Exhibit A as to why I avoid "Railfan" events as much as possible. Too many idiots, either they are openly impersonating railroad employees, charter crew, or they are taking real risks with other people's lives attempting to pace the train (and for the most part producing really crappy video in the process). It is just a circus of senseless stupidity.
The woman in question has been identified, and she was 56 years old.
There are few things sadder than someone who's old enough to know better, and doesn't.
In a previous post there was an admonishment against "blaming the victim". Well, I'm sure some people still believe in responsibility for our own safety. Would we blame a driver who hits a person walking down the middle of an Interstate.
What bothers me is that the Union Pacific will be blamed. Steam locomotives attract people so the Union Pacific is to blame for drawing people to watch. Some viewers will be irresponsible so therefore the only way to prevent accidents is to eliminate steam trips. Some posts suggest ways to avoid hitting ignorant bystanders that will cost loads of money. Pilot trains with loud speakers or lining the tracks with policeman -- are these serious suggestions. I have the perfect answer, operate the train at about 5 mph and have a hand car run a few feet ahead.
In short, in this day and age the only way to please a large segment of the public is to do nothing rather than take the slightest risk. Unfortunately, this means the end of steam trips.
Here's a video of a bicyclist "encounter" on NJ Transit's North Jersey Coast Line.
Mr. Bicyclist shows up at 1:18. Tell me if you agree his guardian angel was working some serious overtime.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABnBTPPzPjs
Let me tell you, I'm on the road all day and I see adults on bicycles doing irresponsible stuff a savvy ten-year old wouldn't do.
Aside from "Dopey" the rest of the vid's pretty enjoyable!
It's not just around steam trains or excursions where people behave badly to get pics or video of trains.
Last fall, I was up to Deshler, Ohio at the railfan park shooting video. Two younger guys were there shooting pics and video and zipping their little drone all over the place. When a westbound intermodal came past the park (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MH3qmSixaH0), they stood between the No Trespassing signs and the track, literally a few feet from the train at the edge of the ballast. They had acted like it was perfectly OK to go wandering out onto the tracks, ignoring the clearly posted warning signs. Needless to say, they made me nervous, and as a northbound turned west and was met by an eastbound intermodal, the one kid nearly found out the hard way about not paying attention to his surroundings.
In the video below, you can see the two of them at the 7:47 mark in the video below, you can see them at the south side of the road, which was safe to do. At 9:18, the one decides to set up his camera in the middle of the road, completely ignorant of his surroundings. At 16:29, he is nearly hit by a passing pickup, and seemed surprised that it came up on him without his hearing it.
Kevin
http://chatanuga.org/RailPage.html
http://chatanuga.org/WLMR.html
I think continued 'getting a lot of mileage out of this' via public announcements, news, and early education is the way to go, just as it is the way to go for all the other train-related deaths across both our nations over the years...and next. This was a regrettable error, but not on the part of the excursion operators of all kinds, and not on the part of the railroad. If anything, local security might have been a tad more vigilant...but who knows until a reasonable post-hoc analysis is done.
844 wil run again, I'm sure of it. So will 4014 and eventually 3985.
"This too shall pass..."
And it doesn't always end badly, here's a short video of a Perth Amboy NJ cop saving a man from being hit by a NJ Transit train. Happened this week.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvH7k0P3osA
PS: You know you're getting old when the cops look like kids!
I may be wrong but I don’t think UP will pull the plug, especially because of the 150th coming up, but they will likely slow speeds down in urban areas and maybe limit track speed at other places also. I can see them running with a pilot train in front of the excursion equipped with loudspeakers telling spectators to stay back off the track, as well as UP police at crossings leapfrogging ahead telling people to stay back.
I am going to support them by getting on their Web site and buying a few things.
Maybe wishful thinking but there is a path forward that I hope is taken.
Nice work Dude...this bodes badly. I have no words.
I wrote this on Fred Frailey's blog post as well, but feel it appropriate to re-post here as well.
As a human being, I feel sympathy for the woman and her family, she made a mistake and paid the ultimate price, and now her family has to live with this horrible loss for the rest of their lives, with video of it happening now online forever.
As a Railroader, I feel for all the train's crew members (especially those on the engine), who did nothing wrong and will now carry the traumatic scar of this incident for the rest of their lives. Incidents like this often leave crew members with PTSD or something similar. Same goes for the first responders, who arrived promptly but could do nothing to save her.
As a railfan, I worry about the future of mainline steam and excursions in general after an incident like this, sooner or later the railroad will say "enough is enough" and stop doing anything that attracts people trackside. My hope is that Union Pacific will continue and expanded their steam and excursion operations, and use this incident as a teaching moment to show the naive public just how big and powerful a train is. The same goes for all the other railroads. But I am not a lawyer or risk management officer.
I have seen the drone's video, it is zoomed out quite a bit and while it does show the woman's death it is not gory. I would compare it too the old footage of a METRA train hitting a woman and her body then being thrown into the photographer's tripod. That video is freely available online as well, but I will not post the link here.
