivors of something like this!
Some people never learn until it's too late. Last year, a friend of mine from high school posted some of her son's senior pics on Facebook. Some of the pics were of him posing on train tracks back home. I was really surprised that she would condone that sort of thing since it was during our sophomore year that a classmate of ours was killed in a car-train crash just south of our high school. Of course, people that do that sort of thing probably think "It'll never happen to me or anybody I know."
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
Overmod"Union Pacific told Fox News the train's crew was not hurt." I doubt that very, very, very much. Perhaps 'not physically injured' would make a better self-serving corporate comment. But what a useful opportunity to point up the human cost to the survivors of something like this!
Not to minimize the psychic effects on employees. Employees involved with actually operating trains the reality of such incident is not IF, but WHEN. I makes no difference if the operation is in yard service or line of road - it is only a matter of when and where it is going to happen, and if a person remains actually operating trains it may happen multiple more times before the individual retires.
BaltACD Overmod "Union Pacific told Fox News the train's crew was not hurt." I doubt that very, very, very much. Perhaps 'not physically injured' would make a better self-serving corporate comment. But what a useful opportunity to point up the human cost to the survivors of something like this! Not to minimize the psychic effects on employees. Employees involved with actually operating trains the reality of such incident is not IF, but WHEN. I makes no difference if the operation is in yard service or line of road - it is only a matter of when and where it is going to happen, and if a person remains actually operating trains it may happen multiple more times before the individual retires.
Overmod "Union Pacific told Fox News the train's crew was not hurt." I doubt that very, very, very much. Perhaps 'not physically injured' would make a better self-serving corporate comment. But what a useful opportunity to point up the human cost to the survivors of something like this!
One of my training engineers in his long career (38 years) only had one grade crossing incident. That one, with me, had no injuries other than the big dent in the pick up's box. It happened at 25 mph.
Another of my training engineers in his shorter career (20 years) was not so lucky. He had 8 incidents that had fatalities, plus others that weren't fatal.
Jeff
The news report could use some clarity. Apparently, a young man and young woman were both photographers taking senior school photos. Were they taking photos of each other, or working together to take photos of other students who were not photographers? If the latter, how many people were there?
I see the railroad bridge on Acme and Google maps, but neither one is clear enough to tell whether the bridge is double track or single track.
EuclidI see the railroad bridge on Acme and Google maps, but neither one is clear enough to tell whether the bridge is double track or single track.
The bridge is single track. A siding begins just east of the Sandy River, and the junction of the Graham and Kenton lines ( seen in this local news report: https://www.koin.com/local/multnomah-county/teen-hit-killed-by-train-during-senior-photo-shoot-in-troutdale/
)is about a mile west.
BaltACD Condolences to the family of this Darwinian candidate.
You've topped yourself once again in your insincerity and snarkiness.
charlie hebdo BaltACD Condolences to the family of this Darwinian candidate. You've topped yourself once again in your insincerity and snarkiness.
Thanks for your support! Maybe writing up 2 or 3 train vs. car or trespasser incidents a month for 30 years has made me a little crusty for the continued happenings of these senseless incidents. The incidents are as senseless as those who left their common sense in another reality when they created the situation that put a period on their mortal existance.
BaltACD Maybe writing up 2 or 3 train vs. car or trespasser incidents a month for 30 years has made me a little crusty for the continued happenings of these senseless incidents.
Indeed - I often have the same sentiment when I get done sorting out the carnage at traffic incidents. And that's borne of over 40 years in the fire and EMS business and the experiences of my father, a reserve police officer.
When I drive by the roadside memorials for folks who died in incidents there that I responded to, I get to remember, too. It's no fun. And more often than not, "accident" isn't an appropriate way to describe what happened.
You feel sorry for the families, because of what the deceased has put them through.
Try dealing with a distraught father, who wants nothing more than to save his already deceased son, as you work desperately to extricate that son from the wreckage of a rolled over farm tractor.
Especially when it turns out the cause may have been distraction due to a cell phone. An incident that didn't have to happen. Darwin candidate? Perhaps. You judge how wise it is to be driving a 4WD farm tractor down a highway in road gear without giving it your full attention.
Or the grandfather, on his way from fishing, during which he consumed enough alcohol that it could be smelled in his vehicle after he wrapped it (literally) around a tree.
Those of us who have had such experience (and years of it) might be given a little slack if we don't regard such individuals as "victims," but rather as active contributors to their own death - which is rather the definition of a "Darwin candidate."
