News Wire -- teens manage to survive in East Galesburg

[dknelson]

If you know the BNSF (ex Santa Fe) mainline in East Galesburg Illinois (and you should - the railfanning is great in all of Galesburg but that particular spot is really neat) you know the tracks are no more than the usual distance apart, the trains are long and fast, and in general you are well advised to stand back and enjoy fast mainline running (although they soon slow down to run through Galesburg itself). This is the line from Streator and Chillicothe west. East Galesburg is on some timetables as "yost" and is right where the famous old Purington Brick factory was located. It is also near rail artist Ron Hatch's Knox bed and breakfast that has been a railfan favorite for years.

Anyway this week two teens decided to stand BETWEEN the east and west mains as trains met there in both directions at track speed. They survived (explain THAT Mr. Darwin) -- somehow! -- but are badly injured. Knuckleheads.
Dave Nelson

[zardoz]

I've had that happen to me a few time when I was running suburban trains. I would imagine it is quite a rush for those that survive.

Another thrill the morons would go for is to place themselves inside the structure of a plate girder bridge and sit about track level. The train would zip by at 70mph, giving them I'm sure quite a rush, as well as a face full of dirt and debris.

Let the good times roll!

[Anonymous]

Nobody in their right mind would do something like this. Must be that Wacky Weed!

[route_rock]

Luck of the draw maybe?Or the Darwin wing of heaven is full right now(Come on you cant expect them to be put in general population after getting a pair of wings!!! It would be pandolerium!)I have been down that neck of the woods alot and can only say wow.Lucky lucky them.

[eolafan]

They must have been really high on something, or just plain STUPID!

[Anonymous]

They were very lucky!

[mudchicken]

Couldn't find a tornado to stand in the way of (they hit over by Peoria) so this is the next best thing?[V][V][V]

[tree68]

Proving once again that teens are, indeed, indestructible, just as many of them believe.

[BaltACD]

Well beyond stupidity!

[Anonymous]

There is a reason they teach you at trainman's class to avoid walking between two moving trains as there is a vertigo effect. We were even told that if this happened in a yard and we felt disoriented to lie down in the clear between tracks. I have never tried that but I have been between moving cuts many times in yards...

LC

[Noah Hofrichter]

Just read the news wire article, and boy were they ever stupid! (as has been stated) I would never try something like this and I'm younger than them, shows you how much some people know nowdays.

Noah

[espeefoamer]

Now, I suppose, all of thier friends are wearing T shirts that say [#wstupid]

[louisnash]

Espee
I doubt they are wearing t-shirts that say "I'm with stupid"

I would think that they have a shirt that reads "I am stupid"

Brian (KY)

[JoeKoh]

Amen Brian.
stay safe
Joe

[locomutt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by eolafan

They must have been really high on something, or just plain STUPID!

[#ditto]

Don't know about the being high on something,but they were very LUCKY!!!!!!

[BaltACD]

How high can stupidity take you?

[UPTRAIN]

Like a forum member said before, they musta been passin that doobie around!

[Anonymous]

[#ditto]

[wcfan4ever]

I don't work for the railroad, but this has happened to me. After getting a cabride, my father and I were dropped off before the yard where it is three tracks wide. Well, we had the train we just got off of and another of the third track over doing about 40mph. The train we just got off of was gaining speed quickly and was doing about 20mph. We were stuck in the middle track and that was enough right there. I knew there was room to spare but I didn' t even want to breathe. It is a tight spot and something I don't want to happen to me again...unless of course I'm working for the railroad, but at least I'll know what to expect and know what to do in that type of situation.

[ChuckCobleigh]

Probably 45 years ago or so, an ESPEE brakeman was telling me a little about railroading, including that it was dangerous, dirty work. Then he made a special point of telling me that if I even got too close to a moving train to flatten myself on the ground. I suspect that was one of the earliest training things that they did with the new hires and (I guess because he knew kids were too stupid to keep out of harm's way always) he made sure to pass it on to me.

Several years ago, a cop here in Southern California got too close to a freight moving at mainline speeds while trying to spot a suspect and got pulled into the train and killed by the natural suction (can you say Bernoulli) that is associated with a solid body moving quickly through air. Reading that news story and this latest story reminded me of that brakeman from many decades ago. Fortunately, I have never gotten in a position where I had to bear-hug the ground and I don't really plan to.

I get enough thrills as it is.

[Anonymous]

Easiest way to avoid injury from a moving train is to STAY BACK...and once you're back, back up a bit more just to make sure.

LC

[Train Guy 3]

Can you get " I was stupid " engraved on your tombstone.... cause I would have payed for it to be on thiers. But it looks like the lucked up and survied this time.

[Anonymous]

Unfortunately, when I was a kid, it happened to me. I was watching a Conrail train near Superior Ave. in downtown Cleveland. A train of auto carriers was passing at high speed, this was on an elevated line running north to the lake front. I was with my younger brother and two younger friends, and I don't remember how, but little by little we got closer crossing over several tracks until we were standing next to the train. We had been standing there for what seemed a while, when we heard rumbling of locomotives. The others were going to run, and I told them to stay. It was pretty scary, the wind was strong and there is a vertigo effect. There is also a signal bridge in the same place that we would climb and watch from above.

I lived in Solon, Ohio and the local peddler freight to Chagrin Falls passed my yard daily for the at that time Norfolk & Western, the tracks were originaly W&LE. And I did a lot of stupid things. I would jump on the train, if I could catch it. I think they tried to speed up if they saw me waiting, but that stretch of track was a very steep grade. I only did that a couple of times though, usually I would just wave. There was also a girder bridge and trestle over a nearby creek where we would swim in the summer, and a couple of times I sat just below the ties on the bridge or hung over the side by my hands while the train passed.

I now know just how increadibly stupid it was.

My dad grew up in a small town in rural Hungary, and he told me once he and some freinds tied a cable between two trees across a cut and knocked off the tall smoke stack of a steam locomotive, this was in the late thirties.

[AlcoRS11Nut]

Lock them up in a stall with paded walls and throw away the key, I guess Charles Darwin is wrong when he says natural selection always ensures the best jeans are past on.

[Anonymous]

There kids what do you exspect.
BNSFrailfan.

[AlcoRS11Nut]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BNSF SD70MAC

There kids what do you exspect.
BNSFrailfan.

Hey!!! I'm a kid I wouldn't do anything that retarded!!!![:(!]

[Anonymous]

Many years ago (1950's?) a teenager named Edward Everett Knowles from Boston, I think, lost an arm from trying to catch a train on the way home from school. The surgeons successfully reattached the arm. What ever became of him and did the reattachment take in the long run?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by AlcoRS11Nut

QUOTE: Originally posted by BNSF SD70MAC

There kids what do you exspect.
BNSFrailfan.

Hey!!! I'm a kid I wouldn't do anything that retarded!!!![:(!]

Good for you, now help your friends know better so they won't get hurt.

About your sic line, I agree, light bulbs and toasters, but not locos.

[locomutt]

Back in the 1960's while I was in High School, the town we lived in did't
have any grade crossings,but all overhead bridges.I 'caught' a couple of
kids throwing rocks at the passing C&O trains. I told them they better quit,
or I would call the police. Day or two later at school they asked my Mom
(she was a substitute teacher) If I would have them arrested,and she said:
YOU BET!

[Junctionfan]

Great job guys, you may have sucessfully reinvented the world retard. Actually that is not particullarly fair for those who are mentally retarded so for them I apologie but to the teens I say they need to put some tooth paste in their shampoo cause they may be getting a cavatee in their brain.[banghead][banghead]