TROUBLE ON THE TRACKS

[cherokee woman]

At 9 est on Discovery Times, tonight, there's a program called
"Trouble on the Tracks" about the dangers on railroad tracks
and crossings. Should be very interesting. Locomutt and I
are going to watch it.

[FThunder11]

I jaust went to that channel, and its 6:45 here, and it comes on at 7 and im gonna watch it

[Modelcar]

...Thanks, maybe I'l check it out....

[Modelcar]

....Guess not....Just checked and Tom Brokaw has a special on the young man that was trapped in a situation on an outing and had to resort to removing his own arm to free himself...or die....Can't watch that.....Maybe the Train program is on in the last half hour...??

[Anonymous]

Gonna have to watch for it at 9 pacific time, it's not on at 6 pacific time here.

[jeaton]

Just checked-Discovery Times is one of the Discovery Channel's secondary outlets, for us, one of the high channel numbers. I missed it, as it was on at 8:00 Central time. It is going to be repeated at 1:00am, but that is a little past my bed-time.

Jay

[cherokee woman]

Just finished watching it. Has left me not knowing what to think.
Seems to me that it was basically one-sided: railroad's fault.
Granted, sometimes railroad vs. vehicle accidents may be the
railroad's fault; i.e., brush and trees blocking views of oncoming
train(s).

But we the public must take blame also as some of us citizens do
not use our common sense in "stopping, looking and listening".

I will be most interested in reading what others of you have to say
after you see the program.

[edblysard]

I believe its a Kurtis production,,, one of his "Investigative Reports" show..seen it before.
Somewhat slanted, and has a few (well, a lot) of errors about who is responsible for crossing design and maintainance.
Implies, but does not directly state that railroads are somehow responsible for people being able to drive around crossing gates, and implies they(railroads) should protect people from themselves and their own foolish actions...somehow.
Plays a great deal on emotion, instead of facts.

Take it with a grain of salt, has a few graphic images.

Ed

[miniwyo]

IF you havn't seen it yet and you have Dish Network it is on at Midnight Mountian time.

[csxengineer98]

its a rerun... i saw that same show not to long ago...major major investigavitve reporting slanted twards the lawyers and familys of people that where killed..and very bad light cast on the railroads..... granted thier are mistakes by railroad emplyees..we are only human... but this show makes it out that the railroads are at fult for each and evey crash... watching it just pissed me off
csx engineer

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

I believe its a Kurtis production,,, one of his "Investigative Reports" show..seen it before.
Somewhat slanted, and has a few (well, a lot) of errors about who is responsible for crossing design and maintainance.
Implies, but does not directly state that railroads are somehow responsible for people being able to drive around crossing gates, and implies they(railroads) should protect people from themselves and their own foolish actions...somehow.
Plays a great deal on emotion, instead of facts.

Take it with a grain of salt, has a few graphic images.

Ed

It was based on a New York Times "Investigative Report";
I think the same one that got 'hashed' around here a while back.

Very 'truthful' comment Ed,"take it with a grain of salt!"

[ericsp]

QUOTE: Originally posted by locomutt

QUOTE: Originally posted by edblysard

I believe its a Kurtis production,,, one of his "Investigative Reports" show..seen it before.
Somewhat slanted, and has a few (well, a lot) of errors about who is responsible for crossing design and maintainance.
Implies, but does not directly state that railroads are somehow responsible for people being able to drive around crossing gates, and implies they(railroads) should protect people from themselves and their own foolish actions...somehow.
Plays a great deal on emotion, instead of facts.

Take it with a grain of salt, has a few graphic images.

Ed

It was based on a New York Times "Investigative Report";
I think the same one that got 'hashed' around here a while back.

Very 'truthful' comment Ed,"take it with a grain of salt!"

I guess that explains why it sounds like it was a hatchet job.

[miniwyo]

The show didn't even take and look at the situations from the railroad's point of view. They chose a few incidents that were probably freak accidents and took a side that would get sympathy for the victims. Don't get me wrong, i do feel sorry for the victims but, if you live in a place where you know the tracks are there, as well as know the condition of the crossing then you should know to look before you cross the tracks. I feel that not using common sense is a fatal mistake, and these people featured did not even stop to check if there was somthing coming. Is it me or does the NY times have something out for the railroads??