I will post these links, past near-misses:
m.youtube.com/watch
And some footage from the next crossing, this only shows 844 coming to a stop, the woman's death is not visible:
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
The remarks that even hint at suicide are absolutely uncalled for. Also, the remarks about Darwin are uncalled for. I wonder how anyone who makes such remarks would feel if soneone he loved died in the same way.
Johnny
I saw the drone video. I'm not a ghoul, but I felt I had to to make up my own mind.
It was no suicide. Call it foolishness, ignorance, smart-phone zombie-ism, whatever it was this unfortunate soul paid for it with her life.
have not looked deeply into it but is it possible this was a suicide?
as far as not running 844 back they probably don't have anyone that was not mentally affected by this, so safer to not run the return trip.
sad no matter what the reasons
Our friend in the Steam shop in Cheyenne was on the train when this happened. Ed is beside himself the rest of the crew want to keep on going however they are also pushing for more safety officers on future trips with the steam engines. Things like RR police checking for people doing what this lady was doing and citing them. They are also demanding that the drone footage that shows the impact be used in a future Operation Livesaver video as what not to do around trains.
Lord, accidents like these bring out the worest in the rail fan community.
Blaming the victim. Really
The best, calling out the UP for cancelling the excursion. Lord thier a death involved. Investigation required.
Let's have a level of respect for everyone one in this unfortunate incident.
844 deadheaded back to Cheyenne today running without diesels on a short freight consist.
cx500 Were there no railfans around that could have warned her about how wide a train is? That fortunately was the case on the first trip of CP 2816 into Calgary, where a photographer had set up his tripod with one leg just outside the rail. He reset it a safe distance back. Yes, railfans can be useful at times, even if the railroads mostly refuse to recognize them as a potential resource.
Were there no railfans around that could have warned her about how wide a train is? That fortunately was the case on the first trip of CP 2816 into Calgary, where a photographer had set up his tripod with one leg just outside the rail. He reset it a safe distance back.
Yes, railfans can be useful at times, even if the railroads mostly refuse to recognize them as a potential resource.
There were railfans, I know of a pair of brothers who traveled from Utah down there to see the train and who witnessed the accident as it happened. I have decided not to ask them more information then what they stated, since I do not want to force them to relieve the moment. In addition... don't forget all the passengers on the train who might have witnessed it as it happened in addition to the crew.I have seen a lot of griping and hand wringing from the community over this, and a few people giving safety spiels to remind others about what not to do around tracks. All I can say, is I give my condolenses to the train crew, the witnesses and the family of the deceased. My grandmother's brothers died in a grade crossing accident in their youth; and its something she still carries with her... the thought of how two of her sibling's lives were cut short due to that accident. The crew and the family of the deceased will have to carry this burden for a long time, and I hope the best for them.
4. Claims agent needed to do his/her thing with the engine.
5. Give the steam crew a one day break?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Dakguy201 The incident account on Newswire indicates the Sunday return trip to Cheyenne will be made without 844. What happened is tragic, but the engine has to go back there sooner or later. If I were making the decision, I would have run the engine as planned.
The incident account on Newswire indicates the Sunday return trip to Cheyenne will be made without 844. What happened is tragic, but the engine has to go back there sooner or later. If I were making the decision, I would have run the engine as planned.
Just awful every which way...
I can think of a few reasons UP didn't run 844 the next day.
1. They didn't want to appear callus.
2. They wanted to review what they were doing to make sure they hadn't missed anything important.
3. Running without steam removed some of the neophyte and curious folk who would be more likely to do something lethally stupid. (Railfans tend to just to regular stupid things...)
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Suicide. Watch the close up. As the engine grows close she runs 3 steps and leaps at it. I don't have a problem with people deciding that life is not worth living but it's not necessary to involve others like that.
What a tragedy. 844 was running like a Swiss watch and gleaming like one, too.
This is a video of the deadhead move before the weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guuvdJhiRSE
And then a successful trip up and a trainload of happy CFD afficionados heading home after a great day, and this unfortunate event happens.
The drone video shows the poor lady standing pretty much off by herself with nobody near her to warn her. She had one foot on the ties and one on the ballast, but obviously inside the loading guage. It certainly looks like she was staring at the image of her cell phone recording rather than actually looking at the approaching train.
Too late... its been posted on Chatterbox along with video hours ago.
Rag- dolled just like the Chicago video.
Someone has been killed on UP's Frontier Days excursion with 844.
Extensive discussion proceeding on RyPN, with the understanding it's not going to be moved to the 'Railfanning' section.
Video shows a woman standing on the ends of the ties filming through a cell-phone camera moments before the train reaches her at 50mph.
All sorts of morals here, but I worry that one important pseudo-take-home message is going to be that UP was well aware of previous instances of near-miss stupidity involving steam excursion trains ... and here's another tragic instance.
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