I understand. But writing an incident report is hardly comparable to what Tree has witnessed. Nor the same as counseling those survivors and family or the engineers of the trains. All I say is cease using such derogatory terms for those who die in these senseless accidents. Or tell it to your Darwin Candidate's family face to face.
A big and usually deadly assumption people make is that they'll hear a train coming from miles away.
What I'm hoping, somewhat frantically with both fingers crossed, is that the kid wasn't out on the bridge because he'd seen the YouTube video about the two women hikers, and thought that if a train came he could just lie down between the rails and be safe...
ORNHOO Euclid I see the railroad bridge on Acme and Google maps, but neither one is clear enough to tell whether the bridge is double track or single track. The bridge is single track. A siding begins just east of the Sandy River, and the junction of the Graham and Kenton lines ( seen in this local news report: https://www.koin.com/local/multnomah-county/teen-hit-killed-by-train-during-senior-photo-shoot-in-troutdale/ )is about a mile west.
Euclid I see the railroad bridge on Acme and Google maps, but neither one is clear enough to tell whether the bridge is double track or single track.
Ulrich A big and usually deadly assumption people make is that they'll hear a train coming from miles away.
Johnny
A lot of kids shoot each others' senior portraits. I don't think we can assume that a professional photographer involved. Although, for sure some pros (very few, I think) would do this; stupidity is not exclusive to any one group.
Lithonia Operator A lot of kids shoot each others' senior portraits. I don't think we can assume that a professional photographer involved. Although, for sure some pros (very few, I think) would do this; stupidity is not exclusive to any one group.
Yes, the reports do not say anyone was a professional photographer, only that one or two were photographers. They may have just been people with cameras.
This is a problem that needs to be solved, and it won't be as easy as just informing that people should stay off the tracks because they are dangerous. This practice of using railroad settings as a backdrop for portrait photography has really taken a bite and set into the mindset of a certain culture.
The concept itself has gone viral as they say. The participants see the railroad setting as authentic, down to earth, strong, solid, and gritty. Not only does it contrast wonderfully with human portaits, but it also conveys the exact qualities that the human subjects identify with and aspire to.
The problem is that people don't recognize the danger ahead of of time. And when they are merely told about the danger, they believe they understand it fully, but they don't know what they don't know.
https://www.up.com/aboutup/community/inside_track/selfie-tragedy-12-7-2016.htm
Even on a fairly busy mainline, it's possible to go long periods without seeing a train. On lesser used lines it's even moreso. In twenty years of driving across the same crossing twice a day, I could probably count the number of trains I saw there on my fingers. And some of those I saw only because I picked up a nearby defect detector on my scanner and waited. This on a line that has maybe four or five trains a day.
It's easy to see why many people don't see trains as a threat on such lines. And that makes the education issue just that much more difficult.
tree68Even on a fairly busy mainline, it's possible to go long periods without seeing a train.
On the other hand, when I lived just outside Germantown, Tennessee for a while, I'd have to walk a couple of miles to get the #50 (Poplar Avenue) bus to avoid a long ride into town and then out again. I could cut about half a mile of this and a couple of steep hills out of this walk by crossing on a long railroad fill between Poplar Pike and Germantown Road.
Seemingly regardless of expected traffic, and even if there hadn't been a train for hours, an almost sure way to get one going westbound was to get about halfway out on that fill! Happened at least 20 times, including after I began to notice and started expecting it. Perhaps interesting was that in no case did I hear any horn warning.
When I got my first true mountain bike, I took it nostalgically up the Pascack Valley line to Oradell. Waited at the station, then rode north on the ROW to where the next road crossing was (which was much shorter). Turned around as I was about to get off on the crossing, apropos of nothing in particular, and there sat a U34CH, not the quietest locomotive in the world, and train.
Good things come to railfans who wait, but sometimes a bit more enthusiastically than expected. And that might be bad...
charlie hebdo I understand. But writing an incident report is hardly comparable to what Tree has witnessed. Nor the same as counseling those survivors and family or the engineers of the trains. All I say is cease using such derogatory terms for those who die in these senseless accidents. Or tell it to your Darwin Candidate's family face to face.
I can understand your attitude as a witness, though you would have been better off to have processed your feelings more productively, as I have done in helping several folks like you to do.
I fail to see why a desk jockey has the same attitude just because he was inconvenienced by extra paperwork.
Heartbreaking article Euclid linked. Heartbreaking for all concerned.
Why is it when a young woman dies it's like a piece of the universe dies? (Much less three of them.) Or is it just me that feels that way?
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