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by miniwyo

The show didn't even take and look at the situations from the railroad's point of view. They chose a few incidents that were probably freak accidents and took a side that would get sympathy for the victims. Don't get me wrong, i do feel sorry for the victims but, if you live in a place where you know the tracks are there, as well as know the condition of the crossing then you should know to look before you cross the tracks. I feel that not using common sense is a fatal mistake, and these people featured did not even stop to check if there was somthing coming. Is it me or does the NY times have something out for the railroads??

its not just the NY TIMES.... is the general public overall... they view the railroads as an out dated obsolite transportation system....an incovienace when they are delayed by a train at railroad crossings... and as a generl public nusance becouse of noise from trains near where they live....
a good example of the last one is here in pittsburgh... about 2 or 3 years go..some developer started to redevelop the old J&L steel mill sight on the pittsburghs south side...they build some realy realy upsale town houses about 100 feet from the csx mainline (ex P&LE)....which also has a grade crossing about 100 from the houses...well... not to long after they opend up for sale... some of the people that moved in..started to complain about the noise of the trains..and the horns at all hours of the day and night...so some reporter from the Pittsburgh Post Gazet wrote an artical about it... when they interviewed the people that where complaining...they said that the trains where to loud and the engineers would intenconly put on the brakes to make the wheels squeel (curve about 100 feet from the houses..keep that in mind)...the reporter asked the people...well didnt you know about the railroad tracks that close to where you live...they said...well yes..but we didnt think they would be running trains in the middle of the night....this just goes to show you how out of touch people are when it comes to the railroad.... unlike them...that have normal office jobs they think that the whole world works on thier schedual too.... i havent heard anything more about it since that artical came out......but like i said..it just shows you how anti railroad people have become..and haveing a news paper like the NYT adding fuel to the fire isnt going to help the railroads any at all
csx engineer

[dharmon]

I watched it last night, and was singularly unimpressed. My perception was that it wasn't anti-RR per se, it was anti-big business, portraying the big bad money hungry railroad vs the little poor innocent motorist. With the exception of the UP incident with the jumpers in the signal shack, which was a blatant case of maintenance malpractice, the other cases portrayed cases where a folks got hit at known hazardous crossings, and in each case the investigator made it seem that people approach these crossing slowly, looking around and then got hit by a train that snuck up on them, and I'd be willing to bet that that was not entirely the case. In nearly all of the footage they used to show crossings, someone would come driving across without stopping or even slowing down.

Some things I took away were:

1) The view of OLI as a front for the railroads. While I agree in principle that OLI places the burden on the driver, unlike Angels on Rails, they do actively provide training and education, regardless of the slant. I would say that some public education even if it has a slant, is better than none. And in the video they used of the training for law enforcement, the point that drivers will cut through without looking was clearly made....so in attempting to show that the RRs are to blame, instead, at least to me, they made the case for OLI.

2) In one of the scenes, the investigator was driving down a tree lined road to an unprotected crossing, pointing out the the view of the tracks was obstructed, and the RRs should be responsible for this. What he failed to point out was that the trees were obviously all on private property adjacent to the tracks and road. Seems to me that that would be a county / municipality issue with the landowner, since the trees lined the road, not the tracks on the approach.

3) The correction of errors, such as obstrctions to visibility, are treated as cover ups. I would suggest that if a mishap occurs, and there is any doubt as to whether or not it may cause another one, then it should be documented and removed immediately. Unless the entire scene is going to shut down for the course of the investigation, which could take months, something that the city and RRs probably are not going to do, then document and correct and get on with life. If an aircraft crashed short of the runway and destroyed the approach lights, the scene would be documented, wreckeage removed, lights repaired and runway put back in service as soon as possible.

4) The only operator point of view that was shown was from the OLI segement, with the voice over of the engineer as a part of the training. To make a more objective view, I'd have like to see more cab footage of crossings through the areas in question, but I think that would have defeated the premise of the program.

In all, I thought the show was the same bit of tra***hat the NYT article was. Slanted against RRs, not so much anti-RR, but as another big business entity, which make them an easy target.

[Anonymous]

Everything is one sided when the railroad is involved. It's always the same, the trains go too fast, they blow too loud, they stop on grade crossings and make people wait bla bla bla. I get tired of the public's attitude towards us. The people where I'm from think that railroad employees are billionaires, and all we do is ride up and down the tracks from nine to five. Their view is so distorted, and their ignorance is unreal. The reason for many accidents is plain stupidity. You don't run stop signs at busy intersections, why is a grade crossing any different? In my opinion, the only unsafe crossings are those with limited sight distance or the ones blocked by trees-bushes ect. Otherwise there is no excuse for many of the accidents. Around here I think there is something in the water that makes people so dumb.

[Anonymous]

Missed it. I need to check this board more often. Too busy.

[Anonymous]

I saw this show last night and I thought that it was actually very well balanced and a good piece of reporting.

[Anonymous]

Damn, I was watching for it on the Discovery channel, didn't realize it was the "Discovery Times" channel.

Don't think we even get that up here in Canada.

[FThunder11]

It just shows how stupid people are

[Anonymous]

I thought the experiment they did with the police officers on the locomotive and radioing ahead to catch those who ran the signal was interesting, especially the excuses. The best one was the young lady who said "I didn't see the crossing lights until it was too late." Good thing the train hadn't gotten there yet. Like dharmon says, the description of how careful the people approaching the crossing said they were vs. what really happened. One good point was brought out, that a lot of the dangerous crossings are being closed.


m